Reframing Resistance: Strategies for Change [Radical Book Fair]

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

We live in a time of genocide, climate change, the rise of the far right, growing inequality, and the scapegoating of marginalised people in the name of "safety". The time to resist is now: But it is also the time to strategise and plan.

Our three panellists will bring their lived experience and their research to discuss “what works?”

– Our Speakers –

Rachel Charlton-Dailey (she/ they) is an award-winning disabled journalist, activist and author. A columnist at The Canary, she has previously reported for the BBC, The Unwritten, The Big Issue, Metro, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. When Rachel isn’t writing, they can be found walking their sausage dog, Rusty.

Sam Gonçalves is a Brazilian writer and documentary filmmaker, based in Glasgow. His work has appeared in The National, Counterpoint, and The Skinny and he publishes bi-monthly interviews on Everything Mixtape.

Janet Alder is a British campaigner, who has fought for justice and against police brutality since her brother’s death in 1998. She has written for the Newstatesman, and her fight has been reported on by the BBC, the Socialist Worker and the Guardian, among others.

– The Books –

Ramping up Rights by Rachel Charlton-Dailey

From the ‘crippled suffragette’, to ’80s punks chaining themselves to buses, to campaigners taking a stand online, this book celebrates the amazing activists and protest actions behind the UK’s long battle for disabled people’s rights to live.

Rachel Charlton-Dailey highlights a shockingly overlooked tradition of disabled struggle. She unpacks how British attitudes and policy went so wrong in the twenty-first century, and interviews campaigners and disabled people about how they have reclaimed power, from resisting government reforms to changing the media narrative. She explores live frontiers in the push for civil rights—from the scandalous inaccessibility of our education and transport systems, to the existential debates about genetic screening and ‘the right to die’.

In this powerful book, honouring past disability activism becomes a call to action. Charlton-Dailey shows readers how hard, and how often, disabled people and their allies have fought, and won. She gives them the energy to keep fighting back.

How Does Change Happen? - Sam Gonçalves

Mass protests and direct action have been familiar tactics against the many crises of the 21st century. Though methods vary, there’s a collective longing for meaningful and transformative action. Some are deemed too weak, others too disruptive: from Instagram tiles to cans of soup thrown on famous paintings.

Through conversations with activists and organisers, Sam Gonçalves recounts stories of protest and the fight for change, from a community of landless workers in Southern Brazil, to chefs unionising their workplace in Glasgow, Scotland. These narratives reveal the opportunities and challenges that are part of the difficult work of creating change, a wrestling with the question: how does change happen?

Having a ‘positive impact’ in the world is often relegated to the ‘personal’, an individual endeavour. Gonçalves investigates that assumption and explores ways communities have resisted collectively, and fought against the individualising forces surrounding them.

Defiance by Janet Adler and Dan Glazebrook

‘This is a story – among many others – of justice denied. Fighting this battle over the past quarter of a century has been a lesson in collusion, cover-up and all the sophisticated – as well as the crude – methods employed by different parts of the British state to maintain the status quo, protect itself and those in its employ and evade justice . . . This book is my attempt to bring some kind of accountability, simply by telling the truth.‘

The police killing of Christopher Alder was one of the most notorious deaths in custody in the UK, involving the destruction of evidence, a whitewash of an investigation and illegal surveillance.

Christopher’s sister Janet has been relentlessly fighting for justice for decades, and fearlessly holds the UK’s state institutions to account in this extraordinary book.

This book is a probing expose of what went on, based on exhaustive documentary evidence, as well as the personal story of Janet’s fight to uncover the truth.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event ().

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below. There are also which are £10, listed as a 'book', please note these are not redeemable at the fair, and rather a much appreciated contribution to the Fair's running costs,

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund .

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