Urban Protest in Oil-age Niger: Towards a Notion of ‘Contentious Assemblages’

Sociologus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannik Schritt
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Oil Refinery ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Political Machines ◽  
Urban Riots ◽  
Urban Protest ◽  
Affective Dimensions

Abstract The opening of the first oil refinery in Niger at the end of November 2011 spurred protests and violent clashes between youths and police. These protests turned into urban riots in the days following. In this extended case study, I analyse the processual, performative and affective dimensions of the protests and discuss urban protest and contentious politics in Niger against the backdrop of political machines, a hybrid civil society, the dynamics of intersectionality, and the role of ordering technologies. I argue that influential theories of social movements tend to overlook the heterogeneity, contingency and relational processuality of protest movements, and that taken together, these elements are rather best understood using the holistic notion of ‘contentious assemblages’. Keywords: Collective action, social movements, contentious politics, protest, assemblage, affect, oil, Niger

Collective Memory and Social Movements: Football Sites of Memory in Supporters’ Activism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Dino Numerato ◽  
Arnošt Svoboda
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
European Level ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
The Czech Republic

This paper examines the role of collective memory in the protection of “traditional” sociocultural and symbolic aspects of football vis-à-vis the processes of commodification and globalization. Empirical evidence that underpins the analysis is drawn from a multisite ethnographic study of football fan activism in the Czech Republic, Italy, and England, as well as at the European level. The authors argue that collective memory represents a significant component of the supporters’ mobilization and is related to the protection of specific football sites of memory, including club names, logos, colors, places, heroes, tragedies, and histories. The authors further explain that collective memory operates through three interconnected dimensions: embedded collective memory, transcendent collective memory, and the collective memory of contentious politics.

scholarly journals Scaling Social Movements Through Social Media: The Case of Black Lives Matter

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630511880791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Mundt ◽  
Karen Ross ◽  
Charla M Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Careful Management

In this article, we explore the potential role of social media in helping movements expand and/or strengthen themselves internally, processes we refer to as scaling up. Drawing on a case study of Black Lives Matter (BLM) that includes both analysis of public social media accounts and interviews with BLM groups, we highlight possibilities created by social media for building connections, mobilizing participants and tangible resources, coalition building, and amplifying alternative narratives. We also discuss challenges and risks associated with using social media as a platform for scaling up. Our analysis suggests that while benefits of social media use outweigh its risks, careful management of online media platforms is necessary to mitigate concrete, physical risks that social media can create for activists.

scholarly journals Batman, Pandaman and the Blind Man: A Case Study in Social Change Memes and Internet Censorship in China

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
An Xiao Mina
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Community Expression

While the internet has been examined as a utilitarian space for social movements, it also acts as a cultural space for personal and community expression about important social issues. While examining the particularities of the memetic form – often catchy humor, simple imagery, and remixing – the author examines meme culture as a vehicle for political and social critique in the context of China’s stringent web censorship and propaganda. She looks at social change memes that have arisen around internet censorship and in support of the blind lawyer activist Chen Guangcheng. First, she considers these memes as visual and creative practices that sidestep the mechanics of internet censorship in China. She then argues for the role of internet memes in challenging hegemonic media environments, and maintains that these actions should be considered important political acts in and of themselves.

Space in a Social Movement: A Case Study of Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Wang ◽  
Yu Ye ◽  
Chris King-chi Chan
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Occupy Central

Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, the organizers occupied and reconfigured the campuses and mobilized the participants both through and in space. We find that the campus space helped stimulate the feelings and emotions of the students and increased their enthusiasm to participate in the demonstration. The participants were then sent from the campuses (mobilization spaces) to the demonstration spaces where they occupied and transformed the urban public spaces into private spaces, thus leading to contention over and of space with the state powers. Our findings reveal that the campus space is an important resource that organizers can use for mobilization. We also find that the special features of a campus, including aggregation, networks, isolation, and homogeneity, can facilitate the formation of social movements. We argue that the three attributes of space interact with one another in facilitating the social movement. Thus, our findings suggest that space acts as not only the vessel of struggle but also a useful tool and a target of struggle.

Coloring social change: Humor, politics, and social movements

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-511
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Takovski
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
On Line ◽  
Present Case Study

AbstractAs many social movements demonstrate, humor can serve as an important resource to resist oppression, fight social injustice and bring social change. Existing research has focused on humor’s role within social movements and its positive effects on the free expression of criticism, reduction of fear, communication, mobilization of participants and so on. However, the current literature on the activist use of humor also expresses some reservations about its political efficacy. While humor may steam off the energy necessary to counteract oppression and injustice, other tools of achieving the same political ends have been successfully deployed, primarily social media. Building upon this research, the present case study explores the 2016 Macedonian social movement called the Colorful Revolution. In particular, through the analysis of social media and activists’ reflection on the political use of humor, this case study examines how on-line humor contributed to the emergence and development of the movement. Factoring in activists’ opinions on the role of humor in society and especially in movements, while also paying attention to the role of social media, this case study tends to re-interpret the role of humor in the totality of the actions and circumstances underpinning the development of a social movement.

scholarly journals The coup that flopped: Facebook as a platform for emotional protest

First Monday ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Švelch ◽  
Václav Štětka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Movement Mobilization

This paper develops the idea that recent “networked” social movements are driven by emotions and provides an analysis of the role of emotions in movement mobilization. The case study focuses on the 2013 protests against a “coup” within the Czech Social Democratic Party. The protests had an immediate impact, resulting in a series of demonstrations, mainstream media attention and a successful overturning of the “coup”. The movement’s Facebook page served as an important catalyst for the protest. We argue that the movement’s success can be explained by its emphasis on perceived issues of morality. As people tend to gather on Facebook to express their feelings, social media become a primary conduit for emotional protest, which can be subsequently taken to the streets.

International Law and Human Rights: Diverging and Converging Histories

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean H. Quataert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
International Law ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Non Linear

AbstractThis article explores ways to think about the historical intersections of international law and human rights visions and principles in a global context. It catalogues an intertwining of new historiographies, notably the recent convergence of research interests of historians and international lawyers that draws attention to non-linear analyses; the role of social movements in understanding developments in the law; and the importance of historical contexts for interpretation. It sketches one promising analytical framework to assess the dynamic interconnections of international law and human rights from the mid-nineteenth century through the formal creation of the human rights system under U.N. auspices between 1945 and 1949. It concludes with a case study of gender tensions in more recent human rights global politics to provide historically-specific examples of the new possibilities of bringing historical interpretations to the study of international law and human rights.

scholarly journals Resistance and the Radical Imagination: A Reflection on the Role of the Critical Criminologist in Social Movements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Naegler
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Intellectual Leadership

AbstractAt times of global unrest and the emergence of a wide range of protest movements, recent intra-disciplinary criminological debates on the potentials and limits of resistance suggest a paradoxical trend. Critical criminologists—in particular, those associated with the ultra-realist perspective—have become increasingly skeptical of the idea of “resistance,” itself. In the context of these discussions, scholars have resorted to dismissing oppositional activities—including social movements and their different forms of protest—that are both intended and recognized as resistance. In my contribution to this debate, and in response to Jeff Ferrell’s (2019) article, “In Defense of Resistance,” I provide a critical reflection on the analysis of social movements in both ultra-realist and cultural criminological scholarship. Drawing from my ethnographic research with the (post-)Occupy movement in the United States, I argue that the dismissive reading of social movements’ resistance and the calls for stronger political leadership are the result of a narrow analytical lens applied to movements, their temporalities, and their historical context(s). In addition, I contend that the harsh criticism of social movements by ultra-realists connects to the aim of developing an intellectual leadership concerned with informing social movement practice and strategy “from above.” Here, as I maintain, the theory and practice of militant research, or militancia de investigación, as per the Colectivo Situaciones, challenges this understanding of intellectual leadership. The insights provided by radical collective knowledge production in social movements, and their critique of the institutional frameworks of the neoliberal university, allow for a critical reflection on the role of academia in resistance. This critical reflection can generate possibilities for social movements’ knowledge and radical imaginations to influence academic theorizing.

scholarly journals Social media as the platform for political mobilization: case study of Kazakhstan

2020 ◽  
Vol 338 ◽  
pp. 431-442
Author(s):  
Assem Kalkamanova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Announcement Date ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Government

This paper focuses on the role of social media in the rise of the protest movements and political mobilization in Kazakhstan. The country has been seeing an increase in the social networks based civil activists since recently. I argue that the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan that operates only within the realm of social media platforms promoted political activism and civil protests in the country. Most importantly, I argue that in contrast to the conclusions of the Kazakhstani court’s decision in March 2018, the movement leader’s Facebook blog reveals no violence either towards the government or some specific political elite. Using text mining methods, I analyzed the texts of his Facebook posts from the announcement date in 2017 till the end of 2019: the rhetoric of the position of the Democratic Choice is informational, first, and protest calling, second. Also, the analysis of seven most popular political Youtube bloggers shows that the people’s discontent with injustices and undemocratic polity manifested in the poignant interest towards the creator of this system, Mr. Nazarbayev and his closest circle. The SMM software allowed to find out the areas of Kazakhstani politics that are of most interest to the audience of Kazakhstani political activists.

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