Interface aims to reach a public composed of social movement scholars, scholar-activists combining academic and activist work and “organic intellectuals” working within social movements. Beyond this, it aims to reach activists who play organizing or “technical” roles within their movements, as well as other types of participants. It also hopes to reach a larger “lay” public who, despite not being directly involved with social movements, has an interest in educating itself about their inner dynamics.
Being an open-access multilingual journal, we aim to reach those social movements and those activists that normally lack easy access to published research on movement activities, either due to language barriers, material constraints, geographic isolation or the simple fact that they do not share the academic language that is normally used in mainstream social movement research.
We do not aim to produce “pure” theory on social movements and activism in general, nor do we want to provide merely descriptive accounts of protest, pre-emptive politics, activist networking, critical education or involvement in participatory politics. Instead, in line with the paradigm of “movement-centred theory” proposed by authors such as Bevington & Dixon (2005), we want to contribute to, and diffuse the results of, praxis-centred theorizing on the factors affecting the organizational dynamics, strategy and results of social movement activity.
By providing a bridge between academia and activism, Interface aims to reach a larger public than that normally targeted by mainstream journals on social movement research.
As we want to encourage active involvement by an amount and a variety of people and organizations as possible, we hope that people who find the journal useful will also become active contributors and share their own learning with us and each other.
Join us!
We are looking for activist researchers, whether in movement or academic contexts, who are engaged in developing knowledge from and for social movements and feel they might be interested in working with us to develop this project.
We are also looking for theorists, activists and academics who may not be interested in being this closely involved, but would be willing to sit on editorial advisory boards and review articles, suggest directions, etc.
We are working on building links with possible regional groups beyond those already in existence, recruiting editorial advisors for the existing groups and attracting funding for translation and technical support. All suggestions and offers of help will be very gratefully received.
Contact
If you are interested in this project and would like to participate, please contact the relevant editor, sending a brief introduction of yourself and your interests.