Redefining the Agenda for Social Justice

The book relates three years of history of social movements from Asia and Europe who work on social justice, as a rough overview. The work for the book is mainly done on the ground, day after day, working in villages and cities, with people and their organisations, organising resistance and preparing alternatives. It is based on the fact that European and Asian concerns are identical, in spite of divergent levels of development and wealth, and that the existing international initiatives, such as the ILO’s social protection floors, or the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are perfectly compatible with neoliberal policies.

The book goes beyond and sees social commons as a strategic tool for transforming societies. It is basically a project for the sustainability of life, of humans, of societies, and of nature. The book describes the ideas at the basis of the work in different sectors. It is not about the practice of social policies but about the ideas and discourses that can inthe end shape the political practices. In sum, this book, presents a new social paradigm. It concretely shows how social justice and environmental justice do go hand in hand.

Francine Mestrum has a PhD in social sciences and worked at the European institutions and several Belgian universities. Her research concerns the social dimension of globalisation, poverty, inequality, social protection, public services and gender. She is an active member of the International Council of the World Social Forum and Organising Committee of the Asia Europe People’s Forum, co-coordinating its social justice cluster. She is the author of several books (in Dutch, French and English) on development, poverty, inequality and social commons. She is the founder of the global network of Global Social Justice and currently works on a project for Social Commons.

Meena Menon is currently Working President of the Working People's Charter, a network of organisations working with informal labour in India. She is an independent consultant working on issues of labour, urbanization, housing, and new politics. Meena workedas a full-time organizer with a left party for 20 years. After this, she organised textile mill workers and was part of building the social movement on mill closures and mill land in Mumbai. She was Vice President of  the GKSS union (Mill Workers Action Committee).  She was India country coordinator with Asian policy think-tank Focus on the Global South and also did a brief stint as a consultant with UNDP.  Until recently she was Senior Consultant with Action Aid in India to do policy advocacy on urbanisation and related issues.  She is co-convenor of the Social Justice cluster of the Asia Europe People's Forum. She is co-author of the book, One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices - The Mill Workers of Girangaon - An Oral History.