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headshot of Marina Sitrin

Marina Sitrin

Chair, Graduate Director, Associate Professor

Sociology

Background

Marina Sitrin holds a PhD in Global Sociology from SUNY Stony Brook and a JD in International Women's Human Rights from CUNY Law School.

Marina’s scholarly work is part of a continuum, reflecting over 20 years of study and direct engagement in social movements and diverse forms of resistance. Specifically looking at new forms of social organization, such as autogestión, horizontalidad, prefigurative politics, abolitionism and affective social relationship, she challenges us in the social sciences to rethink our understandings of social movements, inviting us to think in terms of societies in movement. Marina’s forthcoming book with the University of California Press argues that there is a new phenomenon occurring around the globe that is both revolutionary in the day-to-day sense of the word and without precedent with regard to consistency of form, politics, scope, and scale. The book covers over 20 regions in 12 countries and three autonomous zones, reflecting two decades of research and engagement. 

Currently, Marina is working on a book project reflecting over a decade of experiences in alternative conceptions of justice using alternative adjudication frameworks, reflecting processes of addressing harm outside formal state and punishment structures. Regions covered include, Argentina; Cherán, Chiapas and Guerrero, Mexico; Rojava and the United States.

Methodologically, she employs forms of ethnographic research, grounded in oral history and sociological narrative. The form of ethnographic research is sometimes participant observer, and always designed to relate history from below. Her research is based in contemporary movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States and Canada and Southern Europe.

Marina is a part of the Core Group of The Global Tapestry of Alternatives , and on the Editorial Collective of the New Commoner Journal.

Research Interests

  • Abolition and Alternative Adjudication Processes
  • Collective Action, Social Movements/Societies in Movement
  • Commons, Commoning and Municipalism
  • Prefigurative and Affective Politics and Direct/Participatory Democracy

More Info

Selected Publications:

Select Books:

  • The New Revolutions: From Social Movements to Societies in Movement, University of California Press (forthcoming)

  • Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the COVID 19 Crisis, co-edited with Colectiva Sembrar (Pluto Press, 2020).

  • They Can't Represent Us! Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy, co-authored with Dario Azzellini (Verso Press, 2014).

  • Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina, (Zed Books, 2012).

  • Horizontalidad: Voces de Poder Popular en Argentina (Chilavert, 2005); Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (AK Press, 2006); Οριζοντιότητα: φωνές λαϊκής εξουσίας στην αργεντινη (SKYA, 2011)

Select Articles and Chapters:

2020. “DNA in Movement: Reflections on a New Form of Movements,” Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 34 Issue 1.

2020. “The Future of Pandemic Solidarity,” coauthored, Red Pepper Magazine.

2020. “Todes Unides: Testimonios de Resistencia y Organización,” with Nancy Piñeiro, Periódico Lavaca.

2019. “Practising Affect as Affective Practice.” Chapter in Commoning with George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici, edited by Camille Barbagallo, Nicholas Beuret & David Harvie, Pluto Press.

2019. “Breaking Social Silence with Another Kind of Justice.” Chapter in From Transnational to Transformative Justice, edited by Paul Gready and Simon Robins, Cambridge University Press.

2019. “Anarchism and the Newest Social Movements.” Chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism, edited by Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams, Palgrave Macmillan.

2018. “Walking towards Utopia: Experiences from Argentina.” Chapter in Utopias in Latin America past and present, edited by Juan Pro, Sussex Academic Press.

2016. “Globalization, Resistance, and Social Transformation.” With Jeff Juris, chapter in The Sage handbook of resistance, edited by David Courpasson, Steven Vallas, Sage Publications.


2016. “Rethinking Social Movements with Societies
in Movement,” Chapter in Social Sciences for An-Other Politics. Women Theorising without Parachutes, edited by Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, Palgrave McMillan.

2014. “Goals Without Demands: The New Movements for Real Democracy,” South Atlantic Quarterly, Volume 113, Issue 2.