The contributors to Constructing the Pluriverse critique the hegemony of the postcolonial Western tradition and its claims to universality by offering a set of “pluriversal” approaches to understanding the coexisting epistemologies and practices of the different worlds and problems we inhabit and encounter. Moving beyond critiques of colonialism, the contributors rethink the relationship between knowledge and power, offering new perspectives on development, democracy, and ideology while providing diverse methodologies for non-Western thought and practice that range from feminist approaches to scientific research to ways of knowing expressed through West African oral traditions. In combination, these wide-ranging approaches and understandings form a new analytical toolbox for those seeking creative solutions for dismantling Westernization throughout the world. Contributors. Zaid Ahmad, Manuela Boatcă, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Raewyn Connell, Arturo Escobar, Sandra Harding, Ehsan Kashfi, Venu Mehta, Walter D. Mignolo, Ulrich Oslender, Issiaka Ouattara, Bernd Reiter, Manu Samnotra, Catherine E. Walsh, Aram Ziai

In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth. Noting that most design—from consumer goods and digital technologies to built environments—currently serves capitalist ends, Escobar argues for the development of an “autonomous design” that eschews commercial and modernizing aims in favor of more collaborative and placed-based approaches. Such design attends to questions of environment, experience, and politics while focusing on the production of human experience based on the radical interdependence of all beings. Mapping autonomous design’s principles to the history of decolonial efforts of indigenous and Afro-descended people in Latin America, Escobar shows how refiguring current design practices could lead to the creation of more just and sustainable social orders.

In Around the Day in Eighty Worlds Martin Savransky calls for a radical politics of the pluriverse amid the ongoing devastation of the present. Responding to an epoch marked by the history of colonialism and ecological devastation, Savransky draws on the pragmatic pluralism of William James to develop what Savransky calls a “pluralistic realism”—an understanding of the world as simultaneously one and many, ongoing and unfinished, underway and yet to be made. Savransky explores the radical multifariousness of reality by weaving key aspects of James's thought together with divergent worlds and stories: of Magellan's circumnavigation, sorcery in Mozambique, God's felt presence among a group of evangelicals in California, visible spirits in Zambia, and ghosts in the wake of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Throughout, he experiments with these storied worlds to dramatize new ways of approaching the politics of radical difference and the possibility of transforming reality. By exploring and constructing relations between James's pluralism and the ontological turn in anthropology, Savransky offers a new conceptualization of the pluriverse that fosters modes of thinking and living otherwise.

This is a collection of over a hundred essays on alternatives to the dominant processes of globalized development, including its structural roots in modernity, capitalism, state domination, and masculinist values. The book presents views and practices from around the world in a collective search for an ecologically and socially just world.

In Territories of Difference, Arturo Escobar, author of the widely debated book Encountering Development, analyzes the politics of difference enacted by specific place-based ethnic and environmental movements in the context of neoliberal globalization. His analysis is based on his many years of engagement with a group of Afro-Colombian activists of Colombia’s Pacific rainforest region, the Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN). Escobar offers a detailed ethnographic account of PCN’s visions, strategies, and practices, and he chronicles and analyzes the movement’s struggles for autonomy, territory, justice, and cultural recognition. Yet he also does much more. Consistently emphasizing the value of local activist knowledge for both understanding and social action and drawing on multiple strands of critical scholarship, Escobar proposes new ways for scholars and activists to examine and apprehend the momentous, complex processes engulfing regions such as the Colombian Pacific today. Escobar illuminates many interrelated dynamics, including the Colombian government’s policies of development and pluralism that created conditions for the emergence of black and indigenous social movements and those movements’ efforts to steer the region in particular directions. He examines attempts by capitalists to appropriate the rainforest and extract resources, by developers to set the region on the path of modernist progress, and by biologists and others to defend this incredibly rich biodiversity “hot-spot” from the most predatory activities of capitalists and developers. He also looks at the attempts of academics, activists, and intellectuals to understand all of these complicated processes. Territories of Difference is Escobar’s effort to think with Afro-Colombian intellectual-activists who aim to move beyond the limits of Eurocentric paradigms as they confront the ravages of neoliberal globalization and seek to defend their place-based cultures and territories.

Originally published: 1995. Paperback reissue, with a new preface by the author.

What does postcoloniality have to do with sacramentality? How do diasporic lives and imaginaries shape the course of postcolonial sacramental theology? Neither postcolonial theorists nor sacramental theologians have hitherto sought to engage in a sustained dialogue with one another. In this trailblazing volume, Kristine Suna-Koro brings postcolonialism, diaspora discourse, and Christian sacramental theology into a mutually critical and constructive transdisciplinary conversation. Dialoguing with thinkers as diverse as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak as well as Francis D'Sa, S.J., Martin Luther, Mayra Rivera, and John Chryssavgis, the author offers a postcolonial retrieval of sacramentality through a robust theological engagement with the postcolonial notions of hybridity, contrapuntality, planetarity, and Third Space. While exploring the methodological potential of diasporic imaginary in theology, this innovative book advances the notion of sacramental pluriverse and of Christ as its paradigmatic crescendo within the sacramental economy of creation and redemptive transformation. In the context of ecological degradation, In Counterpoint argues that it is vital for the postcolonial sacramental renewal to be rooted in ethics as a uniquely postcolonial fundamental theology.

What accounts for the persistence and spread of "commoning," the irrepressible desire of people to collaborate and share to meet everyday needs? How are the more successful projects governed? And why are so many people embracing the commons as a powerful strategy for building a fair, humane and Earth-respecting social order? In more than fifty original essays, Patterns of Commoning addresses these questions and probes the inner complexities of this timeless social paradigm. The book surveys some of the most notable, inspiring commons around the world, from alternative currencies and open design and manufacturing, to centuries-old community forests and co-learning commons - and dozens of others. David Bollier (www.bollier.org) is an American author, activist and independent scholar who has studied the commons for nearly twenty years. Silke Helfrich (commonsblog.wordpress.com) is a German author and independent activist of the commons who blogs at www.commonsblog.de, and cofounder of the Commons-Institut in Germany. With Michel Bauwens, Bollier and Helfrich are cofounders of the Common Strategies Group. For more information, go to the book's website, Patterns of Commoning (www.patternsofcommoning.org)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SELECTED BY THE ECONOMIST AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR “A rambunctious book that is itself alive with the animal spirits of the marketplace.”—The Wall Street Journal Freedom’s Forge reveals how two extraordinary American businessmen—General Motors automobile magnate William “Big Bill” Knudsen and shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser—helped corral, cajole, and inspire business leaders across the country to mobilize the “arsenal of democracy” that propelled the Allies to victory in World War II. Drafting top talent from companies like Chrysler, Republic Steel, Boeing, Lockheed, GE, and Frigidaire, Knudsen and Kaiser turned auto plants into aircraft factories and civilian assembly lines into fountains of munitions. In four short years they transformed America’s army from a hollow shell into a truly global force, laying the foundations for the country’s rise as an economic as well as military superpower. Freedom’s Forge vividly re-creates American industry’s finest hour, when the nation’s business elites put aside their pursuit of profits and set about saving the world. Praise for Freedom’s Forge “A rarely told industrial saga, rich with particulars of the growing pains and eventual triumphs of American industry . . . Arthur Herman has set out to right an injustice: the loss, down history’s memory hole, of the epic achievements of American business in helping the United States and its allies win World War II.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . It’s not often that a historian comes up with a fresh approach to an absolutely critical element of the Allied victory in World War II, but Pulitzer finalist Herman . . . has done just that.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A compulsively readable tribute to ‘the miracle of mass production.’ ”—Publishers Weekly “The production statistics cited by Mr. Herman . . . astound.”—The Economist “[A] fantastic book.”—Forbes “Freedom’s Forge is the story of how the ingenuity and energy of the American private sector was turned loose to equip the finest military force on the face of the earth. In an era of gathering threats and shrinking defense budgets, it is a timely lesson told by one of the great historians of our time.”—Donald Rumsfeld

The Routledge Handbook to Global Political Economy provides a comprehensive guide to how Global Political Economy (GPE) is conceptualized and researched around the world. Including contributions that range from traditional International Political Economy (IPE) to GPE approaches, the Handbook gathers the investigations, varying perspectives and innovative research of more than sixty scholars from all over the world. Providing undergraduates, postgraduates, teachers and researchers with a complete set of traditional, contending and regional perspectives, the book explores current issues, conceptual tools, key research debates and different methodological approaches taken. Structured in five parts methodologically correlated, the book presents GPE as a field of global, regional and national research: • historical waves and diverse ontological axes; • major theoretical perspectives; • beyond traditional perspectives; • regional inquiries; • research arenas. Carefully selected contributions from both established and upcoming scholars ensure that this is an eclectic, pluralist and multidisciplinary work and an essential resource for all those with an interest in this complex and rapidly evolving field of study.