BiblioVault - Books about Frontlines

Bridging Scholarship and Activism

Reflections from the Frontlines of Collaborative Research

Bernd Reiter

Michigan State University Press, 2015

This timely book brings together activist scholars from a number of disciplines (political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, and communications) to provide new insights into a growing trend in publicly engaged research and scholarship. Bridging Scholarship and Activism creatively redefines what constitutes activism without limiting it to a narrow range of practices. Acknowledging that the current conjuncture of neoliberal globalization has created constraints on as well as possibilities for activist scholarly engagement, the book argues that racism and its intersections with gender and class oppression are salient forces to be interrogated and confronted in the predicaments and struggles activist scholarship targets. The book’s ultimate goal is to create a decolonized and democratized forum in which activist scholars from the Global South converse and cross-fertilize ideas and projects with their counterparts from the United States and other North Atlantic metropolitan-based academy. The coeditors and contributors attempt to decenter hegemonic knowledge and to create some of the necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for a more pluriversal (rather than orthodox “universal”) context for producing enabling knowledge, without the naiveté and romanticism that has characterized earlier projects in critical and radical social science.

CONTENTS:
Introduction, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
Part One. The Promises and Pitfalls of Collaborative Research

Of Academic Embeddedness: Communities of Choice and How to Make Sense of Activism and Research Abroad, Bernd Reiter
New Shapes of Revolution, Gustavo Esteva
The Accidental Activist Scholar: A Memoir on Reactive Boundary and Identity Work for Social Change within the Academy, Rob Benford
Leaving the Field: How to Write about Disappointment and Frustration in Collaborative Research, Ulrich Oslender
Invisible Heroes, Eshe Lewis

Part Two. Negotiating Racialized and Gendered Positionalities

El Muntuen America, Manuel Zapata Olivella
Activism as History Making: The Collective and the Personal in Collaborative Research with the Process of Black Communities in Colombia, Arturo Escobar
Out of Bounds: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Between Soapboxes and Shadows: Activism, Theory, and the Politics of Life and Death in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Christen A. Smith
State Violence and the Ethnographic Encounter: Feminist Research and Racial Embodiment, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry
The Challenges Resulting from Combining Scientific Production and Social-Political Activism in the Brazilian Academy, Fernando Conceição
The Challenge of Doing Applied/Activist Anti-Racist Anthropology in Revolutionary Cuba, Gayle L. McGarrity
Conclusion, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
About the Authors

[more]

The Heat and the Fury

On the Frontlines of Climate Violence

Peter Schwartzstein

Island Press, 2024

“Schwartzstein’s vignettes of each troubled region are vibrantly narrated as he encounters indignant locals and has run-ins with menacing state security officials attempting to block his investigations into what they invariably consider a ‘sensitive’ subject. It’s a riveting journey through a world running hot.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred

As a journalist on the climate security beat, Peter Schwartzstein has been chased by kidnappers, badly beaten, detained by police, and told, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome in certain countries. Yet these personal brushes with violence are simply a hint of the conflict simmering in our warming world.

Schwartzstein has visited ravaged Iraqi towns where ISIS used drought as a recruiting tool and weapon of terror. In Bangladesh, he has interviewed farmers-turned-pirates who can no longer make a living off the land and instead make it off bloody ransoms. Security forces have blocked him from a dam being constructed along the Nile that has brought Egypt and Ethiopia to the brink of war. And he has heard the fear in the voices of women from around the world who say their husbands’ tempers flare when the temperature ticks up.

In The Heat and the Fury, he not only puts readers on the frontlines of climate violence but gives us the context to make sense of seemingly senseless acts. As Schwartzstein deftly shows, climate change is often the spark that ignites long smoldering fires, the extra shove that pushes individuals, communities, and even nations over the line between frustration and lethal fury. What, he asks, can ratchet down the aggression? Can cooperation on climate actually become a salve to heal old wounds?

There are no easy answers on a planet that is fast becoming a powder keg. But Schwartzstein’s incisive analysis of geopolitics, unparalleled on-the-ground reporting, and keen sense of human nature offer the clearest picture to date of the violence that threatens us all.

[more]

On the Frontlines of Crisis

Intensive Care and the Challenge of COVID-19

Jason Rodriquez

Rutgers University Press, 2025

On the Frontlines of Crisis is a powerful account of the experiences of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. As hospitals worldwide became overwhelmed by an influx of critically ill patients, those working in intensive care units (ICUs) were thrust into an unprecedented battle against a deadly virus about which little was understood. Rodriquez takes readers into the heart of two Massachusetts ICUs to learn about the people who put their lives on the line and faced severe challenges as they treated critically ill patients at the peak of the pandemic.

A dramatic spike in mental health distress among these healthcare workers was a consequence of the pandemic, but was also a result of the changing dynamics within the healthcare system itself. Here, Rodriquez examines the impact of the development of the contemporary focus on “clinical empathy.” This clinical method, while intended to improve patient care, had profound implications for healthcare workers during the pandemic, often blurring the lines between professional distance and personal involvement, increasing the emotional demands on staff and heightened their vulnerability to anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and burnout. Through the personal stories of those who were in the ICU, On the Frontlines of Crisis offers a sobering reflection on the social and emotional costs of caring for patients.

[more]

Parenting on the Frontlines

Stories of Love, Loss, and Wonder

Kelly Cooper Paradis

Michigan Publishing Services, 2023

Each day of working parenthood is a rollercoaster of success and failure. My child ate a carrot! Then spit it out on the dog. I got to work on time! But there is a mystery stain on my dress shirt and this Tide stick is definitely making it worse. Also yes, that was “Baby Shark” I was humming while accidentally unmuted on the Zoom call, and no, I am not going to be able to sew an octopus costume from scratch by Friday. Please tell me there is something available at Target.

As a parent, we live through levels of both joy and sorrow that we didn’t even know existed before. And we wonder—is it only me? Am I alone in this? In Parenting on the Frontlines, we explore both the lighter and heavier sides of working parenthood. The stories shared here are written by healthcare workers at Michigan Medicine, but all caregivers will find pieces to which they can relate. Most importantly, we want you to know that you are not alone on your journey, no matter where it takes you.

[more]