Globalisation, Societies and Education Special Issue: Student activism, translocality, and social justice

Abstract

In many countries and universities, students engage in activities to promote social
justice through inclusion, diversity, epistemic freedom and decolonisation, paying
renewed attention to intersectionalities of race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. In
this special issue, we seek to focus on the translocal dimensions of student activism for
equality and greater social justice. We understand ‘activism’ quite broadly to include
student-led activities – ranging from small-scale mundane initiatives to large-scale
protest events – that aim to change everyday life, practices or norms at the university
and beyond. Students’ activist engagement is often shaped in and through translocal/
transnational/international/global spaces in which geo-political imaginaries, academic
theories, actionable knowledge or symbols, hashtags, materiality and people circulate
and move across socio-political contexts. Struggles are connected across multiple scales,
and partially common worlds and horizons are created.