Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking About Canadian Social Issues

Power and Resistance debunks the dominant neoliberal, hyper-individualist approach to society’s problems that sees poverty as a result of laziness, environmental crises as a result of market demands for products that pollute, and Indigenous Peoples’ struggles as a result of not assimilating. We argue that it is social inequality and oppression that are the underlying causes of social problems. In a society like ours, powerful groups make choices that benefit them and force those choices onto others, creating life problems for others and society as a whole. The powerful also have influence over what is and is not called a “social problem.” Solving social problems requires changing the structures of inequality and oppression. For example, industrial corporate agriculture has created huge profits for a few gigantic food corporations but left much of the world hungry. But farmers and their allies are pushing back through agroecology — an agriculture based on local, small-scale, ecologically sustainable farming that brings eaters and growers closer to one another. The seventh edition of Power and Resistance includes new chapters on anti-Black racism in schools, Indigenous people and mental health, food security and sovereignty, and work in the gig economy.

Jessica Antony (she/her) is a freelance writer, editor and educator. She has a master’s degree in media studies from Concordia University and spent a decade working as a managing editor in the book publishing industry. In addition to writing and editing for clients and authors, she facilitates workshops on a variety of communication topics and teaches a writing course at the University of Winnipeg. She was the co-editor of the sixth edition of Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking About Canadian Social Issues and has written personal essays and articles about body politics, community arts and arts funding for CBC.

Wayne Antony (he/him) is a publisher at Fernwood Publishing. He is a founding member of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives–Manitoba (CCPA-MB) and a board member since its inception in 1997. He has worked with other Winnipeg political activist organizations, the Socialist Education Centre and Thin Ice. Wayne also taught sociology at the University of Winnipeg for eighteen years. He is co-author of three reports on the state of public services in Manitoba (for CCAP-MB) and is co-editor of six editions of Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking About Canadian Social Issues, co-editor of Citizens or Consumers? Social Policy in a Market Society and Capitalism Rebooted? Work and Welfare in the New Economy (both with Dave Broad), and co-editor (with Julie Guard) of Bankruptcies and Bailouts.

Les Samuelson (he/him) is a retired professor of sociology at the University of Saskatchewan. He has an active interest in social justice initiatives, especially at the community level. His research interests included justice reform, especially as it pertains to Indigenous Peoples, as well as international crime, justice and human rights.