Occupying Language (Occupied Media Pamphlet Series)

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Huffington Post “A fascinating new book… Anti-capitalism, this book reminds us, is a politics of walking and of love.” Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz “A beautiful and inful evocation of an emergent radical perspective...Occupying Language uses the vocabulary of new and emergent movements around the world to highlight the striking similarities of their practices and visions.... crucial reading for those who would like to understand why so many in the new movements are more interested in occupying public spaces and institutions, and remaking them through democratic participation, than in making demands on governments dominated by remote and resistant elites." Antonio Negri "There are words that are rocks. Rocks, like geological layers, which have accumulated over decades of struggles, and are colored with meanings irreducible to capitalist power. Rocks heavy with hope. Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini show how these rocks are moved—rolling them against masters, and the ideologists of neoliberalism. Occupy language!" The New York Times “By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination. As the global Occupy movement has shown, words can move entire nations of people — even the world — to action. Occupy Language, as a movement, should speak to the power of language to transform how we think about the past, how we act in the present, and how we envision the future.” Sitrin and Azzellini introduce the reader to the theory and practices of the new global movements and explore linkages connecting widespread struggles for justice, democracy and emancipation. Poetic and concrete, Occupying Language is a toward new forms of democratic community. Marina Sitrin is an author and activist. An active participant and advocate for social movements around the world, she has been featured on MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Democracy Now! and more. Dario Azzellini is an activist, writer, and filmmaker. He is a lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria). His latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, is Ours to Master and to Own.