1st Edition

Citizenship Utopias in the Global South The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment

Edited By Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, Eija Ranta Copyright 2025
254 Pages
by Routledge

254 Pages
by Routledge

Citizenship Utopias in the Global South is an edited collection of empirical research that explores emergent forms of activism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in times of multiple crises. At the intersection of hope and disillusionment, the diverse and thought-provoking chapters investigate emerging forms of activism in the Global South – including youth activisms, anti-racism struggles,... Read more

1. Citizenship utopias in the Global South: Emerging activisms, re-imagining citizenships

Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta

PART I: Activism in times of disillusionment

2. Activist contestations in contemporary socio-political change making in Kenya

Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura 

3. Disavowing politics: An alternative way of doing politics for young Algerians

Yahia Benyamina 

4. Communication in coronavirus crisis: A case study of communication practices of activists in Johannesburg in the COVID-19 pandemic

Angela Chukunzira 

5. The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements

Geoffrey Pleyers 

PART II: Decolonising the state

6. Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Cotacachi county, Ecuador

Sarah A. Radcliffe 

7. Black feminist and anti-racist activism: Past and present of struggles for racial justice in Cuba

Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta 

8. Higher education under neoliberalism: A perspective from South African student activists

Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini 

9. Fighting for racial equality: Hope, disillusionment, and perseverance in post-revolutionary Tunisia

Henri Onodera and Reem Garfi 

PART III: Re-imagining citizenships  

10. Governing through corruption: Young men, the state, and citizenship in interior Tunisia

Karim Zakhour 

11. Imaginaries of social change in Algeria: Nonviolent acts of citizenship of the autonomous trade union activists

Karim Maïche 

12. “Carrot and stick”: Cooperative citizenship and the pedagogic state in Vietnam

Mirjam Le and Franziska S. Nicolaisen

13. Hindu nationalism or collaborative social justice? The role of queer communities in furthering democracy in India

Banhishikha Ghosh 

14. Afterword: Citizenship Utopias in an Age of Polycrises?

Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta

Biography

Henri Onodera is a University Lecturer in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki.

Martta Kaskinen is a PhD Researcher in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki.

Eija Ranta is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki.

Citizenship Utopias in the Global South offers a timely and engaging work that combines critique with action. This compelling volume that models transnational scholarship, portrays how citizen activists from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia imagine, reinvent, and challenge reactionary and unjust forms of power. Through “imaginative forms of creative activism” they strive to overcome the disillusionment of contemporary politics. Chapters on digital communications, new youth movements, anti-corruption campaigns, anti-racism, non-violent strategies, to name a few, convey how people join forces to forge alternative futures grounded in dignity and justice. A valuable addition to the work on new youth movements, political change, and alternative activism in the Global South.

Linda Herrera, Professor of Education Policy, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA 

In the era of post-pandemic dystopias, this book offers a myriad of citizens’ utopias emerging from the Global South. It collects the voices of young feminists, ecologists, anti-racists, pacifists, queer individuals, students, and trade unionists from a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, who engage to build micro-utopian communities from below. Lessons for a period of old fears and new hopes. 

Carles Feixa, Professor of Social Anthropology, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain