Randall Amster

In 2001, Amster was hired to teach Peace Studies at Prescott College in Arizona, where he worked as a faculty member and program chair until June 2013.{{cite web|url=http://www.prescott.edu/connect/faculty/index.php?viewID=377 |title=Faculty Profiles |publisher=Prescott College |accessdate=2011-08-20}} In 2008, he began serving as the Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).{{cite web|url=http://www.peacejusticestudies.org |title=Peace and Justice Studies Association |publisher=peacejusticestudies.org |date=14 October 2008 |accessdate=2010-01-14}} He is the editor of the association’s newsletter, The Peace Chronicle,{{cite web|url=http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/resources/publications.php |title=The Peace Chronicle |publisher=PJSA |accessdate=2010-01-20}} among other duties. Amster also serves on the editorial advisory boards for academic journals including the Contemporary Justice Review,{{cite web|url=http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10282580.asp |title=Contemporary Justice Review |publisher=tandf.co.uk |accessdate=2010-01-20}} the Journal of Sustainability Education,{{cite web|url=http://www.journalofsustainabilityeducation.org/ |title=Journal of Sustainability Education |publisher=journalofsustainabilityeducation.org |accessdate=2010-01-20}} and the Asian Journal of Peacebuilding,{{cite web|url=http://www.apisa.org/journals/AJP.pdf |title=Asian Journal of Peacebuilding |publisher=apisa.org |accessdate=2013-08-29}} In August 2013, Amster became the director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, where he presently teaches.{{cite web|url=http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/rja52/?action=viewgeneral&PageTemplateID=360 |title=Faculty Profile |publisher=Georgetown University |accessdate=2013-08-29}}

During his time at Arizona State University, Amster was engaged in a number of well-reported and controversial activist endeavors. He led an effort to overturn an ordinance making it a criminal offense to sit on the local sidewalks, arguing the case before a federal judge and winning an injunction against enforcement of the law before it was overturned on appeal.{{cite web|url=http://openjurist.org/248/f3d/1198/randall-amster-v-city-of-tempe |title=248 F3d 1198 Randall Amster v. City of Tempe |publisher=Open Jurist |accessdate=2010-01-14}}

Amster organized "sit-in" demonstrations against the ordinance, which he argued was aimed primarily at the local homeless population. He also helped to spearhead a successful campaign to preserve one of the last remaining open spaces in downtown Tempe, Arizona. These efforts resulted in a number of articles, editorials, and interviews about his work – including an extensive Phoenix New Times portrayal in 2000{{cite web|url=http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-05-11/news/anarchy-how/ |title=Phoenix News - Anarchy How? - page 1 |publisher=Phoenix New Times |date=11 May 2000 |accessdate=2010-01-14}} and also formed the basis for his doctoral dissertation, which subsequently yielded two books on these themes of public space and nonviolence.

He was featured in Jeff Ferrell's 2001 book Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy as a practitioner of nonviolent "anarchist direct action" in the effort to "reclaim public space" in downtown Tempe.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_d6i9 |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_d6i9/page/51 51] |title=Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |accessdate=2010-01-20|isbn=9780312233358 |date=2001-12-07 }}

Amster, a critic of military adventurism and an interventionist foreign policy,{{Cite web | url=http://www.newclearvision.com/2011/04/06/looking-for-mr-goodwar/ | title=Looking for Mr. Goodwar?| date=2011-04-06}} has been a vocal opponent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inception;{{cite web|url=http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=53453&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=21 |title=The Daily Courier - Peace Pole embodies hopes of end to war |publisher=Dcourier.com |date=11 March 2008 |accessdate=2010-01-21}} he was part of a local group engaging in civil disobedience when the Iraq War began in March 2003, resulting in a trial later that year during which he acted as lead attorney for the group as they invoked a "necessity defense" in light of their assertion of the war's illegality under international law.{{cite web|url=http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=25400&SectionID=35&SubSectionID=70&S=1 |title=The Daily Courier - War protesters' trial begins |publisher=Dcourier.com |date=11 December 2003 |accessdate=2010-01-14}}

He engaged in grassroots relief efforts in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, working with Food Not Bombs and local collectives in the region.{{cite web|url=http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/189069.fuer-die-noetige-infrastruktur-selbst-gesorgt.html |title=Für die nötige Infrastruktur selbst gesorgt |publisher=neues-deutschland.de |accessdate=2011-01-23}} Amster has worked with the Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona, and was part of a group that supported founder Bill Rodgers during the course of his arrest, prosecution, and eventual death in jail in December 2005 on charges of ecoterrorist arson attacks.{{cite web|url=http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=38126&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=41 |title=The Daily Courier - Prosecutors: Peaceful persona hides arsonist |publisher=Dcourier.com |date=17 December 2005 |accessdate=2010-01-14}}

From 2005 to 2007, Amster was part of a legal observer initiative on the U.S.-Mexico border that monitored the activities of the Minuteman Project.{{cite web|url=http://prescottdailycourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=35392&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=1 |title=The Daily Courier - Prescott students keep wary eyes on the Minuteman Project |publisher=Dcourier.com |accessdate=2010-05-23}}{{cite web|url=http://prescottdailycourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=38295&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=1 |title=The Daily Courier - Local man spends time with Minutemen on the border |publisher=Dcourier.com |accessdate=2010-05-23}} In 2008, he received an award for Entertainment Program of the Year for hosting and producing a local television program on politics and culture, The Artist's Mind.{{cite web|url=http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=51767&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=41 |title=The Daily Courier - Cable producers take the spotlight at awards show |publisher=Dcourier.com |accessdate=2010-01-21}}

Following the passage of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070 in April 2010, Amster began to refocus his activism. He authored a series of articles on Arizona,See: {{cite web|url=http://www.facebook.com/amster.randall#!/notes/randall-amster/the-arizona-connection-a-living-history/137285632969994 |title=The Arizona Connection: A Living History |publisher=facebook.com |accessdate=2010-08-01}} and helped spearhead an initiative that brought together more than a dozen academic and professional associations in issuing a joint statement condemning SB 1070 and related state policies.{{cite web|url=http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/resources/blogcomments.php?qwerty=80 |title=PJSA Blog - Joint Statement Against SB 1070 |publisher=peacejusticestudies.org |accessdate=2010-05-23}} After a federal judge blocked parts of SB 1070 from taking effect in July 2010, Amster's editorial on the ruling was excerpted by USA Today. His editorial argued that "there is a sense of vindication and relief on the part of many who have been working for justice in regard to immigration issues."{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-07-30-column30_ST3_N.htm |title=Arizona Judge Rules. What Next? |publisher=usatoday.com |accessdate=2010-08-13 |date=July 29, 2010}} In the ensuing months, he continued to write on related topics.{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-amster/arizona-bans-ethnic-studi_b_802318.html |title=Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With It, Reason and Justice |publisher=huffingtonpost.com |accessdate=2011-05-04 |first=Randall |last=Amster |date=December 31, 2010}}

Amster's writing covers a range of topics and themes. His work on homelessness and public spaces have resulted in two books, including Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008), which was called "a savvy look into local and global processes of neoliberalization, particularly as it transforms what it means to be a citizen" in a 2011 review appearing in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.{{cite journal|title=Book Review, Lost in Space | doi=10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00933_2.x |volume=43 | issue=5 |journal=Antipode |pages=1942–1946|year = 2011|last1 = Harmon|first1 = Abbilyn|doi-access=free }} An earlier co-edited volume, with Pat Lauderdale, focusing on issues of injustice and inequality, was published in 1997. A later co-edited work, with Elavie Ndura, focused on the theme of "building cultures of peace," and was released by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2009. Amster was also part of the editorial collective that produced Contemporary Anarchist Studies, published by Routledge in 2009 and recipient of the Critics Choice Award that year for "recent scholarship deemed to be outstanding in its field" by the American Educational Studies Association.{{cite web|url=http://www.educationalstudies.org/awards.html |title=American Educational Studies Association, 2009 Critics Choice Award |publisher=educationalstudies.org |accessdate=2010-11-04}} The sole-authored book Anarchism Today was published by Praeger in 2012 and was described by the Philadelphia City Paper as "a much-needed contemporary read."Philadelphia City Paper review.

Amster is also the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on various subjects.{{cite web|url=http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/archive/vol9no1.html |title=Chasing Rainbows? Utopian Pragmatics and the Search for Anarchist Communities |publisher=Anarchist Studies |accessdate=2010-02-09}} social movements, critical pedagogy, eco-terrorism, border issues, post-Katrina New Orleans, and Peace Ecology.{{cite web|url=http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-1329-7-sample.pdf |title=Building Cultures of Peace |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 |accessdate=2010-01-20}}; {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQu71ZuN40g |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211220/nQu71ZuN40g |archive-date=2021-12-20 |url-status=live|title=Peace Ecology as a Pathway to Security |date=26 November 2010 |publisher=youtube.com |accessdate=2011-04-30}}{{cbignore}} In addition, he is a frequent blogger and op-ed columnist, writing on similar themes in venues including online media such as The Huffington Post{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-amster |title=Author: Randall Amster |publisher=huffingtonpost.com |accessdate=2010-11-03}} Amster's work continues to focus on social and ecological issues.{{cite web|url=http://www.facebook.com/notes/metta-center-for-nonviolence-education/anarchism-and-nonviolence-exploring-common-ground/360373834769 |title=Anarchism & Nonviolence |publisher=Metta Center for Nonviolence Education |accessdate=2010-04-25}}{{cite web|url=http://www.salsa.net/peace/water/schedule.html |title=Water Symposium |publisher=Salsa.net |accessdate=2010-01-20}}{{cite web|url=http://www.indypendent.org/2010/05/12/arizona-heats-up/ |title=Arizona Heats Up National Immigration Debate |publisher=indypendent.org |accessdate=2010-05-12}}{{cite web|url=http://borderzine.com/2010/04/the-invisible-tragedy-of-homelessness/ |title=The Invisible Tragedy of Homelessness |publisher=Borderzine.com |accessdate=2010-04-24|date=2010-04-13 }}

Amster launched an initiative in January 2011 called "New Clear Vision" (NCV), a website where Amster serves as a Contributing Editor, and includes Devon G. Pena, Jay Walljasper, Pat LaMarche, David Swanson, Diane Lefer, and Robert C. Koehler among its regular contributors.{{cite web|url=http://www.newclearvision.com/contributors/ |title=NCV Contributors |publisher=newclearvision.com |accessdate=2011-01-10}} The site's stated intention is "to advance a multiplicity of views on what people are standing for, rather than merely highlighting what they’re against," and seeks to foster "a constructive take on politics, ecology, economy, community, family, culture, and current events."{{cite web|url=http://www.newclearvision.com/about/ |title=About NCV |publisher=newclearvision.com |accessdate=2011-01-10}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{citation |last1=Lauderdale |first1=Pat |year=1997 |title=Lives in the balance: Perspectives on global injustice and inequality |last2=Amster |first2=Randall |publisher=Leiden |series=International studies in sociology and social anthropology, v. 66 |isbn=978-90-04-10875-2 |oclc=36746461 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2004 |title=Street people and the contested realms of public space |publisher=LFB Scholarly Pub |series=Criminal justice (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC) |isbn=978-1-59332-066-9 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2008 |title=Lost in space: The criminalization, globalization, and urban ecology of homelessness |publisher=LFB Scholarly Publishing |isbn=978-1-59332-297-7 |oclc=221150739 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall|year=2009 |title=Contemporary anarchist studies: An introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-203-89173-5 |display-authors=etal|oclc=239236182}}
• {{citation |last1=Ndura-Ouédraogo |first1=Elavie |year=2009 |title=Building cultures of peace: Transdisciplinary voices of hope and action |last2=Amster |first2=Randall |publisher=Cambridge Scholars |isbn=978-1-4438-1329-7 |oclc=435734902 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2012 |title=Anarchism today |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-0-313-39872-8 |oclc=745980493 }}
• {{citation |last1=Valado |first1=Trenna |year=2012 |title=Professional lives, personal struggles: Ethics and advocacy in research on homelessness |last2=Amster |first2=Randall |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-739-17428-9 |oclc=785874881 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/professionallive0000unse }}
• {{citation |last1=Amster |first1=Randall |year=2013 |title=Exploring the power of nonviolence: Peace, politics, and practice |last2=Ndura |first2=Elavie |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-815-63344-0 |oclc=872675972 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2014 |title=Peace ecology |publisher=Paradigm |isbn=978-1-612-05297-7 |oclc=861068931 }}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{citation |last1=Lauderdale |first1=P |year=1997 |title=Critical Perspectives on Justice: The Persistence of Global Injustice and Inequality |last2=Amster |first2=R |journal=International Journal of Comparative Sociology |pages=1–5 |volume=38|issue=1 |issn=0020-7152 |oclc=198749555|url=https://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000485375 |doi=10.1177/002071529703800101|s2cid=220899913 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2002 |title=Anarchist Pedagogies for Peace |journal=Peace Review |pages=433–439 |volume=14|issue=4 |doi=10.1080/1040265022000039222|s2cid=145787263 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2003 |title=Patterns of Exclusion: Sanitizing Space, Criminalizing Homelessness |journal=Social Justice |page=195 |volume=30|issue=1 |issn=1043-1578 |oclc=96219391|url=https://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LYSS9ZKkYtG4XVhZhWQjTf6nnQkpnncLZnNFnLkYCCFsTnRQD76y!-1404068679!-508003271?docId=5002002110}}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=R |year=2003 |title=Restoring (Dis)Order: Sanctions, Resolutions, and "Social Control" in Anarchist Communities |journal=Contemporary Justice Review |pages=9–24 |volume=6|issue=1 |doi=10.1080/1028258032000055612|s2cid=145108567 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2006 |title=Perspectives on Ecoterrorism: Catalysts, Conflations, and Casualties |journal=Contemporary Justice Review |pages=287–301 |volume=9|issue=3|doi=10.1080/10282580600827991|s2cid=144582327 }}
• {{citation |last1=Starr |first1=Amory |year=2008 |title=The Impacts of State Surveillance on Political Assembly and Association: A Socio-Legal Analysis |last2=Fernandez |first2=Luis |last3=Amster |first3=Randall |last4=Wood |first4=Lesley |journal=Qualitative Sociology |pages=251–270 |volume=31|issue=3|doi=10.1007/s11133-008-9107-z|s2cid=145385477 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2009 |title=Repeal NAFTA, Adopt LAFTA |journal=Peace Review |pages=448–454 |volume=20|issue=4 |doi=10.1080/10402650802495049|s2cid=145648497 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2012 |title=Just, in Time: Cultivating the Long Arc of Justice |journal=Contemporary Justice Review |pages=1–6 |volume=15|issue=2|doi=10.1080/10282580.2012.681163|s2cid=143565318 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2013 |title=Toward a Climate of Peace |journal=Peace Review |pages=473–479 |volume=25|issue=4 |doi=10.1080/10402659.2013.846129|s2cid=144044412 }}
• {{citation |last=Amster |first=Randall |year=2014 |title=Teaching to the Test: Climate Change, Perpetual War, and the Pedagogy of Hopefulness |journal=Journal of Peace Education |pages=267–278 |volume=11|issue=3 |doi=10.1080/17400201.2014.954362|s2cid=143722964 }}

;Reviews

• [http://www.newformulation.org/2amster.htm Review: Globalization and Its Discontents] The New Formulation, Volume 2, Issue 1, February 2003
• [http://www.newformulation.org/4Amster.htm Review: Breaking the Law: Anti-authoritarian Visions of Crime and Justice] The New Formulation, Volume 2, Issue 2, Winter-Spring 2004
• [https://archive.today/20130415130830/http://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/51/1/157 Review: Less Than Two Dollars a Day: A Christian View of World Poverty and the Free Market] Journal of Church and State, Volume 51, Issue 1, pages 157-9, 2009
• Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-globalization Movement Contemporary Justice Review, Volume 13, Issue 4, pages 487-9, 2010
• [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/shofar/v029/29.3.amster.html Review: A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement] Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Volume 29, Issue 3, pages 175-7, 2011
• [http://www.zcommunications.org/toward-climate-justice-by-randall-amster Review: Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change] Z Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 5, May 2011.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Amster, Randall}}

Category:1965 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American journalists

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:Activists from New York (state)

Category:American anarchists

Category:American anti-war activists

Category:American freelance journalists

Category:American male journalists

Category:American political journalists

Category:Anarchist theorists

Category:Arizona State University alumni

Category:Brooklyn Law School alumni

Category:American homelessness activists

Category:Journalists from New York City

Category:American nonviolence advocates

Category:Prescott College

Category:University of Rochester alumni

Category:Writers from Brooklyn