Butler, Mark
Mark Butler has spent a lifetime trying to learn from, and support, emancipatory and popular militancy. At the moment he does this mainly through work with the Church Land Programme, a small, independent non-profit organisation based in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. He is still learning but was largely responsible for typing up this chapter (as part of a larger project on struggles around extractive industries). However, the central section, and the leading insights, ideas and politics, are simply an honest attempt to capture the thinking and the words of people on the ground where these developments are going down - as well as the extraordinary work of mutual encouragement and reflection these militants do with his colleagues at the Church Land Programme.
Darcy, Hilary
Hilary Darcy is a Dublin based educator and researcher. After successfully campaigning to Repeal the 8th, she has returned to finish her PhD, with the Sociology Department at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, on the policing of social conflict, based on her fieldwork in Erris.
Mackay, Jennifer
Jennifer Mackay is an environmental activist and waste campaigner. She has worked for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Community Recycling Network Scotland and Scottish Education and Action for Development. She has conducted studies in ecological economics and environmental justice and community activism against climate change. Jennifer has also worked on toxic, chemicals and waste campaigns with Friends of the Earth Scotland, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace UK and Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA).
Soliman Zwahre, Mahmoud
Mahmoud Soliman Zwahre is a Palestinian activist and one of the founders of the popular struggle coordination committee in 2009, as an umbrella for the nonviolent resistance in the occupied Palestinian land. He is also the coordinator of the popular committee against the segregation Wall and illegal Israeli settlement in Al-Ma'sara village south of Bethlehem. Mahmoud is a PhD candidate at Coventry University. His research is on mobilisation and demobilisation of the Palestinian society towards unarmed popular resistance from 2004 to 2014.
Prinsloo, Jeanne
Jeanne Prinsloo has designed and co-ordinates the groundWork Environmental Justice School for Activists. She teaches and researches in the field of Cultural Studies, with a focus on representation and identities. Professor, Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa
Langdon, Jonathan
Jonathan Langdon has been working with social movements in Ghana for the last 15 years. At the same time he has worked closely with renewable energy movements/groups in Nova Scotia, such as Responsible Energy Action in Antigonish, as well as sitting on the steering committee of the Nova Scotia Fracking Resource Action Coalition (NOFRAC). Langdon’s award winning work (David Jones award, 2013 and 2017) has been published in prominent International and Canadian development, participatory research as well as adult education journals. He is also the editor of Indigenous Knowledges, Development and Education (Sense 2009). He is Canada Research Chair for Sustainability and Social Change Leadership at St Francis Xavier University, in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia, Canada.
Kane, Patrick
Patrick Kane has been involved in solidarity activism supporting social movements and trade unions in Colombia for over a decade. At the time of writing, he is based in Colombia on fieldwork as part of a broader research project into social movement learning and knowledge production funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.
Skobla, Daniel
Daniel Škobla is a senior researcher at the Institute for Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Science in Bratislava. He graduated in Sociology from the Central European University (CEU) and obtained a PhD from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He worked as a Poverty Reduction Officer with the United Nations Development Program and carried out research on the living conditions of the Roma population in Central Europe. He provided technical assistance for the Slovak government regarding the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015 and the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies 2020. He has also been involved in Roma advocacy on an international level, participating in numerous meetings throughout Europe. He has also cooperated with the non-governmental organisations European Roma Rights Centre, Amnesty International and the Open Society Institute. He has written for academic journals such as Slovak Sociological Review, Polish Sociological Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, as well as chapters in books on social inclusion and Roma integration. He participated in numerous academic conferences at the University College London (UCL), the University of Aalborg, The University of California Berkeley, Sciencies Po, and others.
Marsden, Sara
Sara Marsden’s career began with seven years as a UK government health and safety inspector (working for the Health and Safety Executive), and then working as the national health and safety coordinator for a large UK trade union bringing her into contact with the Hazards movement and other advocacy /activist groups. Her subsequent professional work included private sector and government regulation in a number of areas closely related to health risk, and latterly broadening to a public health perspective and MSc training in public health policy research. She is currently working as an independent researcher (including for the Trade Union Friends of Bhopal) and is active in the Hazards movement, the People’s Health Movement (Scotland) and Common Weal (a Scottish “think and do” tank).
Scandrett, Eurig
Eurig Scandrett is Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Public Sociology at Queen Margaret University, and an activist in University and College Union Scotland.
al-Butmeh, Abeer
Abeer al-Butmeh is the Coordinator of Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network – Friends of Earth Palestine. She obtained her B.A. and Masters degree from Ber Zeit university specialising in water and environmental engineering. She has worked in this field since 2006. She has participated in local and international conferences related to water and environment, and in many environmental research studies locally. She has participated in many environmental activities and events locally and internationally.
Celeita, Berenice
Berenice Celeita is a human rights activist with over 30 years of experience of working in defence of communities and vulnerable sectors all over Colombia, investigating and documenting abuses, and building the capacity of communities to prevent and resist violations. She advises the Buenaventura civic strike executive committee on human rights issues. In 1998 she was awarded the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
al-Shalalfeh, Zayneb
University of East Anglia
Shah, Dharmesh
Dharmesh Shah is a researcher and environmental activist associated with citizens science initiatives in India. He is interested in the anthropology of waste and understanding the role of plastics in the anthropocene. He also works on issues related to environmental health, toxics, mining and animal rights.
Awad, Simon I
Simon I. Awad is the Executive Director of the Environmental Education Center (EEC) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). The EEC, based in Palestine, works in the fields of education, advocacy, protection of biodiversity, and climate change. A key element of his work is providing education in an attempt to protect and restore ecosystems in Palestine. Simon has authored and co-authored several books, and is an activist in Eco-Justice issues, and human rights, undertakes voluntary work in these areas, and as an ornithologist. In charge of running several local development institutions in Palestine. Simon has also represented the EEC in many local, regional and international forums.
Filcak, Richard
Richard Filcák is currently Deputy Director at the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences and acting Head of Forecasting Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences. He studied at Lund University in Sweden and received his PhD at Central European University. He has extensive experience as a researcher, as well as development projects coordinator/expert working in Slovakia, Central Europe, Balkan and Eastern Partnership countries. His work and research interests are mainly in environmental and social policy development in the transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe - with particular attention to social and territorial exclusion leading to the exposure to environmental risks, access to resources and vulnerability of the people. He has worked as a consultant and lead/senior expert for the Slovak Government, UNDP, UNEP, World Bank, European Commission and various NGOs. Richard is lecturer at the Comenius University Bratislava, he regularly delivers public lectures and he contributes to professional journals, authored four books and numerous articles in various professional journals.
Cox, Laurence
Laurence Cox has been active in social movements for over 30 years. He co-edited Silence Would be Treason, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s last writings before his execution by the Nigerian military dictatorship for opposing Shell. He is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth
Harley, Anne
Anne Harley is a Lecturer in Adult Education and Education and Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Previously, she undertook research for the National Land Commission, and the Black Sash. Anne also heads up the Paulo Freire project in the Adult Education discipline, which runs a variety of popular education events, including those related to environmental justice, in collaboration with civil society organisations. Her key area of interest is informal learning in struggle.
Narayan, Shweta
Shweta Narayan is a researcher and an environmental justice activist, who advises the Community Environmental Monitoring (CEM) program for The Other Media. She has also been associated as a volunteer for the campaign for justice for the survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy since 2002.
Peek, Bobby
Bobby Peek is the co-founder of groundwork, a South African environmental justice NGO which was started in 1999. His 25 years of environmental justice activism was fuelled by living on the fenceline of an oil refinery in apartheid South Africa. He works and supports local and global actions for environmental justice.
Anne Harley is a Lecturer in Adult education and development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Previously, she undertook research for the National Land Commission, and the Black Sash. Anne also heads up the Paulo Freire project in the Adult Education discipline.
Eurig Scandrett is a Senior Lecturer in Public Sociology at Queen Margaret University, Scotland and a trade union representative with University and College Union. He previously worked in environmental biology, community work, adult education and was Head of Community Action at Friends of the Earth Scotland.
