Organized Protest

Richard Day

Richard Day, Queen's sociology professor is an expert in organized protest.

Dr. Day says, "In activist communities the usefulness of the G8 summit protest is being questioned for a number of reasons: only the relatively affluent can afford to jet themselves around following world leaders, the police & riot squads have now figured out how to contain previously effective tactics such as Black Bloc, large convergences drain resources from local initiatives that might actually change things a little, for particular people. That said, there's something very empowering and healing about being with a few thousand people who agree with you, who are fighting on the same side as you. It reinvigorates individuals and movements, it trains people to work together in coalitions, non-hierarchically. So the benefits accrue mostly to alternative communities, in ways that are not really relevant to either G8 leaders or those who respond to the advertising of viewpoints."

Call Sarah Withrow at 613-533-3280 to set up an interview with Dr. Day.

Foreign Aid

Susanne Soederberg
Queen’s University's Development Studied professor Susanne Soederberg is a Canada Research Chair on Global Political Economy of Development can speak to issues surrounding foreign debt. She is the author of The Transnational Debt Architecture and Emerging Markets: The Politics and Paradoxes of Domination (London: Zed Books/New York: Palgrave, 2004) and the forthcoming Global Governance in Question: Empire Class, and the New Common Sense in Managing Globalization (London: Pluto Books and Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). She is best accessed via email.

Susanne.soederberg@queensu.ca
613.533-6000 ext. 78391

African Development

Allison Goebel

Dr. Allison Goebel is a Queen's National Scholar who says the G8 should support the New Partnership for African Development to constructively engage African regimes (even corrupt ones) on African terms. Jointly appointed to Women's Studies and Environmental Studies, Dr. Goebel's book Gender and Land Reform: The Zimbabwe Experience was published this year, and she has just returned from South Africa where she is part of a team studying urban ecosystems and human health, focusing on the poorly serviced and still-racialized neighbourhoods of South African cities.

goebela@post.queensu.ca
613.533-6000 ext. 77660

For more information or to arrange an interview call Sarah Withrow 613.533-3280 or Therese Greenwood 613.533-6907.

Attention broadcasters: Queen's now has facilities to provide broadcast quality audio and video feeds. For television interviews, we can provide a live, real-time double ender from Kingston fibre optic cable and broadcast quality radio transmissions from our on-campus studio. Please call for details.