Principles and Policy Positions
‘No one is free unless we are all free’
We do not believe in the privatization of socially important goods and services e.g. education, health care, utilities, transportation, public infrastructure, military, housing, social services.
What we do believe in:
· The supremacy of community decision making over corporate governance
· Free and equal public education at all levels and the nationalization of all private educational institutions
· No corporate governance/involvement in news media and the creation of an independent public foundation with tax funds to finance free and independent journalism
· All laws providing full and equal treatment to all individuals and groups regardless of any and all characteristics
· Sustainable development and the use of renewable resources for the protection of the environment
· Family planning and a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions with the availability of the required services
· Zero tolerance policies for conflicts of interests for government positions at all levels
· Zero political patronage positions at all levels of government
· Zero corporate involvement in the political process at all levels
· Direct Political and Economic Democracy
· Free not for profit universal quality comprehensive health care as a human right
· A minimum living/family wage and job security laws
· Fair Trade
· Guaranteed universal quality housing
· No taxation of any kind on a primary residence
· Direct action to foster meaningful change and social justice
In order to achieve these goals TSI believes we must change how people perceive the world around them in order to foster fundamental and thus meaningful change. This requires objective information and a process of transformative learning. Transformative learning goes beyond the mere acquisition of factual knowledge. It seeks to positively impact participants by empowering them with skills that develop their awareness and initiative and to also help them create meaningful learning in their lives. It involves questioning assumptions, beliefs, and values, as well as considering multiple viewpoints. Transformative learning inspires action for change by questioning and challenging what is valued. It emerged from such theoretical models as Jack Mezirow’s perspective transformation, which was influenced in turn by Paulo Freire’s conscientization, a process by which people "achieve a deepening awareness of both the sociocultural reality which shapes their lives and… [develop] their capacity to transform that reality through action upon it". Additional influences include Robert Merton’s theory of the middle range, and Juergen Habermas’ emancipatory action.
TSI is proud to include SSF and its mission statement as our partners in the pursuit of global transformation and social justice:
Sociologists without Borders/Socíologos Sin Fronteras (SSF) was founded in Spain in 2001, and in the United States in 2002, as a transnational association of sociologists and other social scientists who are committed to the principle that all people have equal rights to self-determination, to socioeconomic security, to their own culture, and to their own personality. SSF also promotes the idea that collective goods, including a sustainable environment, must be protected from market forces.
These principles call into question the legitimacy of passive forms of democracy and challenge the western neoliberal ideology that subordinates peoples, communities, and societies to global markets, transnational corporations, and financiers. Sociologists without Borders is opposed to militarism, opposed to states that oppress their citizens, and condemns racism and violence against women. In these ways, SSF is “partisan,” that is, partisan in favor of human rights, participatory democracy, equitable economies, peace, and sustainable ecosystems. SSF is thus perfectly in synch with public sociology that advocates that sociologists be engaged, committed, reflective and critical. Besides SSF-US, there are chapters in Brazil, Chile, Iran, Canada, and Spain. SSF has an affiliated journal, Societies without Borders: Human Rights & the Social Sciences.
SSF-US has nearly 900 members, with about half from other countries, especially countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. This allows SSF to be a global platform for critiquing liberal, western sociology, with its capitalist biases, and to nurture indigenous sociologies to promote a more pluralistic global sociology.
http://sociologistswithoutborders.org/
