Sites of Protest (Protest, Media and Culture) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783487658 ISBN 13: 9781783487653

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Sites of Protest examines the global resurgence of protest movements and the ways in which they use public and private space - both physical and 'immaterial' - to secure attention for a wide variety of causes, cultural events and moral campaigns. The book takes its readers inside the mindset, not only of protestors and activists, but also of the state and corporate authorities that attempt to limit the impact of dissent. It also explains how media outlets frame the wide variety of international events and controversies that make up modern protest movements, and examines the myths that surround activism and the Internet. Has the landscape of dissent changed forever, or does the fact that protestors still rely on the symbolism associated with a particular 'place', mean that their interventions will remain localised and will fail to create a universal appeal?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Stuart Price is Professor of Media and Political Discourse at De Montfort University. Ben Harbisher is a senior lecturer at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Ruth Sanz Sabido is Reader in Media and Social Inequality at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

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Sites of Protest

By Stuart Price, Ruth Sanz Sabido

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2016 Stuart Price and Ruth Sanz Sabido
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-765-3

Contents

Acknowledgements, ix, 
Introduction: Sites of Protest Stuart Price and Ruth Sanz Sabido, 1, 
Part I: Borders, States and Movements, 
1 The 'Borderless State': ISIS, Hierarchy and Trans-spatial Politics Stuart Price, 15, 
2 The Social Fabric of Resilience: How Movements Survive, Thrive or Fade Away Katharine Ainger, 37, 
Part II: Culture, Community and Protest, 
3 'Hunger for Bread and Horizons': Protest Songs in Franco's Spain Ruth Sanz Sabido, 57, 
4 ArtUp!: Creative Community Action to Reclaim Blighted City Spaces Jeff Copus and Emilia Yang, 73, 
5 Naw, Naw, Aye: Activism and Alternative Media in the 2014 Scottish Referendum Kirsten MacLeod, 89, 
Part III: Direct Action and 'Material' Struggle, 
6 The Global Rush for Land Ali Hines, 109, 
7 'Public Physical Practices' in the Rendering of the Commons: Chilean Students in 2011 Jorge Saavedra Utman, 127, 
8 The British Anti–Wind Farm and Anti-Fracking Movements: A Comparative Analysis Matthew Ogilvie and Christopher Rootes, 143, 
Part IV: Online Sites of Protest, 
9 Online Change in an Offline World: Perceptions of Social Transformation among Feminist Campaigners Jessamy Gleeson, 163, 
10 Gypsy and Traveller Sites: Performance of Conflict and Protest Jo Richardson, 179, 
11 'It's Not Just 20 Cents': How Social Networks Helped Mobilise Brazilians Against Injustice Fernanda Amaral, 195, 
Index, 211, 
About the Contributors, 215, 

CHAPTER 1

The 'Borderless State'

ISIS, Hierarchy and Trans-spatial Politics

Stuart Price

SPACE, RESOURCE AND POLITICS

The study of space as an idea encompasses references to (i) the material condition of the physical world (based on the methodical scrutiny of land, natural resources, oceans and the atmosphere), (ii) allusions to vacancy or emptiness (the absence of those physical characteristics, objects or elements associated with geographical enquiry), (iii) descriptions of temporal intervals (the time that elapses between events, conceived as a form of distance), and (iv) notions about the existence of 'immaterial', abstract or discursive space (when, for example, the Web is identified as a site of activity, or when intellectual or organisational 'space' is created and provides a locus or opportunity for the expression of opinion).

It is the first item on this list — space as a quantifiable and tangible quality — that is of immediate relevance to the present discussion. This notion of space is composed of a number of closely related concepts, including expanse (an unspecified but continuous or uninterrupted surface), area (the measurable extent of natural geographical features), distance (the space between landmarks or objects), dimension (the various modes of scalar interpretation that can be applied to space, objects and phenomena, in order to determine their breadth, mass, volume or length), and the category that lies at the heart of the current enquiry — location or place, in the sense of a specific position or material setting.

Once place is considered as an identifiable locale, then the practical uses of space by human groups must enter the equation, making it impossible to confine our study to an exploration of the globe and its dimensions, or the simple quantification of raw materials: this would ignore the influence of the physical environment on the life of its inhabitants and, by the same token, the impact that human groups have on their surroundings. So, while many of the boundaries that distinguish one collective from another obey the natural contours of the landscape, or are produced by the physical separation of continents, the formation over time of artificial borders and discrete territories helps transform geographical conditions into something resembling a coherent social order.

The addition of temporal calculation to that of distance or size confirms the suggestion that we should consider the appearance and development not only of 'natural' (e.g., geographical or meteorological) phenomena but also of human cultures and polities. The goal here is not to trace the historical evolution of society as such, but to examine the practical and ideational organisation of social collectives in the contemporary world, paying particular attention to the 'trans-spatial' propositions they generate (since all organised systems attempt to project their social and political values) and the public activities in which they engage.

While we are almost too familiar with the rhetorical stances adopted by our own political leadership, the posturing of 'alien' regimes is by comparison quite striking. This chapter compares, therefore, 'Western' practices with those of the body known as ISIS or Islamic State, as the latter attempts both to translate its precepts into a form of material reality and to promote itself on a global scale. In the arcane but apposite terms employed by Wood, 'the caliphate's supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable' (2015, 2, my emphasis), a task that is of course undertaken by all those institutions involved in the production and circulation of meaning.

STATE POWER AND 'TRANS-SPATIAL' THREATS

The formal, 'state-sponsored' relationship between human groups is particularly important for any study that tries to understand the political character of hierarchical institutions, since the (contested) management of resource and space within and beyond the borders of systemic capitalist democracies is intimately linked to the (inconsistent) categorisation of people and groups as particular types of political subject. In other words, the competition over assets depends on the human resources that can be brought to bear and, while these resources must be organised into manageable units, the actual composition of the groups concerned may change according to circumstance (see below). The first example used to illustrate this theme has already been divulged above: the struggle between a shifting alliance of states (composed, variously, of a coalition of Western powers and some of its erstwhile enemies) and an armed cross-border insurgency that aspires to a form of statehood (the ISIS 'caliphate').

The response of leading executive powers to the resurgence of a supposedly trans-spatial threat — the previous manifestation of which was used to supply the rationale for the first phase of the 'war on terror' — reveals much about the conduct of all effective political entities ('democratic' or otherwise). If the moral status assigned to (or claimed by) rival forms of authority is regarded as an essentially rhetorical exercise, designed to accompany the routine, practical exercise of power, then the activities of both states and their non-state adversaries would appear to be remarkably similar, and could be approached as a study in formal organisational behaviour.

For example, the countries that, taken together, constitute the 'West' use references to specific values in order to underpin and project a form of authority, but this technique is also employed by bodies like ISIS that are, we are told, diametrically opposed to the democratic system. Meanwhile, ISIS's theatrical demonstrations of its trans-spatial power can be observed not only in its execution videos but also through acts like the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783487658
• ISBN 13: 9781783487653
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 228
• Herausgeber: Price Stuart, Sabido Ruth Sanz
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland