The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Global Justice Movement

PETER N. FUNKE

University of South Florida, USA

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs007

The Global Justice Movement (GJM) is an umbrella term for the diverse and amorphous set of associated and loosely networked organizations, groups, and movements – mostly from the political left – including anti-war, labor, environmental, feminist, peasant, indigenous, and student groups, that oppose corporate globalization and neoliberal capitalism, imperialism and war. The GJM arguably peaked around the turn of the twenty-first century, with massive international mobilizations and protests as well as the launching of the dynamic, yet chaotic, World Social Forum (in 2001), spurring local, national, and regional social forums across the globe. The more recent 2011 “Arab Spring,” however, along with the Occupy Wall Street protests and ongoing anti-austerity protests, can be regarded as outgrowths of the GJM's cycle of protest.

The GJM is distinguishable from a rightwing critique of globalization that emphasizes the importance of parochial national identities, interests, and nation-centered alternatives. The plethora of social movement organizations, networks, and groups that make up the GJM, on the other hand, oppose the particular neoliberal, market-driven type of globalization and the subsequent expansion of corporate and financial power. Extremely diverse in terms of issues, strategies, and goals, the GJM advocates and fights for “greater equality, dignity, democracy, devolution ...