6135 University Ave, Rm 1128 Halifax, NS, B3H 4P9 | +1 (902) 494-6593
Alex Khasnabish
BA, MA, Ph.D. (McMaster)
Email Phone
akhasnabish@dal.ca (902) 494-1532
Location
FASS Building, Room 2115
Profile
A socio-cultural anthropologist by training, my research interests lie in the following areas:
- culture, power, and resistance;
- globalization, transnational activism, global justice, and social movements;
- democracy and political philosophy;
-political histories, political ecologies, political imagination, and narratives of socio-political struggle and transformation;
- anti-capitalism, anarchism, and grassroots alternative-building.
My research program and theoretical and methodological approaches are marked by a deep interest in sociological and anthropological perspectives, globalization studies, political philosophy, and a commitment to productive and challenging interdisciplinary engagements. My work has focused upon the reasons for and consequences of the resonance of Zapatismo - the political philosophy of the Zapatista movement located in Chiapas, Mexico - upon diverse communities of political activists in Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
My current research interests focus upon the emergence of new “political imaginations” and how they relate to anti-capitalist struggles and the construction of post-capitalist alternatives at transnational, regional, and local levels. In this vein, my research program considers the emergence of powerful new projects aimed at envisioning and constituting new forms of community beyond rather than simply against dominant social, political, economic, and cultural formations. I am particularly interested in the ways in which new political imaginations are envisioning socio-political transformations beyond rather than within the state form and, instead of conveiving of struggle within the hegemonic/counter-hegemonic binary, are engaged in articulating new visions of life lived in common. As a political landscape, these projects of radical social transformation are fundamentally engaged with the task of reimagining and rearticulating new ways of relating – between people, to the environment, and to the non-human life with which this planet is shared.
Peer Reviewed Publications
Books
Articles and Chapters
November 2007: Insurgent Imaginations. Ephemera:Theory and Politics in Organization 7 (4): 505-526. http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-4/7-4khasnabish.pdf.
(Forthcoming) ‘A Tear in the Fabric of the Present’: The Rhizomatic Resonance of Zapatismo and Radical Activism in the North of the Americas. Journal for the Study of Radicalism.
(Under Review) “The International Order of Hope”: Zapatismo and the Fourth World War. In Globalization, Autonomy, and Indigenous Peoples, edited by Mario Blaser, Ravi De Costa, and Deborah McGregor. University of British Colombia Press.
(Under Review) Making Big Noise: The Northern Resonance of Zapatismo. In Globality, Autonomy, and Culture, edited by Petra Rethmann and Imre Szeman. University of British Colombia Press.
April 2006: An Echo That Reechoes: Transnational Activism and the Resonance of Zapatismo. AmeriQuests 2 (1). http://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/ameriquests/viewarticle.php?id=44.
October 2005: "They Are Our Brothers and Sisters": Why Zapatismo Matters to Independent Labour in Mexico. Anthropologica 47 (1): 101-114.
September 2005: Zapatista; The Zapatista Army of National Liberation; The Zapatista Uprising (1 January 1994); The Intercontinental Encuentros for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism (August 1996 and 1997); Subcomandante Marcos; Chiapas, Mexico; Peoples’ Global Action; Global Exchange; Mexico Solidarity Network. Globalization and Autonomy On-line Compendium. William Coleman (Academic Editor), Nancy Johnson (Managing Editor), Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish (Technical Editors). MCRI, Globalization & Autonomy. www.globalautonomy.ca.
December 2004: Globalizing Hope: The Resonance of Zapatismo and the Political Imagination(s) of Transnational Activism. Globalization and Autonomy Working Paper Series. GHC 04/6.
December 2004: “Zones of Conflict”: Exploring the Ethics of Anthropology in Dangerous Spaces. Nexus: The Canadian Student Journal of Anthropology 17: 63-87.
September 2004: “Moments of Coincidence”: The Zapatista Movement and Independent Labour in Mexico. Critique of Anthropology 24 (3): 256-276.
Book Reviews
March 2006: Resurgence, Anarchy, and Indigenism: Review of Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom by Taiaiake Alfred. Politics and Culture. Issue 2, 2006. http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=519
January 2005: Of Love, Democracy, and the Common: Review of Multitude by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Politics and Culture. Issue 1, 2005. http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=367