Randall Amster
Randall Amster | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | 1966 Brooklyn, NY |
Occupation | Teacher, writer |
Nationality | American |
Education | Brooklyn 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]
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.[7] 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[8] – 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.[9] 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;[10] 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."[11] 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.[12] 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.[13] 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.[14] 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.[15][16] 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.[17]
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,[18] 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.[19] 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.[20] 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."[21] In the ensuing months, he spoke frequently on the relationship between immigration, security, and violence;[22] 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.[23]
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), which was called "a savvy look into local and global processes of neoliberalization, particularly as it transforms what it means to be a citizen" in a 2011 review appearing in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.[24] 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, focused on the theme of "building cultures of peace," and was released by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2009. Amster was also part of the editorial collective that produced Contemporary Anarchist Studies, published by Routledge in 2009 and recipient of the Critics Choice Award that year for "recent scholarship deemed to be outstanding in its field" by the American Educational Studies Association.[25] His most recent book is Anarchism Today, published by Praeger in 2012.
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; et al. (2009), Contemporary anarchist studies : an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy, Routledge, ISBN 9780203891735
{{citation}}
: Explicit use of et al. in:|first=
(help) - Ndura-Ouédraogo, Elavie; Amster, Randall (2009), Building cultures of peace : transdisciplinary voices of hope and action, Cambridge Scholars, ISBN 144381329X
- Amster, Randall (2012), Anarchism Today, Praeger, ISBN 9780313398728
Academic articles
- Lauderdale, P; Amster, R (1997), "Critical Perspectives on Justice: The Persistence of Global Injustice and Inequality", International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 38 (1): 1–5, ISSN 0020-7152, OCLC 198749555
- Amster, Randall (2002), "Anarchist Pedagogies for Peace", Peace Review, 14 (4), Taylor & Francis: 433–439, doi:10.1080/1040265022000039222
- Amster, Randall (2003), "Patterns of Exclusion: Sanitizing Space, Criminalizing Homelessness", Social justice : a journal of crime, conflict & world order, 30 (1), Social Justice: 195, ISSN 1043-1578, OCLC 96219391
- Amster, R (2003), "Restoring (Dis)Order: Sanctions, Resolutions, and "Social Control" in Anarchist Communities", Contemporary Justice Review, 6 (1): 9–24, doi:10.1080/1028258032000055612
- Amster, Randall (2006), "Perspectives on Ecoterrorism: Catalysts, Conflations, and Casualties", Contemporary Justice Review, 9 (3), Taylor & Francis: 287–301, doi:10.1080/10282580600827991
- Starr, Amory; Fernandez, Luis; Amster, Randall; Wood, Lesley (2008), "The Impacts of State Surveillance on Political Assembly and Association: A Socio-Legal Analysis", Qualitative Sociology, 31 (3), Springer: 251–270, doi:10.1007/s11133-008-9107-z
- Amster, Randall (2009), "Repeal NAFTA, Adopt LAFTA", Peace Review, 20 (4), Taylor & Francis: 448–454, doi:10.1080/10402650802495049
- Amster, Randall (2012), "Just, in Time: Cultivating the Long Arc of Justice", Contemporary Justice Review, 15 (2), Taylor & Francis: 1–6, doi:10.1080/10282580.2012.681163
- Reviews
- Review: Globalization and Its Discontents The New Formulation, Volume 2, Issue 1, February 2003
- Review: Breaking the Law: Anti-authoritarian Visions of Crime and Justice The New Formulation, Volume 2, Issue 2, Winter-Spring 2004
- Review: Less Than Two Dollars a Day: A Christian View of World Poverty and the Free Market Journal of Church and State, Volume 51, Issue 1, pages 157-9, 2009
- Review: Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-globalization Movement Contemporary Justice Review, Volume 13, Issue 4, pages 487-9, 2010
- Review: Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change Z Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 5, May 2011.
Media articles and blog posts
Huffington Post
Truthout
Common Dreams
New Clear Vision
ZSpace
The Daily Courier
- A mountain of greed vs. sacred balance The Daily Courier, August 21, 2011
- Arizona's failed policies only getting worse The Daily Courier, October 10, 2010
- Brewer brings only embarrassment The Daily Courier, September 19, 2010
- Constructive dialogue our only recourse The Daily Courier, January 16, 2011
- Corporate welfare sounds familiar The Daily Courier, October 5, 2008
- Corporations, politicians need work The Daily Courier, April 4, 2010
- Effects of Katrina devastating to this day The Daily Courier, September 2, 2007
- Environmental impact will soon be irreversible The Daily Courier, November 13, 2011
- Following wrong distractions, for wrong reasons The Daily Courier, July 25, 2011
- Free enterprise isn't free either The Daily Courier, May 31, 2009
- Garden helps community grow, flower The Daily Courier, April 25, 2011
- Homeless need our understanding The Daily Courier, May 2, 2010
- Humans add to destabilization of the planet The Daily Courier, September 18, 2011
- Incivilities aside, can we all get along? The Daily Courier, October 4, 2009
- Individual responsibility extends to public lands The Daily Courier, March 18, 2012
- It's harder for average folks to feel jolly The Daily Courier, December 5, 2010
- King's legacy manifests in current politics The Daily Courier, January 20, 2008
- Labor unions have strong place in U.S. The Daily Courier, August 31, 2008
- Lesson for the day: Life cannot exist without water The Daily Courier, July 8, 2007
- Midwifery has long, honorable history The Daily Courier, August 5, 2007
- Moving our state sideways, not forward The Daily Courier, January 10, 2011
- Never underestimate the power of words The Daily Courier, March 12, 2008
- 'People power' still the loudest voice The Daily Courier, February 4, 2010
- Prison protestor epitomizes value of free speech The Daily Courier, October 14, 2007
- Public discontent evident everywhere The Daily Courier, April 11, 2011
- Public dissent is a healthful thing The Daily Courier, May 3, 2009
- SB 1070 will cause only division, angst The Daily Courier, June 21, 2010
- Science fiction's predicted future is now The Daily Courier, July 22, 2007
- Season should include compassion The Daily Courier, November 30, 2008
- Shall we wall in the entire nation? The Daily Courier, May 16, 2011
- Sharing food should never be illegal The Daily Courier, February 3, 2008
- So many solutions found locally The Daily Courier, June 19, 2011
- To embrace King, we must embrace each other The Daily Courier, January 15, 2012
- Too much control bad for any government The Daily Courier, November 7, 2010
- Veterans know that peace is the goal of war The Daily Courier, November 11, 2007
- Waiting to change habits 'later' deeply flawed The Daily Courier, October 16, 2011
- Water, war have close relationship The Daily Courier, December 6, 2009
- Who's in danger, wildlife or us? The Daily Courier, August 14, 2011
- Working on ourselves to improve society The Daily Courier, December 11, 2011
CounterPunch
- A Bustle in Hedges' Row CounterPunch, February 8, 2012
- Climate of Fear on the Border CounterPunch, July 27, 2010
- Course Correction CounterPunch, April 3, 2012
- Empire of the Sunset CounterPunch, February 12, 2010
- Et Tu, Barack? CounterPunch, December 23, 2009
- First Amendment Remedies CounterPunch, January 11, 2011
- Obama Bags Osama -- Now What? CounterPunch, May 2, 2011
- Prism Break CounterPunch, December 22, 2011
- Saving Sacred Spaces CounterPunch, August 29, 2011
- Misconceptions and Machinations in Iran CounterPunch, May 25, 2010
- The Blog of War CounterPunch, December 13, 2010
- The Road to Health Care Reform Is Paved With Bad Intentions CounterPunch, January 8, 2010
- Waking Life CounterPunch, March 20, 2012
- Wikilessons CounterPunch, November 2, 2010
Waging Nonviolence
- Anarchism and Nonviolence: Time for a 'Complementarity of Tactics' Waging Nonviolence, July 14, 2010
- Changes in Gratitude: Eternal Thanks for a Nonviolent Future Waging Nonviolence, November 25, 2010
- Haiti Untold: Nonviolence and Humanization at the Grassroots Waging Nonviolence, January 27, 2010
- Noncooperation with Evil in the Streets of Arizona Waging Nonviolence, August 13, 2010
- War and Planet Earth: Toward a Sustainable Peace Waging Nonviolence, December 21, 2010 (with Michael N. Nagler)
Change.org
- Fight for Your Right - To Sleep Outside? Change.org, July 20, 2010
- Homeless Man Trapped in Dumpster Eats Own Foot Change.org, August 16, 2010
- Homeless on the Range Change.org, August 6, 2010
- Homelessness By Any Other Name... Change.org, May 13, 2010
- 'Injustice Anywhere': The Parallels Between Homelessness and Immigration Change.org, May 5, 2010
- Political Street Theater? Homeless Candidates Run in Arizona Change.org, September 8, 2010
Other websites
- 2010: A Peace Odyssey? Waging Peace, January 5, 2010
- A Modest Proposal on Immigration Reform BuzzFlash, September 24, 2010
- Americans Finally Join the Wave of Healthy Global Protest The Peace Worker, October 12, 2011
- An Open Letter Following the Tucson Tragedy Gilmer Free Press, January 23, 2011
- Arizona Heats Up National Immigration Debate The Indypendent, May 12, 2010
- Arizona's Long Dark Night Continues Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) Blog, January 9, 2011
- Challenging Media Narratives on Haiti Sojourners, January 29, 2010
- Desert Dichotomy: Will It Be Force ... or Discourse? Dissident Voice, January 20, 2011
- Healing the Wounds: Transforming Our Culture of Violence TFD News, January 13, 2011
- Homeland Insecurity: Why 'No-Fly' Just Doesn't Fly Anarchist News, February 3, 2010
- Homeless for the Holidays Huntington News Network, December 22, 2008
- 'I Want to Be a Farmer': Food Justice, Out of the Mouths of Babes Energy Boom, June 3, 2011
- If at First You Don't Secede... War Is A Crime, March 9, 2011
- Invasion of the Body Scanners Signs of the Times, January 25, 2010
- It's Time to Escalate the Peace PeaceVoice, December 22, 2009
- Meltdown: Unsafe at Any Screed Stars On Stars, April 4, 2011
- Metastasizing Xenophobia: U.S. Greens Work to Stem Anti-Immigrant Tide Green Pages, July 22, 2011
- Mic Check: Can You Hear Us, America? Posterous, October 25, 2011
- New Clear Energy Peak Oil, October 24, 2010
- No Winners in the Class War Cleveland Free Press, April 19, 2011
- Obama's Fake Progressive Birth Certificate iTrevino, April 27, 2011
- Occupy Everything: The Streets Are Alive with the Sound of Anarchism ABC-CLIO Blog, October 21, 2011
- Pot Luck? Arizona Approves Medical Marijuana Amid Conservative Landslide World News Mania, November 15, 2010
- Rage Against the Machine Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, May 19, 2010
- Support the Dominant Paradigm Revista Amauta, December 19, 2010
- Tangled Up in Blue: Can There Be Solidarity Between Movement Activists and Police Officers? Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, November 23, 2011
- The Arc of the Moral Universe: Justice May Be Just Around the Bend Peninsula Peace & Justice Center, September 26, 2011
- To Protect and Serve? Aletho News, February 9, 2011
- Viva Obama! Now Let's Get to Work Black News Tribune, January 20, 2009
- Water, Water Everywhere? Sustaining Scarce Resources in the Desert AlterNet, March 10, 2009
- Welcome Home: Building an Inclusive Movement for the 99 Percent Fellowship of Reconciliation Blog, November 17, 2011
- Worst in Class: How Education in Arizona Became an Economic Casualty OpEdNews, February 6, 2009
Footnotes
- ^ "Faculty Profiles". Prescott College. Retrieved 2011-08-20.
- ^ "Peace and Justice Studies Association". peacejusticestudies.org. 14 October 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
- ^ "The Peace Chronicle". PJSA. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "Contemporary Justice Review". tandf.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "Peace Studies Journal". peacestudiesjournal.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "Journal of Sustainability Education". journalofsustainabilityeducation.org. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "248 F3d 1198 Randall Amster v. City of Tempe". Open Jurist. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
- ^ "Phoenix News - Anarchy How? - page 1". Phoenix New Times. 11 May 2000. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
- ^ Tearing Down the Streets: Adventues in Urban Anarchy. Palgrave Macmillan Books, 2001. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - Peace Pole embodies hopes of end to war". Dcourier.com. 11 March 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- ^ "Death of Osama bin Laden Makes Peace Groups Ask: 'What Next?'". Truthout.org. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - War protesters' trial begins". Dcourier.com. 11 December 2003. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
- ^ "On a street named Desire". MichaelMoore.com. Retrieved 2010-01-14.; "Für die nötige Infrastruktur selbst gesorgt". neues-deutschland.de. Retrieved 2011-01-23.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - Prosecutors: Peaceful persona hides arsonist". Dcourier.com. 17 December 2005. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - Prescott students keep wary eyes on the Minuteman Project". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - Local man spends time with Minutemen on the border". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
- ^ "The Daily Courier - Cable producers take the spotlight at awards show". Dcourier.com. Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- ^ See: "The Arizona Connection: A Living History". facebook.com. Retrieved 2010-08-01.
- ^ "PJSA Blog - Joint Statement Against SB 1070". peacejusticestudies.org. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
- ^ "Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations Condemns Arizona Immigration Law". commondreams.org. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
- ^ "Arizona Judge Rules. What Next?". usatoday.com. July 29, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
- ^ E.g.: "Building Borders: Insecurity and Violence". youtube.com. Retrieved 2011-05-03.
- ^ Amster, Randall (December 31, 2010). "Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With It, Reason and Justice". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
- ^ "Book Review, Lost in Space". onlinelibrary.wiley.com. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
- ^ "American Educational Studies Association, 2009 Critics Choice Award". educationalstudies.org. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
- ^ "Chasing Rainbows? Utopian Pragmatics and the Search for Anarchist Communities". Anarchist Studies. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "Author: Randall Amster". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
- ^ "About Truthout". Truthout.org. Retrieved 2010-02-12.
- ^ "Anarchism & Nonviolence". Metta Center for Nonviolence Education. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ "Water Symposium". Salsa.net. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
- ^ "Arizona Heats Up National Immigration Debate". indypendent.org. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
- ^ "The Invisible Tragedy of Homelessness". Borderzine.com. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
- ^ "2011: Time for a New, Clear Vision". Truthout.org. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
- ^ "NCV Contributors". newclearvision.com. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
- ^ "About NCV". newclearvision.com. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
- Living people
- American academics
- American activists
- American anarchists
- American anti-war activists
- Anarchism theorists
- Anarchist academics
- Brooklyn Law School alumni
- University of Rochester alumni
- Arizona State University alumni
- Prescott College
- Nonviolence advocates
- 1966 births
- American freelance journalists
- People from Brooklyn
- Homelessness activists