Endorsements
"In our moment of overlapping crises—deeply entrenched inequities, a global pandemic, intensifying climate instability, and the looming threat of austerity—we need incisive progressive analysis more than ever. And this is precisely what Alternate Routes delivers, all while offering pathways to building the equitable, sustainable future we need.” Angela Carter, Associate Professor, Political Science, and author of Fossilized: Environmental Policy in Canada's Petro-Provinces, recipient of the 2021 Donald Smiley Prize.
"I have been reading and quoting Alternate Routes for 40 years. Each issue gives me new reasons to do so. It continues to provide sophisticated, progressive, accessible analysis, located in specific, historical contexts. Especially in these times of enormous risks to us all, we need this kind of analysis and evidence in the struggle for our health, our opportunities for democratic participation, and for meaningful work." Pat Armstrong, Distinguished Research Professor at York University.
"In this new and very much welcomed issue on neoliberal austerity, Alternative Routes once again proves itself an invaluable resource to scholars and activists working to secure a more just world. For those on the left, the timing of this issue could not be better. While liberal democratic capitalism -- and its neoliberal variants-- may be losing legitimacy, a newly ascendant authoritarian and nationalist right has emerged as an equally potent threat. For readers seeking to advance an intersectional class politics that not only rejects this new threat, but that continues to reject the “post-politics” of the technocratic center, the authors in this issue push our thinking in precisely the right direction -- namely, toward a working class politics that extends across workplaces, across communities, and across borders." Kafui Ablode Attoh, City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies
"In an era in which ‘progressive neoliberalism’ has frayed, reactionary populism is on the rise and climate breakdown is visibly accelerating, activists and activist-scholars need the insightful and penetrating analyses that Alternate Routes provides" – if we are to understand and change our troubled world." - William K. Carroll, Professor of Sociology, University of Victoria, and author (with J.P. Sapinsky) of Organizing the 1%: How Corporate Power Works
“This is the first ever effort to document the history, settlement patterns, and contributions of Bengali immigrants in Canada.” - Jane Pulkingham, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Simon Fraser University
“An eye-opener to me in many ways… everybody enhanced my understanding of what goes on in a Bengali immigrant’s life… a valuable contribution to immigration [studies]. - Tirthankar Bose, Retired Professor in English, Simon Fraser University
“[S]peakers touched on the issues that stunned the audience … [papers] were rich with historical data and fascinating anecdotes based on primary sources.” - Mustafa Chowdhury, Author of Picking up the Pieces: 1971 War Babies’ Odyssey from Bangladesh to Canada
“Is the glass half empty or half full? Some days it seems like the struggles for social justice are losing ground. At other moments, we see that the streets are full, and the old system is crumbling. This rich issue explores inequalities around gender, work and migration, and the movements for disability justice, indigenous resistance, reproductive justice and more. It does what Alternate Routes does so well – helps us to understand both the problems and how to change the world.” - Lesley J. Wood, author of Direct Action, Deliberation and Diffusion: Collective Action After the WTO Protests in Seattle.
“One of the key aims neoliberalism has pursued over the past 4 decades has been to destroy the institutions of working class strength and solidarity. The vulnerabilities, fears, marginalities and precarities this has created among all sorts of less than privileged workers – women, racialized minorities, migrants, and just the young – and the resistance that nevertheless emerges from these groups are the chief subjects of this valuable and wide-ranging issue of Alternate Routes.” - Radhika Desai, author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire.
"As we approach the age of Trump, North American cities are the battlegrounds upon which the struggles for a radical democratic future will be played out, and Alternate Routes has a decisive role to play in this process. As a venue for leftwing academic and community-based analyses of political economy it is enabling not only of greater understanding of the current conjuncture but also of ways of working towards a better world. The contributions to this issue on austerity urbanism and the social economy, by both leading commentators and junior scholars, provide much food for thought on how the left can provide clear and desirable alternatives (surely, our most immediate task) that speak to urban social justice." – Linda Peake, Director, The City Institute, York University.
"Creeping neoliberalism and the (il)logics of austerity are foreclosing opportunities for a more just city. The contributors to this issue of Alternate Routes provide clear-eyed analyses of possible urban futures—a most welcome intervention in these challenging times." - Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago.
"This issue of Alternate Routes offers an extremely valuable set of contributions on widely distinct aspects of the current urban crisis and, closely related, the crisis of neoliberalism from the vantage point of urban problems and relations, and the social struggles associated with them. Most articles focus on case studies in Canada and the USA, as specific instances from which readers can extrapolate forces, tendencies, countertendencies and struggles bearing upon social reproduction in urban spaces under neoliberalism." - Alfredo Saad Filho, SOAS University of London.
“With diverse contributions from scholars across the social sciences, this special issue of Alternate Routes explores the paradox of low- wage work, providing trenchant insights into contemporary social relations of production. Contributors cover a range of interrelated topics from de-unionization and labour market restructuring to increasing precariousness in employment and the individualization of risk. The result is an important intervention into understanding neoliberalism and its effects on late capitalist labour markets, at a time when there is increasing attention to growing inequality and social exclusion. Accessible and theoretically rigorous, the issue promises to be of interest to students and scholars at multiple levels and indeed anyone concerned with resisting low-wage work.” - Leah F. Vosko, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender and Work, York University, and author of Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment.
“For the longest time, the problem of low-wage work went under the radar but it has become a significant emerging policy issue. This edition of Alternate Routes turns to some of the brightest thought leaders on this subject. It is but one of the reasons why Alternate Routes is always a must read." - Trish Hennessy, Director, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Ontario Office.
"This issue of Alternate Routes is impressive for its original research, complexity of analysis and insights into the effectiveness of public policy on precarious work and low wages." - Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Professor Emiritus of Political Science and, Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, Simon Fraser University, and co-editor (with Jane Pulkingham) of Public Policy for Women: The State, Income Security and Labour Market Issues.
"Once again, Alternate Routes has brought together an impressive group of contributors to address a vitally important topic." - Leo Panitch, Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy, York University, and co-author (with Sam Gindin) of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire.
“At a time when there is a dire need to redefine the meaning of politics, ethics, freedom, and economic justice, Alternate Routes is one of the best journals available. Hard hitting, theoretically rigorous, accessible, and committed to both inform and energize, Alternate Routes offers no apologies for working towards a future in which the promise of a radical democracy becomes possible. This is a journal that blasts away commonsense assumptions, offers thoughtful analyses, and is animated by a passion for a new and more just world. Merging the theoretical and everyday life, this is a journal that takes seriously the educative nature of politics and offers up analyses in which thinking otherwise becomes crucial to reclaiming the radical imagination and a critical sense of individual and social agency.” – Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and author of Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, and The Violence of Organized Forgetting
“This volume sheds light on a critical history of the present, revealing the intimate linkages between the degradation of labor, the dismantling of public education and the erosion of democratic participation.” – Michelle Fine, City University of New York, and author of The Changing Landscape of Public Education (with Michael Fabricant)
"Alternate Routes is a superb journal that brings together challenging articles and comment from leading intellectuals both within the university and outside. An invaluable source of ideas and critical analysis for anyone struggling with the major issues of our time." – James L. Turk, former Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and editor of Academic Freedom in Conflict: The Struggle Over Free Speech Rights in the University
“What a treasure trove of searching, illuminating, provocative, stimulating, wonderfully insightful radical social justice and labour oriented analytical writers and articles. A superb source of and resource for the global radical critique of capitalism that is reconstructive as well as deconstructive. Superb!" – Dave Hill, Anglia Ruskin University, and Chief Editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies
“Well-researched analysis of the most critical issues of our times doesn’t have to be dry and pedantic – and this fine journal proves it! Alternate Routes is a committed voice for justice and essential reading for every partisan of progressive social change." – Ian Angus, Editor, Climate & Capitalism
“Alternate Routes has established itself as a vital source of cutting edge analysis and a must read for anyone trying to figure out how capitalism really works. This issue's focus is climate change, among the most written about of all subjects in recent years, but also among the most misunderstood. This collection of articles by the likes of Marjorie Griffin Cohen, John Calvert, Ryan Katz-Rosene to name only a few opens up new lines of research and along with in-depth interviews with Greg Albo, Greg Sharzer, Carla Lipsig-Mumme, John Bellamy Foster and others really breaks new ground. This is solid political economy whose scarcity makes this volume all the more valuable.” – Cy Gonick, publisher Canadian Dimension magazine
"Alternate Routes journal publishes methodologically-sound political economy research that is of interest to labour researchers." – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
"One of the first and longest-lasting responses to the stifling effects of traditional academic journal publication practices in the social sciences." – Research Resources for the Social Sciences
“If you've been searching for a space focused on understanding the world so we can change it - that is, on making the dynamics of global capitalism accessible without compromising on the complexities involved - there's an exciting journal you'll want to pay attention to. Welcome to Alternate Routes.” – Sam Gindin, Former Assistant to the President and Research Director, CAW, Packer Chair at York University, and author of The Canadian Auto Workers and Global Capitalism and American Empire (with Leo Panitch)
"It is heartening to see Alternate Routes appearing again. We need, now more than ever, the insights and critical sense of urgency long associated with Alternate Routes. The current issue, addressing the project of saving capitalist globalization, is particularly timely. The more that publications such as Alternate Routes can do to provide workers and their allies with the tools to analyze capitalism's destructive inner mechanisms the closer we will be to stopping that destruction and building viable and lasting socialist alternatives to it." – Bryan D. Palmer, Canada Research Chair Canadian Studies, Trent University and author of Working-Class Experience, Canada's 1960s, and James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left
"As Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements confront the global capitalist crisis with a long-overdue renewal of debate over capitalism, critical journals like Alternate Routes really come into their own as vital resources for the most urgent current thinking, writing and debating about social change. Alternate Routes explores the why's and how's for contemporary societies to do better by going beyond capitalism." – Richard D. Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His most recent books, coauthored with Stephen Resnick, include: New Departures in Marxian Theory, and Class and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR
"Alternate Routes holds true to its commitment to "critical social research," scholarly yet relevant, and not afraid of moving beyond the constricted parameters of academic orthodoxy." – Michael Parenti, author of The Face of Imperialism, God and His Demons, and The Culture Struggle
"As we move through the fifth year of the global economic crisis, there is an urgent need to develop critical resources for understanding what confronts us in order to change it. Alternate Routes has in just a few years established itself as one of the absolutely crucial forums for radical theory and analysis in the spirit of critical social research. The latest issue, "Great Recession-Proof? Shattering the Myth of Canadian Exceptionalism," serves not only as a great debunking of mainstream myths about Canada's exceptionalism with respect to crisis and austerity; equally important it breaks important new ground in connecting its political-economic analyses to burning issues of aboriginal oppression, climate change, and prospects for 21st century socialism, among others. This issue is not to be missed by anyone genuinely concerned with critical understanding and radical change." – David McNally, Professor of Political Science at York University, and author of Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance, and Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism
"An outstanding issue featuring articles analyzing the impact of the crisis on Canada's political economy, critically exposing elite efforts to stabilize and routinize neoliberalism, and the value of resistance. A series of interviews and interventions of leading left figures, and a valuable book review section make this a 'must read' issue." – Stephen McBride, Canada Research Chair, Public Policy and Globalization, McMaster University, and author of (with Heather Whiteside) Private Affluence, Public Austerity: Economic Crisis and Democratic Malaise in Canada
“The crisis of neo liberal capitalism has prompted an intensification of the neo liberal agenda via the politics of austerity, rather than a coherent left alternative and response. This important collection of papers moves from analysis to prescription and helps set the stage for a badly- needed counter- attack.” – Andrew Jackson, Packer Professor of Social Justice, York University, and author of Work and Labour in Canada: Critical Issues
"Alternate Routes is publishing timely and insightful material that should be read as widely as possible. This is critical scholarship dedicated to making a difference." – Janet Siltanen, Director, Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University and author (with Andrea Doucet) of Gender Relations in Canada: Intersectionality and Beyond
