Riots and Militant Occupations: Smashing a System, Building a World - A Critical Introduction - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786603713 ISBN 13: 9781786603715

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Provides students with a robust theoretical summation of lesser-known modern day and globally-spanning riots and brings together both academic and activist contributors.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Alissa Starodub is a Graduate Researcher at the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Andrew Robinson is a UK-based independent researcher and activist. He authored Power, Resistance and Conflict in the Contemporary World and over 20 articles and chapters.

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Riots and Militant Occupations

Smashing a System, Building a World – A Critical Introduction

By Alissa Starodub, Andrew Robinson

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2018 Alissa Starodub and Andrew Robinson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78660-371-5

Contents

Introduction: Utopian Ruptures Alissa Starodub and Andrew Robinson, 1, 
PART I: THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS, 11, 
1 A Theory of Rupture: Riot and Participatory Research Alissa Starodub, 13, 
2 Life Is Magical: Affect and Empowerment in Autonomous Social Movements Andrew Robinson, 33, 
3 Riot, Rupture and Insurrectionary Theatre in a Dysfunctional Society Puv Love, 57, 
4 On the Spatiality of Square Occupations: Lessons from Syntagma and Tahrir Dimitris Soudias, 75, 
PART II: EXPRESSIONS, 97, 
Riots and Militant Occupations in Pictures and Poems, 99, 
PART III: CRITICAL CASE STUDIES, 107, 
5 'Riots' in the Jungle: Collective Refusal and Resistance in Calais Members of Calais Migrant Solidarity, 109, 
6 Riots and Remembrance on the Streets of Barcelona: The Collective Learning of Subversive Techniques Peter Gelderloos, 131, 
7 Cortège de Tête Mauvaise Troupe, 155, 
8 The Pressure to Condemn: Narrating the Stockholm Riot of 2013 Janna Frenzel, 169, 
9 Contesting Neoliberalism: The Political Economy of the 2012 Occupy Nigeria Protests Kehinde Olusola Olayode, 197, 
10 Media as a Double-Edged Sword: Grassroots Media Work in the Syrian Revolution Ayham Dayoub, 217, 
11 'Kick It Like China': Riots, Action and Repression Katika Kühnreich, 231, 
Conclusion: Some Reflections on Contemporary Riots and Militant Occupations Andrew Robinson and Alissa Starodub, 257, 
Index, 263, 
About the Authors, 275, 

CHAPTER 1

A Theory of Rupture

Riot and Participatory Research

Alissa Starodub

RIOT AND POLITICAL DESIRE

Traditionally, the large majority of the existing literature on riots and social movements involves an external power/knowledge relation between researcher and participants, and studies of riots have often fallen into the same fallacies as popular mediatised perspectives. Researchers who seek to establish characteristics common to rioters in terms such as class, age, gender and residence use these quantitative criteria to 'explain' riots in terms of social marginalisation, disenfranchisement, or the revolutionary subjectivity of particular groups. Early theories such as those of Gustave Le Bon repeated the media stereotype of riots as instances of social dysfunction or spontaneous explosions of negative energy. Panics, mass movements, marches, riots and demonstrations were all analysed with the same analytical tools within the theoretical paradigm of collective behaviour theories that had its peak of popularity amongst researchers from the late 1940s up to the 1960s (Buechler, 2000, 32). Riot researchers asserted that riots were primarily psychological, not political, and therefore ought to be regarded as dangerous and irrational (McAdam, 1982). Later variants of collective behaviour theories – for example, those based on a structural functionalism (Smelser, 1962) – continued to define deviations from social and political norms as irrational (e.g., Buechler, 2000, 28).

Theoretical paradigms linking relative deprivation to collective behaviour approaches (Davies, 1962) tend to explain the occurrence and the timing of riots with the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance, to theorise the causes of contentious collective behaviour (Geschwender, 1968; Gurr, 1969) through ascribing psychological conditions such as an interconnection of frustration and aggression to rioters. More recently, riots have been subsumed in the wider field of social movement studies, which is dominated by rationalistic approaches. These approaches focus on self-interest and observed statistical patterns, to the neglect of affect, relations, embodiment and meaning. The riots of 2005–2007 in the French suburbs, for example, have been analysed by researchers as caused by disadvantaged groups who want to make themselves visible and heard (Moran, 2012). Contemporary studies of riots relate them to social movement theories that led to a diversification of conceptions and theoretical approaches (e.g., Mayer, Thorn and Thorn, 2016) – but one thing remains the same: in most studies of riots the riot is performed by 'others' (Young, 2005; Olkowski, 1999), while the researcher observes and analyses what these others do.

As sensational, risky, emotive events, riots involve a high level of emotional intensity and concentrated social meaning for participants. These meanings and affects have not been sufficiently explored by the social sciences due to the existing quantitative bias in the literature, and this contributes to the demonisation and marginalisation of social movements and strata accused of rioting. There are clear differences between historical riots and contemporary riots, including the latter's mainly urban character and anti-identitarian orientation (Flesher Fominaya, 2010, 399; Holloway, 2010). Contemporary riots are harder to integrate into a class-struggle framework than historical peasant revolts. Also, while earlier studies focussed mostly on explanations based on underlying causes of riots that are accessible to an academic as external observer, a substantial minority of recent investigations seek to extract a grounded theory of revolt from ethnographic observation and dialogue with participants. Anthropological approaches such as those of James Juris and Abby Peterson help to reconstruct meanings and motives, but this literature is small and limited today. Increasingly, participants in events such as the 2008 Greek revolt and the 1999–2001 summit protests have published their own reflections and theoretical analyses, providing a strong sense of participants' conceptions that is, however, neglected in academic theory.

Academic analytical perspectives on riots observing them from a subject position situated outside of the contentious actions has tended to depoliticise riots, although it might place them in a political context: there was no space to speak about the political desires of participants.

Hence, in order to create a discursive space for the diverse political desires of riot participants, research on riots needs to take the anti-identitarian orientation of contemporary militant protesters into account (Peterson, 2001) and open up to participatory perspectives from within the riot.

Taking the example of the No-Expo riot in Milano 2015, I will show in this chapter why only a perspective from within the riot that relies on participatory methodologies helps to shed a light on particular creative aspects of riots as experiences, such as the creation or reinforcement of social relations, the transformation of spaces and spatial narratives of dissent, and the creation of affect.

In the case of riots performed by anti-identitarian horizontal social movements, this perspective helps to engage in a horizontal theorisation of political desires and the creation of another, less hierarchical world.

'THEY CANNOT STOP US ANYMORE!' TRANSFORMING THE STREET

The demonstration had been walking for an hour through the posh streets of the city centre of Milano. Although several thousand people were taking part, we could still see the flags of the Syndicalists in front of us. Slowly the people who were dressed in black and not carrying any flag or group name were...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1786603713
• ISBN 13: 9781786603715
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 284
• Herausgeber: Starodub Alissa
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland