The Liverpool Social Forum (LSF) is a fortnightly meeting held in Liverpool, England. It is influenced by the alter-globalisation principles of the European Social Forum (ESF), and a number of Liverpudlians attended the 2004 ESF in London.
In 2005, one focus of activity was preparations for the G8 summit in Scotland. Since 2006, activists have been working towards establishing a social centre in Liverpool city centre, which officially opened on 15 September 2007. [1]
The LSF works collectively and non-hierarchically - no one person or group is in charge. Broadly, participants share a desire to create and live out a fair, peaceful world, free of oppression, where people are more important than profit.
At meetings, Merseyside activists share ideas, skills and resources, while organising events and actions. The agenda is compiled at the start of each meeting, and is open to all.
A weekly vegan cafe is held on a Saturday staffed by members of the collective who sign up and plan the menu autonomously. Much of the meals that are prepared come from ingredients donated by local independent stores.
The Independent Media Center is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings in London and Sydney during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital, the first Indymedia Media Center was founded to report on the protests against the World Trade Organisational Ministerial Conference in Seattle. Indymedia became closely associated with the global justice movement, which criticized neo-liberalism and its associated institutions.
The Group of Eight (G8) was an inter-governmental political forum from 1997 until 2014. It had formed from incorporating the country of Russia into the Group of Seven, or G7, and returned to its previous name after Russia was removed in 2014.
The WOMBLES were a loosely aligned anarchist and anti-capitalist group based in London. They gained prominence in the early 2000s for wearing white overalls with padding and helmets at May Day protests, mimicking the Italian group Tute Bianche.
The 27th G8 summit was held in Genoa, Italy, on 20–22 July 2001 and is remembered as the peak of the worldwide anti-globalization movement as well as for human rights crimes against demonstrators.
The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement. In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries. The conference was last held in 2010. It aims to allow social movements, trade unions, NGOs, refugees, peace and anti-imperial groups, anti-racist movements, environmental movements, networks of the excluded and community campaigns from Europe and the world to come together and discuss themes linked to major European and global issues, in order to coordinate campaigns, share ideas and refine organizing strategies. It emerged from the World Social Forum and follows its Charter of Principles.
The 31st G8 summit was held on 6–8 July 2005 at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland and hosted by Prime Minister Tony Blair. The locations of previous G8 summits to have been hosted by the UK include: London ; and Birmingham (1998). It is the first G8 summit to be held in Scotland. A sixth UK summit was held in Lough Erne in 2013; and a seventh UK summit was held in Carbis Bay in 2021.
The 29th G8 summit was held in Évian-les-Bains, France, on June 1–3, 2003. As is usual for G8 summits, there were a range of protests.
The Mischief Makers are a group of activists and artists based in Nottingham, UK, who formed early 2005 as a creative response to the G8 Summit, held at Gleneagles Hotel, Scotland, in July that year. The collective uses creativity to support community, environmental and social justice campaigns, and activist groups. The group's aim is "to inspire people and empower them to identify challenges and take action in their local environment".
The 32nd G8 summit was held on 15–17 July 2006 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The venue was the Constantine Palace, which is located in Strelna on the Gulf of Finland. This was the first time Russia served as host nation for a G8 summit; and the nation's status as a full member of the G8 was confirmed.
The Really Really Free Market (RRFM) movement is a horizontally organized collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy. RRFM events are often hosted by people unaffiliated with any large organization and are encouraged to sprout up by anyone, anytime, anywhere. The RRFM movement aims to counteract capitalism in a proactive way by creating a positive example to challenge the questioned myths of scarcity and competition. The name Really Really Free Market is itself a play on words as it is a reinterpretation and re-envisioning of the term free market, which generally refers to an economy of competition governed by supply and demand. The RRFM holds as a major goal to build a community based on sharing resources, caring for one another and improving the collective lives of all. Markets often vary in character, but they generally offer both goods and services. A RRFM usually takes place in an open community space such as a public park or community commons.
rampART was a squatted social centre in the Whitechapel area of east London. It was established in a derelict building in Rampart Street which was previously used as an Islamic school for girls. The centre operated as a private members club providing a space for a wide range of groups to carry out their activities. It was managed by volunteers without any funding and with a strong emphasis on consensus decision making and DIY culture.
The Indypendent is a progressive newspaper based in Brooklyn, New York. It is published monthly, distributed worldwide and is available for free throughout New York City and online. It currently prints 30,000 copies per issue, covering local, national and international news, food, cinema and culture. Reader donations comprise the bulk of The Indypendent's funding.
The 34th G8 summit was held in the town of Tōyako, Hokkaido, Japan, on July 7–9, 2008. The locations of previous summits hosted by Japan include Tokyo and Nago, Okinawa (2000). The G8 Summit has evolved beyond being a gathering of world political leaders to become an occasion for a wide variety of non-governmental organizations, activists and civic groups to congregate and discuss a multitude of issues.
The Matilda Centre was a self-managed, grassroots social and community centre based at 111 Matilda Street in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The centre took the name of the street on which the building can still be found. It was housed in the derelict Sydney Works building and collectives ran a variety of projects, including a café, free shop and concert venue. It was evicted in June 2006.
The Mutiny Collective is an anarchist collective in Sydney, Australia made notorious in the media after the 2006 G20 summit meeting in Melbourne in November 2006, when protest organiser Marcus Greville accused Mutiny and the Arterial Bloc of being responsible for the confrontations with police. In the lead up to the APEC Australia 2007 meeting in Sydney in September, New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell accused Mutiny of preparing a training manual in violence and used this as justification for the strong security presence at APEC.
1984 Network Liberty Alliance is a loose group of software programmers, artists, social activists and militants, interested in computers and networks and considering them tools to empower and link the various actors of the social movement around the world. They are part of the hacktivism movement.
The 35th G8 summit was held in L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, on 8–10 July 2009. It was originally to be held at Sardinian seaside city of La Maddalena, but it was moved to L'Aquila as part of an attempt to redistribute disaster funds after the devastating earthquake.
The World Social Forum is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemonic globalization.
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or movement against neoliberal globalization. There are many definitions of anti-globalization.
Global Goals Week is a shared commitment between a coalition of over 130 partners across all industries, which mobilizes annually in September to bring together communities, demand urgency, and supercharge solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was founded in 2016 by the United Nations Foundation, Project Everyone, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It is timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly "High-level Week" in New York. The week includes events, summits, conferences, forums, workshops, pledges, and other activations in New York, around the world, and online. It usually runs alongside Climate Week NYC, the annual conference of Goalkeepers, Bloomberg Global Business Forum and many other high-level events.