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Randall Amster

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Randall Amster
OccupationTeacher, writer
NationalityAmerican
EducationBrooklyn Law School, J.D.; Arizona State University, Ph.D.

Randall Amster is an author, activist, and educator in areas including peace, ecology, homelessness, and anarchism. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1966, Amster has worked as an attorney, judicial clerk, professor, and academic administrator during his professional career. He presently lives in Arizona, where he teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College and writes for outlets ranging from academic journals to online news media.

Education and career

Amster earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics & Astronomy from the University of Rochester in 1988. He then attended Brooklyn Law School, where he was a Law Review editor, and graduated with a Juris Doctorate in 1991. Following law school, Amster served as a law clerk to a Federal District Court Judge in Miami, FL, and worked for a brief period as an Associate in a large law firm in Manhattan, NY. After a two-year stint traveling through North America, Amster enrolled in a doctoral program in Justice Studies at Arizona State University (ASU), from which he received his Ph.D. in 2002.

In 2001, Amster was hired to teach Peace Studies at Prescott College in northern Arizona, where he presently works as a faculty member and program chair.[1] In 2008, he began serving as the Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA),[2] the largest professional organization in the field. He is the editor of the association’s newsletter, The Peace Chronicle,[3] among other duties, and Prescott College serves as the national headquarters for the PJSA. Amster also serves on the editorial advisory boards for academic journals including the Contemporary Justice Review,[4] the Peace Studies Journal,[5] and the Journal of Sustainability Education,[6] and is a Senior Editor of the Peace Studies Book Series sponsored by the Central New York Peace Studies Consortium.[7]

Activism

During his time at Arizona State University, Amster was engaged in a number of well-reported and controversial activist endeavors. He led an effort to overturn an ordinance making it a criminal offense to sit on the local sidewalks, arguing the case before a Federal Judge and winning an injunction against enforcement of the law before it was overturned on appeal.[8] Amster organized "sit-in" demonstrations against the ordinance, which he argued was aimed primarily at the local homeless population. He also helped to spearhead a successful campaign to preserve one of the last remaining open spaces in downtown Tempe, AZ. These efforts resulted in a number of articles, editorials, and interviews about his work – including an extensive Phoenix New Times portrayal in 2000[9] – and also formed the basis for his doctoral dissertation, which subsequently yielded two books on these themes of public space and nonviolence. He was featured in Jeff Ferrell's 2001 book Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy as a practitioner of nonviolent "anarchist direct action" in the effort to "reclaim public space" in downtown Tempe.[10] Amster received the Dondrell Swanson Advocate of Social Justice award in 2001 for the campaigns he was involved in during his graduate studies at ASU.

Amster has been a vocal opponent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inception;[11] following the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, he characterized the previous decade as one of "perpetual warfare, contravention of the rules of war, an expanding war economy, and the militarization of nearly all aspects of our lives," and observed that "the forces at work behind these eventualities have shown themselves to be largely undeterred by protest, legality, oversight, or ethics."[12] He was part of a local group engaging in civil disobedience when the Iraq War began in March 2003, resulting in a trial later that year during which he acted as lead attorney for the group as they invoked a "necessity defense" in light of their assertion of the war's illegality under international law.[13] He was part of grassroots relief efforts in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, working with Food Not Bombs and local collectives in the region.[14] Amster has worked with the Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, AZ, and was part of the group of Friends that supported founder Bill Rodgers during the course of his arrest, judicial proceedings, and eventual death in jail in December 2005.[15] From 2005 to 2007, he was part of a legal observer initiative on the U.S.-Mexico border that monitored the activities of the Minutemen and sought to ensure that human rights were respected and upheld.[16][17] In 2008, he received an award for Entertainment Program of the Year for hosting and producing a local television program on politics and culture, The Artist's Mind.[18]

Following the passage of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070 in April 2010, Amster began to refocus his activism on human rights and peacemaking in light of the contentious nature of the issues involved. He authored a series of articles for local and national publications on the state of affairs in Arizona,[19] and helped to spearhead an initiative that brought together more than a dozen academic and professional associations in issuing a joint statement condemning SB 1070 and related state policies.[20] The group held a press conference at the Arizona State Capitol on May 19, 2010, and Amster continues to be active in addressing issues of immigration, racial profiling, and the "atmosphere of legislated intolerance" noted in the group's comprehensive statement.[21] After a federal judge blocked parts of SB 1070 from taking effect in July 2010, Amster's writing was featured in a USA Today editorial forum on immigration issues, where he argued that "there is a sense of vindication and relief on the part of many who have been working for justice in regard to immigration issues. Still, there remains a basic recognition that this ruling is only a temporary piece of the larger puzzle, and that (the law) itself ... is likewise merely one aspect of a larger struggle for human rights, dignity and a morally tenable immigration policy in this country."[22] In the ensuing months, he spoke frequently on the relationship between immigration, security, and violence;[23] and when Arizona's ban on ethnic studies took effect on January 1, 2011, he described it as an example of "enforced indoctrination" and a potential "ethnocide" in the making.[24]

Writing and scholarship

Amster's writing covers a range of topics and themes. His work on homelessness and public space has resulted in two books, the most recent of which is Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008). An earlier co-edited volume, with Pat Lauderdale, focusing on issues of injustice and inequality in the global system, appeared in 1997. A later co-edited work, with Elavie Ndura-Ouédraogo, focused on the theme of "building cultures of peace," and was released by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2009. His most notable book is the collectively edited volume Contemporary Anarchist Studies, published by Routledge in 2009, which received the Critics Choice Award that year for "recent scholarship deemed to be outstanding in its field" by the American Educational Studies Association.[25]

Amster is also the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on subjects including social control, criminal justice, anarchism and community,[26] social movements, critical pedagogy, eco-terrorism, border issues, post-Katrina New Orleans, and Peace Ecology.[27] In addition, he is a frequent blogger and op-ed columnist, writing on similar themes in venues including his local newspaper, The Daily Courier, and online media such as The Huffington Post[28] and Truthout, where he is a Contributing Writer.[29] Amster's work continues to focus on social and ecological issues, including nonviolence,[30] activist research, conflict transformation, cooperative resource management,[31] immigration,[32] and homelessness, which he has observed is largely viewed through the lens "of a capitalist mythology that [says] everyone can make something of themselves, and if they don't it's their own fault.... The homeless are just like everyone else, with hopes and dreams and complex emotions. We often fail to see their basic humanity, and in the process we lose part of our own as well."[33]

At the close of 2010, Amster issued a public call "to seek a balance and nurture a perspective that remains open to the possibility that good still exists despite the overseers' attempts to abolish it altogether.... We can respect the critical perspective that aims to deconstruct the challenges before us, yet also acknowledge that without an equal emphasis on the productive potentials in our midst, pure critique can foster profound pessimism and lead to further entrenchment in the despair-denial cycle."[34] Following this call, Amster launched an initiative in January 2011 to reflect his intention to highlight positive, constructive aspects of current events while maintaining critical rigor and scholarly engagement with the issues. The result was a new site called "New Clear Vision" (NCV), for which Amster serves as Contributing Editor, and which also includes among its regular contributors Devon G. Pena, Jay Walljasper, Mary Sojourner, Pat LaMarche, and Michael N. Nagler.[35] The site's stated intention is "to advance a multiplicity of views on what people are standing for, rather than merely highlighting what they’re against," and seeks to foster "a constructive take on politics, ecology, economy, community, family, culture, and current events."[36] NCV authors have had their writings on these subjects placed in international publications including Truthout, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, and Revista Amauta, bringing a constructive discourse to the news cycle in general and to the progressive commentary surrounding current events in particular.

Bibliography

Books

  • Lauderdale, Pat; Amster, Randall (1997), Lives in the balance : perspectives on global injustice and inequality, International studies in sociology and social anthropology, v. 66, Leiden, ISBN 9789004108752
  • Amster, Randall (2004), Street people and the contested realms of public space, Criminal justice (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC), LFB Scholarly Pub, ISBN 9781593320669
  • Amster, Randall (2008), Lost in space : the criminalization, globalization, and urban ecology of homelessness, LFB Scholarly Publishing, ISBN 1593322976
  • Amster, Randall (2009), Contemporary anarchist studies : an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy, London, ISBN 9780203891735
  • Ndura-Ouédraogo, Elavie; Amster, Randall (2009), Building cultures of peace : transdisciplinary voices of hope and action, Cambridge Scholars, ISBN 144381329X

Academic articles

Reviews

Media articles and blog posts

Huffington Post

Truthout

Common Dreams

New Clear Vision

ZSpace

The Daily Courier

CounterPunch

Waging Nonviolence

Change.org

Other websites

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Meet Our Faculty". Prescott College. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  2. ^ "Peace and Justice Studies Association". peacejusticestudies.org. 14 October 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  3. ^ "The Peace Chronicle". PJSA. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  4. ^ "Contemporary Justice Review". tandf.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  5. ^ "Peace Studies Journal". peacestudiesjournal.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  6. ^ "Journal of Sustainability Education". journalofsustainabilityeducation.org. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  7. ^ "Peace Studies Book Series". peaceconsortium.org. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  8. ^ "248 F3d 1198 Randall Amster v. City of Tempe". Open Jurist. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  9. ^ "Phoenix News - Anarchy How? - page 1". Phoenix New Times. 11 May 2000. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  10. ^ Tearing Down the Streets: Adventues in Urban Anarchy. Palgrave Macmillan Books, 2001. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  11. ^ "The Daily Courier - Peace Pole embodies hopes of end to war". Dcourier.com. 11 March 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-21.
  12. ^ "Death of Osama bin Laden Makes Peace Groups Ask: 'What Next?'". Truthout.org. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
  13. ^ "The Daily Courier - War protesters' trial begins". Dcourier.com. 11 December 2003. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  14. ^ "On a street named Desire". MichaelMoore.com. Retrieved 2010-01-14.; "Für die nötige Infrastruktur selbst gesorgt". neues-deutschland.de. Retrieved 2011-01-23.
  15. ^ "The Daily Courier - Prosecutors: Peaceful persona hides arsonist". Dcourier.com. 17 December 2005. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  16. ^ "The Daily Courier - Prescott students keep wary eyes on the Minuteman Project". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  17. ^ "The Daily Courier - Local man spends time with Minutemen on the border". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  18. ^ "The Daily Courier - Cable producers take the spotlight at awards show". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-01-21.
  19. ^ See: "The Arizona Connection: A Living History". facebook.com. Retrieved 2010-08-01.
  20. ^ "PJSA Blog - Joint Statement Against SB 1070". peacejusticestudies.org. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  21. ^ "Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations Condemns Arizona Immigration Law". commondreams.org. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  22. ^ "Arizona Judge Rules. What Next?". usatoday.com. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  23. ^ E.g.: "Building Borders: Insecurity and Violence". youtube.com. Retrieved 2011-05-03.
  24. ^ "Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With It, Reason and Justice". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  25. ^ "American Educational Studies Association, 2009 Critics Choice Award". educationalstudies.org. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  26. ^ "Chasing Rainbows? Utopian Pragmatics and the Search for Anarchist Communities". Anarchist Studies. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  27. ^ "Building Cultures of Peace" (PDF). Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-20.; "Peace Ecology as a Pathway to Security". youtube.com. Retrieved 2011-04-30.
  28. ^ "Author: Randall Amster". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
  29. ^ "About Truthout". Truthout.org. Retrieved 2010-02-12.
  30. ^ "Anarchism & Nonviolence". Metta Center for Nonviolence Education. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
  31. ^ "Water Symposium". Salsa.net. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  32. ^ "Arizona Heats Up National Immigration Debate". indypendent.org. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  33. ^ "The Invisible Tragedy of Homelessness". Borderzine.com. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
  34. ^ "2011: Time for a New, Clear Vision". Truthout.org. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
  35. ^ "NCV Contributors". newclearvision.com. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
  36. ^ "About NCV". newclearvision.com. Retrieved 2011-01-10.

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