Peaceful Protest Research Articles

#Resist: Utilizing Racial Justice Teach-ins to Challenge Anti-Black Racism

ABSTRACT Across the United States, racist, hate-filled rhetoric, attitudes, and behaviors are daily occurrences. Events like officer-involved shootings of unarmed Black men, women, and non-binary individuals, along with the increase in white supremacist and nationalist groups, have cumulatively created a climate of fear and mistrust. This fear and mistrust are exacerbated when police officers operate with impunity in predominantly Black communities and constitutional rights to peaceful protest are being maligned as unpatriotic or denied through violence. In response to these and related events, a BSW program, situated within a predominantly white rural setting in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, developed and implemented a racial justice teach-in grounded in critical race and postcolonial theories. The goals of the teach-ins are to provide experiential educational activities, opportunities for in-depth discussion beyond the classroom, and exposure to anti-racist practice tools in order to help students identify, and combat, racial injustice and white supremacy. This article will explore the social work department’s development and implementation of racial justice teach-ins as a supplemental opportunity for faculty to more meaningfully demonstrate their commitment to diversity and difference in the BSW program and to support the department’s goal of incorporating anti-racist practice throughout both the implicit and explicit curriculum.

Privilege and the Legacy of an Insurrection: Critical Race Theory, January 6th, and Preserving Black Resistance

The right to protest and freedom of expression are core principles of democracy; however, on January 6th, 2021, the right to protest spiraled into a full-fledged assault on American ideals. While the smoke was still smoldering, millions were left dumbfounded—the actions were way beyond a traditional protest, instead, the attack on January 6th was classified as an insurrection. Months prior, during the Summer of 2020, then President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to curb the mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. Thus, a clear paradox emerges. On one hand, an unjustified insurrection was met with minimal force, but on the other hand, peaceful protests against state-sanctioned murder were quelled almost immediately. To hypothesize about the insurrection of January 6th without examining the racism and racial privilege embedded in the actions would be immoral; this is especially true considering the historical importance of slave insurrections in advancing Black liberation. Thus, we argue that advancing the narrative of the January 6th insurrection as justified is a disservice to the legacy of protests, rebellions, and insurrections. Utilizing Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework, the article analyzes and compares the BLM protests against the insurrection of January 6th and draws attention to ways in which race served as a tool of oppression. The insurrection of January 6th, along with the rhetorical construction and justification of the events that unfolded that day, is steeped in privilege and white supremacy—luxuries that were not afforded to racial justice protests.

Variations on Variations: placing public space in context

ABSTRACT The year that frames this special issue, 2020, was a year of enormous aspiration and tragic repression, both enacted and represented in the commonly accessible places where our most significant collectivities are formed. It was a year of euphoria and denial, peaceful protest and violence, ingenious celebrations of participatory civic rituals and terrifying mobilizations of near-fascist state power. It was also when a previously unknown corona virus struck down millions of people in a global pandemic. But 2020 was not the year when public space “died.” It was more alive, more deeply desired, and more varied in form than ever. Sadly, the year also marked the death, from the Covid-19 virus, of Michael Sorkin, an architect, writer, and public intellectual whose concern about the end of public space inspires this collection.

Opposing the Archive


 
 
 On 17 October 1961, the municipal police in Paris attacked Algerian demonstrators who were participating in a peaceful protest to show their support for Algeria’s war for independence from France. Thousands of protesters were arrested, and an unknown number were shot and killed, with reports of bodies being thrown into the Seine River. The massacre was brutal, yet important details of the event remain unknown, as reflected by the official state archives’ records about the massacre continuing to be partially unavailable for public access. Various fictional accounts of the Algerian massacre in Paris have emerged as alternative records. How can these alternative records of the massacre, in particular literary texts and other artistic interpretations, help to counteract the power and oppressive forces that exist with the official state archives of the event? Using a variety of sources, including scholarly works, French state archival descriptions, and recent media reports, this paper argues that fictional records of the massacre can contest the power and oppressive forces of the official state archive by existing as alternate sites of memory, by challenging the control and authority of official records, and by contributing towards a journey to archival and social justice.
 
 

Trial by Fire: Informal Agreements, Destructive Protest, and Civil Society in Bolivia

ABSTRACTCivil society leaders develop relationships with officials and engage in contentious politics. Some resort to destructive tactics like arson and assault to target the officials they work with. Why do civil society leaders use destructive protest tactics? This article argues that leaders use destructive tactics when both they and officials need clear information and when leaders believe that officials will offer lucrative agreements to stop destructive protests. The research suggests that this dynamic is more likely in weakly institutionalized, highly politicized, and resource-strapped environments. The research supports the argument by process-tracing cases of peaceful and destructive protest by street vendor organizations and officials’ responses in El Alto, Bolivia. The argument and cases suggest that civil society leaders are more likely to target women and other minoritized people because leaders are more likely to underestimate minoritized officials, but that these officials are then more likely to punish the perpetrators.

An Eye for an Eye? An Integrated Model of Attitude Change Toward Protest Violence

ABSTRACT How political violence emerges, why people support it, and how authorities can address it without escalating further radicalization remain an ongoing debate. In this study, we develop a quantitative model to predict violence endorsement as a function of repression severity, group identification, and individual emotions. We situate our investigation in the context of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong, during which the public acceptance of violence increased substantially, contrasting the city’s long history of peaceful protests. Results show that violence endorsement is associated with repression severity in a U-shaped fashion. While limited repression deters violence endorsement, excessive repression crossing a proportionality threshold escalates it. Group identification is a salient moderator that amplifies the backfire effects of repression. People who are more attached to protesting groups are more vigilant about repression and more supportive of protest violence. Furthermore, we also find that individual emotions exert more significant influences than repression and group identification. Anger, disgust, and fear can result in radicalized opinions. These findings unpack the complex and multifaceted communicative processes that shape the perceptions of protest violence. In contrast to the rational, organizational, and structural models of social movements, we argue that this analytical framework can offer more insights into protest dynamics amid the increasingly personalized political participation.

Protest policing strategy and human rights: A study of End SARS protests in Nigeria

ABSTRACT In this study, we adopted the negotiation management model (NMM) and the elaborated social identity model (ESIM) to assess and match with global best practices the conduct of personnel of the Nigerian Police Force during the End SARS protest. We used the descriptive mixed-method research design to answer the research questions after taking stock of some achievements recorded by SARS and critical factors that led to the protest. We discovered, among others, that the Nigerian Police Force lacks a functional public complaint mechanism through which members of the society can express their grievances concerning the activities of personnel of the force. Further, the orthodox belief that a dominant show of force would compel protesters to comply with government directives failed during the End SARS protest. Our finding validates H. F. Guggenheim Foundation Guide that the police's response to peaceful gatherings as if they were riots and their failure to prevent a violent development at an early stage would lead to the degeneration of protests. The study makes recommendations on achieving a peaceful and well-managed protest if a demonstration becomes inevitable.

Youth Cohort Size, Structural Socioeconomic Conditions, and Youth Protest Behavior in Democratic Societies (1995–2014)

Conventional literature associates large youth cohort size (YCS) with increased risk of political violence in countries with such demographic profiles. Key questions which remain unanswered, however, are whether YCS is also associated with young people’s proclivities toward more peaceful forms of protests, and whether structural socioeconomic conditions influence such a relationship? Using multilevel binary logistic regression techniques on pooled individual level data for 51 democratic countries purposively sampled from World Values Survey Waves 3 to 6, and country level data from World Bank, and UN Population Division, I show that YCS demonstrates a positive relationship with young people’s participation in peaceful demonstrations. This relationship is, however, moderated by structural factors such as education and unemployment, which end up reducing young people’s likelihood of participation. I argue that resource limitation, as predicted by the Civic Voluntarism Model, better explains the relationship between YCS and individual youth protest behavior in democratic societies, more than socioeconomic grievance, as suggested by grievance theory. An important implication of this finding is that participation in elite-challenging behaviors such as peaceful protests, can be expected to be more common among young people in affluent democratic societies, than their peers elsewhere in the democratic world.

Protests and Pedagogy: The Legacies of Caribbean Student Resistance and the Sir George Williams Protest, Montreal 1969

Following two weeks of a peaceful sit-in protest, on February 11, 1969, the Montreal riot police stormed the Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) computer centre and assaulted and arrested nearly one hundred people. The students at Sir George had been protesting their experiences of discrimination and the university’s failure to take seriously their complaints about racism on campus. This discussion explores the significance of the 1969 protests as an intervention in Canadian higher education. It also situates that event in relation to narratives of the radical 1960s and explores the operations of the university as a site of knowledge and power. This discussion also raises questions about what we might learn from the protests in relation to current issues in the Canadian academy and offers reflections on Black studies in Canada today.

The making of sects: Boundary making and the sectarianisation of the Syrian uprising, 2011–2013

Abstract‘Sectarianism’ has been frequently used by politicians, activists, journalists and even some academics to explain causes and dynamics of the Syrian uprising and the subsequent civil war. However, this state of affairs contrasts sharply with the kinds of symbols and rhetoric used by the predominantly peaceful protesters who took to the streets in Syria in 2011. Drawing on interpretivist approach and thick‐description, this article traces how local and supralocal activists' reactions to the regime's violence and its master narrative culminated in the activation and politicisation of the category of ‘sect’ as a residual sociality. I argue that the increasing visibility of sectarian frameworks and the demobilisation of non‐sectarian actors were parts of boundary‐making strategies pursued by local and supralocal actors who capitalised on regime violence and regional sectarian framing and sought to have a monopoly over the symbolic representation of the uprising. The effectiveness of the sectarianisation process was contingent on the escalation of violence, the militarisation and internationalisation of the uprising, and the transnationalisation of sectarian networks. Taking Syria as a case study, this article demonstrates how conflicts, or violence, become ‘ethnic’ or ‘sectarian‐coded’ and how macro social phenomenon influences microlevel behaviour, perspectives and strategies of boundary making.

Feminist Antifascism: Counterpublics of the Common

Feminist Antifascism: Counterpublics of the Common

Mapping human rights-based climate litigation in Canada

In line with global trends, there has been an increase in human rights-based climate litigation brought in Canadian courts in recent years. Some litigants invoke human rights as found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to push federal and provincial governments to take seriously the implementation of their climate obligations. Other litigants invoke procedural environmental human rights to engage in free speech and peaceful protest in the face of government action supporting fossil fuel consumption or expansion. At the same time, the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that Canadian courts could develop civil remedies for corporate violations of customary international law, opening the door to future human rights-based corporate climate accountability litigation. Due to the nascent stage of climate litigation in Canada, this paper maps a broad variety of emerging cases into three interrelated sections: substantive, procedural and corporate accountability litigation. It also highlights emerging and potential future trends, such as the high level of youth and Indigenous plaintiffs. The paper aims to provide a critical overview of emerging Canadian developments in human rights-based climate litigation brought against the state, and reflects on potential strategies for future litigation, including against transnational corporate actors.

Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination by Leila Neti

Reviewed by: Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination by Leila Neti Lucky Issar (bio) Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination by Leila Neti; pp. 302. Cambridge UP, 2021. $114.95 cloth. Indian resentment toward British colonial rule began to manifest in India in the middle of the nineteenth century, most notably with the 1857 mutiny by Indian soldiers, which spread across northern India. Following the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in 1919 in which British soldiers fired on peaceful protesters, killing more than one thousand people including women and children, most Indians of all persuasions became fiercely [End Page 136] opposed to British rule. The poet Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood in protest. Anyone who questioned British rule was imprisoned on flimsy charges. However, there was not a time when Indian people did not in some form resist the British presence in India, and there was not a time when the British, especially as they became stronger, did not use anti-Indian narratives as well as military and legal means to strengthen their position, a strategy central to the colonial policies that Leila Neti examines in Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination. Examining three important legal cases that came before the highest court in colonial India along with the works of prominent Victorian authors such as Charles Dickens, Philip Meadows Taylor, Wilkie Collins, and George Eliot, Neti's book focuses on how British laws and literary narratives worked in tandem to produce Indian subjects who were incapable of governing themselves, thus justifying continued British rule in India. The discourse on "thuggee" or "thugs" played a key role in enacting strict laws. The presence of thugs was not wholly a British fantasy, but the British exaggerated their numbers. Reading nineteenth-century literature and court cases, Neti demonstrates the tremendous energy the British put into creating the figure of the thug, essentially conflating it with all Indians. Not only did they use anti-thuggee laws to implement force against all those who acted against their interests; the British also convinced themselves of their superiority by constituting the inferior Indian, which legitimized their presence and gave them a reason to criminalize subcultures they did not understand. In addition to negative literary representations of Indians, the legal opinions of British lawmakers not only revealed what they thought about Indians but also exposed "their ability to reach back in time and reframe 'tradition' in order to influence how Indians would come to think of themselves" (20). The British also propagated the notion that thugs were motivated by biological reasons rather than political ones, a claim central to British popular and legal representations. In court proceedings, while the British courts claimed to be fair toward all, they handled Indian and British subjects differently. Moreover, at the same time that prison reforms were recommended in England, new harsher laws were introduced in India. Neti points out that this tendency of disparate treatment was also evident in literature. When dealing with English criminals, British authors narrated them in a way that ultimately rehabilitated them in society, whereas the treatment given to Indian criminals further augmented the nature of their criminality, emphasizing their inability to reform themselves, thus reinforcing the idea that Indians were not only incapable of governing themselves but were also innately corrupt. An important aspect of the book is its examination of nineteenth-century novels and legal cases to reveal how law and literary narratives emerged to produce knowledge that damaged Indians while strengthening colonial rule. [End Page 137] Through a major focus on Begum Sumroo, the ruler of Sardhana principality, and the case of her grandson, David Dyse, the book exposes British duplicity, but it also shows, by default, that British legal systems were not entirely to be summarily dismissed. The British authorities could have confiscated Begum Sumroo's properties, yet they were following legal procedures and were not completely fraudulent. Much later, Dyse too encountered property-related issues with the British. The court in English declared him insane, and although he later obtained a certificate in France attesting his sanity, the British court did not overturn its ruling. The British handling seemed dubious, but it could also be that...

Power grab in a pandemic: Media, lawfare and policy in Myanmar

The 1 February 2021 coup d’etat in Myanmar did more than force the country’s journalists and other media makers to operate under extreme conditions to continue their work, and win back the space for freedom of expression and the press lost to them. The coup also provoked a massive cultural shift, and the country’s independent media are playing a key role. After a half century of military dictatorship, a decade of much-lauded democratic opening (2011–20) prior to the coup had ushered in game-changing developments to the media landscape. Yet since the coup, the junta and its appointed State Administrative Council (SAC) have inflicted the kinds of brutalities in response to peaceful protesters that the military has used for decades with impunity against the country’s ethnic minorities, all justified, they claim, to ensure ‘the rule of law’ and ‘law and order’. The SAC has also attempted complete control over Myanmar’s media, cutting off at various times nearly all internet and mobile access. This included Facebook, Twitter and other apps, thereby silencing the country’s independent media or forcing them into forms of self-censorship, hiding or exile, and allowing only a military-controlled narrative of unfolding events through military- and state-run media. Yet the independent media sector has not only survived, it has proven to be a key voice in efforts to thwart the regime’s attempts to control public mediated space. This article explores the various approaches to media policy-making in Myanmar during the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the coup, as employed by the military, the elected but later overthrown National League for Democracy government, various key components of the pro-democracy forces, and international aid and advocacy organizations working to increase freedom of expression and the press. It draws from interviews with key media policy-makers, journalists, academics and free expression advocates, and analyses of content from the (now) junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar and other key documents. It explores the various approaches taken and lessons learned by key stakeholders working to control or change public discourse and freedom of expression and the press in the country.

Threats from within and threats from without: Wet’suwet’en protesters, irregular asylum seekers and on-going settler colonialism in Canada

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the ‘immigrant-Aboriginal parallax gap' whereby material connections between immigration and Indigenous dispossession are rarely examined in tandem by considering ways in which the Canadian media frames Indigenous protesters and irregular asylum seekers. Building on the work of previous studies of Oka/Kanasatake, Ipperwash and Caledonia and irregular boat arrivals of Fujian and Tamil asylum seekers, it identifies similarities in the ways that each group has been racialized, criminalized, delegitimized and constructed as the ‘Other'. Employing the theoretical frameworks of settler colonialism and securitization theory, it examines whether the same frames persist in contemporary representations using the case studies of Wet'suwet'en protesters and irregular asylum seekers crossing the Canada–US border at Roxham Road, Québec. A comparative discourse analysis finds that the media continues to frame Indigenous protesters and irregular asylum seekers as threats to the ‘rule of law' and the ‘common good'. These framings discredit and delegitimize human rights claims that challenge the legitimacy of settler colonial borders – including the right to peaceful protest and to claim asylum – turning them into threats to Canada’s sovereignty, thus necessitating state action. We conclude that this discourse has the effect of reproducing the racialized injustices and inequalities of ongoing settler colonialism.

The Influence of American Hegemony on Revolutionary thought

In May 2020, two months after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, forcing humans stationary...at home...and unable to work and carry out routine, everyday activities, the brutal murder of George Floyd was captured on camera and broadcast on social media. Largely peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism erupted over- night, beginning in Minneapolis, and rapidly growing all over the United States. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement’s quickfire blaze continued to spread from Minneapolis all the way to the West Indies within a week. The longstanding relationship between the United States and the Caribbean region is evident, leading to the populariza- tion of the regional idiom, “when the US sneezes, the Caribbean catches a cold.” The impact of the BLM Move- ment on the Caribbean is comparable to that of the Civil Rights and Pan Africanism movements of the latter half of the 20th century and reminds the world of the significance of regional revolutions such as the Grenada Revolution. One year into a crippling pandemic, the irony of this article will explore the aforementioned influences, comment on US intervention in Grenada and contextualize the adage- “When the US sneezes, the Caribbean catches a cold.”

Eine handlungsfähigere EU für eine sicherere (östliche) Nachbarschaft – die EU-Belarus-Beziehungen

Since the fraudulent presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020, the country has been in the midpoint of a geopolitical stand-off. Unprecedented violence against peaceful protesters, economic and political sanctions against the regime in Minsk and an orchestrated migration crisis at the European Union’s (EU) external borders have shaped EU-Belarus relations in recent months. In the wake of the crises, the EU stepped up its measures against the Lukashenko regime to be more resilient to hybrid attacks by an authoritarian system and to support the Belarusian democracy movement. The contributions fundament is based on the EU’s Global Strategy, which underpins and provides a framework for the EU-Belarus relations. Furthermore, the article discusses whether the objectives of the strategy have been achieved and if the EU as an international actor can generate security in their Eastern Neighbourhood.

Run for Your Life

Run for Your Life Kim McLarin (bio) In the years after my divorce I underwent a prolonged emotional crisis, one which involved bouts of depression, great batches of French fries, and a stubborn habit of falling in love with men who did not love me in return. For the most part these men were not bad people, were not, as they hacked their way through the swamp of midlife dating, deliberately destructive, or at least no more so than I. There was, however, one person whose bad behavior was intentional, who was—in his dealings with women in general and me in particular—selfishly, gleefully, actively unkind. This person reveled in the notion of having an upper hand in relationships, of power as aphrodisiac. Alternately attentive and dismissive, lying and truthful, nastily disparaging and lavish with praise, he kept me off-center and I allowed it, drawn to the treatment like a cat towards catnip. Catnip sprinkled on coals. It was a messy, painful, damaging connection, not good for anyone. My friends, watching from the sidelines, frequently registered their concern and disapproval, but I remained unhearing and unmoved. Eventually one said, “You know, this is an abusive relationship.” I bristled. An abusive relationship? The summation rankled. The man in question had never hit me, never become physical, never so much as threatened violence. Yes, he was a jerk, a selfish user without remorse. But an abuser? Wouldn’t that make me a victim? Wouldn’t that make me weak? The definition of abuse is this: to use wrongly or improperly, use to bad effect or for a bad purpose, to misuse; to hurt or injure by maltreatment; to treat a person or animal with cruelty or violence. Not all of these things were true about the relationship, but a few of them were. Enough to fail to ease my discomfort. Enough to make me think. If the situation was not precisely abusive, it was certainly dys-functional, and the primary distinction, I came to realize, was the issue of power. In my case, the only power this guy had over me was power I handed to him. In summer 2020, after police officers in Wisconsin shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times as he leaned into the car where his children sat, I came across a video clip on the internet. It wasn’t the shooting; I have not watched a video of police shooting or ramming or kneeling on the necks of Black people since Rodney King. The clip I stumbled across was an interview with Doc Rivers, coach [End Page 146] of the Los Angeles Clippers. He sat on a bench after some game, discussing not fouls and shots but the police shooting of Mr. Blake and other Black people, the cynical fear-mongering of then-President Donald Trump and other Republicans, the way peaceful Black protest is met with force while violent white protest is met with shrugs. Forcing back tears, Coach Rivers said: “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country and this country doesn’t love us back.” Well, there you go, I thought. That is an abusive relationship. _______ According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a person experiencing abuse may be embarrassed or fear judgment and stigmatization; love the person who is abusing them and believe that they will change; deny that anything is wrong; and/or excuse the other person. The person may also behave in ways that can be difficult for people outside the relationship to understand. These behaviors include refusing to leave the relationship; believing that the other person is powerful or knows everything; idealizing the person who carried out the abuse during periods of calm; and believing the abuse is deserved. _______ When I was a child the Fourth of July passed with little fuss. Maybe my mother burned some hotdogs on our small charcoal grill, maybe my uncle brought over some sparklers and we ran around fizzling in the dark. Even the Bicentennial, which swept up the nation in a fervor of nostalgia and self-love, meant to us mostly televised fireworks and tall ships (both disappointing) and everything in the supermarket suddenly packaged...

Український рух опору на окупованих територіях

One ideological thesis the Russian Federation used to justify its invasion of Ukraine was the alleged readiness of the residents of the East and South of Ukraine to cooperate with the occupiers. Almost a year of war has shown the lack of mass Ukrainian support for the occupying forces and their "administrations". What we saw was a well-organized resistance to the Russian occupation.This article explores two forms of the Ukrainian resistance movement – civil and military. Our goal is to launch a discussion studying the dynamics, scope, and varieties of Ukrainian resistance in the occupied territories. We rely on data from the American Institute for the Study of War, separate expert studies, and journalistic investigations available in the public domain. Drawing on the example of the temporarily occupied regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk and the annexed Crimea, we demonstrate that the change in the forms of civil resistance – from open, peaceful protests to "quiet disobedience", sabotage or boycott of "referendums" – was caused by the repressive reaction of the occupying authorities. The latter is most visible in the actions of the "Yellow Ribbon" movement. Military or armed resistance is coordinated by special operations forces and implemented by partisan units.Unlike in 2014, as of 2022, the military resistance has a sufficient normative foundation, a well-organized structure, and an extensive network of partisan groups demonstrating its effectiveness. Our analysis shows that both forms of resistance have an organized but decentralized nature and are carried out mainly by relatively small groups. The influence of various actions of the movement significantly affects the logistical capabilities of the occupying army, its morale, and the desire of individual collaborators to continue cooperation with the occupiers. As such, the movement significantly undermines the Russian Federation’s ability to establish administrative control over the captured territories and their absorption into the Russian Federation.

GEZI PARK AS SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT: RE-IMAGINING THE TURKISH PUBLIC

The subject of this paper is the Gezi Park movement that took place in the summer of 2013 in Turkey. Despite starting out as a peaceful protest      to stop the demolition of Gezi Park for the purposes of the “Taksim Pedestrianization Project”, the gatherings quickly became one of the biggest social movements to take place in Turkish history. People from all ages, classes and social groups came together in support, after government attempts to suppress the protest through brutal police actions garnered widespread criticism. Although the movement did not generate any immediate or drastic political change, it did leave a lasting effect on the Turkish public, especially because of the immense solidarity and social cohesion demonstrated by the participants. Hence, in this paper, I will argue that Gezi Park could be treated as an example of ‘spontaneous development’, an informal process through which the citizens of Turkey re-imagined the Turkish public and possibilities of modes of life within the state. Instrumental in this process was the long-lasting stratification of the Turkish public between the laicist, Kemalist ‘modernists’ and the Islamic, Erdoğan ‘conservatives’. I argue that in the context of a historical and current      repressive and silencing state, Turkish people constructed a Gezi community in direct opposition, in which social hierarchies were disbanded and freedom of speech was maintained as one of the highest values. By taking anthropological and developmental studies of the informal/formal sector dichotomy and their interrelation, I apply these understandings to the human development sector. Thus, I argue that informal modes of organization and maintenance of social cohesion can be treated as informal development, directly affecting people’s imaginations and actions, as well as a potential source of knowledge and inspiration for formal-sector development. In this sense, I employ Amartya Sen’s freedom-approach to development to demonstrate that freedom of expression played an instrumental role in the construction of this imagining. Further, I argue that despite theoretical limitations in social theory, ethnographic research and anthropological studies can be useful in the application of informal sector knowledge to formal development strategies.