Theorizing Sustained Solidarity: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement in Toronto
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This dissertation seeks to understand the multiscalar dynamics that led to the fragmentation of the once relatively unified Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Toronto. The dissertation analyzes the interplay between endogenous and exogenous factors shaping the trajectory of the BDS movement in Toronto. These dynamics are informed by ontological (political imaginaries), temporal (intergenerational), institutional (community institutions), and agonistic (counter-movements) logics. Locating this project within an analysis of settler colonialism allow us to understand the particular contexts that shape solidarity. Both Israel and Canada share similar logics of settler colonialism that eliminate and/or racialize the native populations, and deploy various interconnected tools to keep the silencing dissident voices. The research is an activist-research, in which I employed triangulation as a methodological strategy, by combining in-depth interviews, archival work, and participant observation. \nDeploying Bourdieus theory of practice and its concepts of field, habitus, and capital, this dissertation contributes to theorize the multilayered and multiscalar variables that shape transnational movements. These dynamics are manifested in distinct political imaginaries oscillate between reviving the anti-colonial Third World Internationalism or adopting a pragmatic rights-based approach; collaborating with others with converging political projects versus avoiding those with diverging political visions; (un)intentionally reproducing colonial formations or attempting to decolonize. \nThe dissertation also integrates a temporal analysis that accounts for the variations of the political contexts, the birth of the War on Terror generation after 9/11, and the resurge in the demonization of the Arab, Muslim, and other people of color. Through an intergenerational lens, and by incorporating Mbembes entangled temporality, the dissertation challenges the assumed total rupture created by transformative events that are associated with the formation of new political generations, and illuminates the internalized values and ideas that the War on Terror generation inherited from the previous generations, thereby contesting the reified boundaries that activists themselves have build between generations. \nThe continuity of the solidarity with the BDS is contingent on its ability to confront, adapt, and strategize against the multilayered and relatively unified Zionist counter-movements both in Toronto and transnationally. Moreover, the dissertation discusses the paradox facing social movements between institutionalization and grassrootedness.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.020 | 0.033 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".