A key focus for the Initiative is on activism, social movements, social change, and the politics of globalisation, and the fluidities and contestations that characterise their interactions. The field of social movement research is exceptionally fertile. It is a key site of engagement between pluralists stressing the political process, post-Marxists focusing on "new" social movements, and neo-Marxists debating the developing logic of class struggle. It is a central focus for alternative theoretical formations, including feminism, queer theory, environmental and social justice, indigenous sovereignty, post colonialism, racism and anti-racism, and diasporic mobilisation. In recent years these various strands of social movement research have become embedded in wider debates about the politics of mobilisation, with a series of analyses that, in effect, internationalise the field.

Social movements are often said to be responding to globalisation by forming new transnational networks and frames. Common agendas and forms of mobilisation are emerging, as part of what some are seeing as a 'globalisation from below,' in a move to a "global civil society." At the same time, and often against these tendencies, many movements are constructing anti-globalist resistance strategies. Such movements focus on the universal reach of corporate globalisation. Still other movements pursue forms of transnational resistance, with the emphasis on building forms of collective autonomy that embed local mobilisation in broader forms of solidaristic collective identity. These may be seen as posing counter-hegemonic challenges grounded in the class dynamics of corporate globalism.

How are these pressures and options played out in the actual practice of social activists and in the development of social movements? Globalising pressures are clearly felt and resisted differently in different localities - the contradiction between popular aspirations and the exercise of transnational power is always rooted in unevenness and inequality. There is a great variation in the way contradictions are experienced, and in the resulting forms of consciousness and resistance, acceptance and complicit. Indeed, the reach, power and dynamism of corporate globalisation are elsewhere. While recognising common themes and convergences, there also needs to be a focus on the different ways in which peoples engage with globalising pressures. A dynamic comparative model of this sort can liberate analysis form inside/outside, foreign-versus-domestic divides, and paradoxically, expose the foundations for simultaneous or mutually-reinforcing social action. The result may approximate to Raymond Williams's "structure of feeling" set in global systemic contexts.

Analysis of activists, movements and social change can shed light on the developing dynamics, both in terms of the specificities of local and national mobilisation and the logics of cross-national frameworks. Understanding of the prevailing tendencies may then be further deepened through historical analysis that takes seriously the changing local traditions of activism and mobilisation. Rather than abandoning grounded analysis and leaping into cross-cultural dynamics, and rather than restricting analysis to circumscribed local cases, this approach opens up the possibility of creating grounded accounts of globalised contexts, offering vital vantage points for analysing the dynamics of resistance operating across societies.

Reflecting these concerns, we propose to pursue the following 3 areas of general research that would enable comparative and other avenues of collaboration. The proposed international dimension is not intended to supersede particular local, regional, or national research interests; rather it is hoped that the international frame will permit researchers to recognise how the "global" is shot through with "local(ised)" phenomena, thus enabling unforeseen dialogues between local, regional and/or national analyses:

1) Grounded international analysis of social activism and social movement mobilisation.

2) Analysis of Australian social activism and movements within this framework.

3) Engagement with debates about social activism, social change, and social movements in a number of disciplines and in a range of cultural and linguistic traditions.