Protest Groups Research Articles

Problems of identity and separatism of ethnic minorities in the global world: case of Assam, India

The article is dedicated to the study of the problem of separatist and protest movements among ethnic minorities in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, seeking to maintain their identity. Over the centuries, migration trends in the state have shaped a complex multiethnic and multicultural population. Amendments to the Citizenship Law in the 2000s led to an even greater unification of the local population in protest groups for political reasons. The first part of the article provides a brief overview of the historical prerequisites influencing the destabilization of the Assamese society in the modern world. The second part focuses on specifics of the protests in 1950s–60s. The third part revolves around the current state of affairs in the Assam society, tracing various forms of protest and identifying sides of the conflicts between: a) tribal communities in their struggle for inclusion in the category of Scheduled Tribes; b) tribes and non-tribal populations; c) tribes and immigrants; d) the unification of tribes against the state. A parallel between ethnic separatism in the Indian northeastern states and the European version is drawn. The article is based on publications in the English-language media and academic works of Indian researchers, in which a view of the problem from within the state is traced. The study concludes that before the problem with illegal immigrants, there was a number of several other reasons, due to which, over the centuries, many ethnic groups have sought to obtain autonomy.

NILAI-NILAI DAKWAH ISLAMIAH, POLITIK DAN TOLERANSI DALAM PIAGAM JAKARTA

This paper examines the influence of Islamic values, politics and tolerance in the Jakarta Charter. The two main discussions answered in this article are how the struggle for Islamic da'wah values, politics and tolerance in the Jakarta Charter has an impact on the value of religious tolerance in Indonesia. In answering these two main problems, this paper uses paratext theory as an analytical tool. The main data used in this article consist of books, journals, catalogs, scientific papers, websites, theses, theses and dissertations. From the search results, the author finds that the Jakarta Charter has undergone various changes, such as the deletion of seven words. This was solely intended so that the Protestant and Catholic groups would not separate themselves from the Republic of Indonesia. So Muslims are willing to sacrifice these seven meaningful words. The decisions taken by several Islamic leaders in a very short time really reflect the moderate attitude of Islamic da'wah and a good attitude for religious tolerance in the Republic of Indonesia.

Open access, closed systems: independent online journalism in Japan

ABSTRACT This article is part of an ethnography of Japan’s ‘independent’ journalism movement, with a focus on the establishment and dissolution of the Free Press Association of Japan (FPAJ). Based on 13 months of fieldwork within this organization and other internet news broadcasters (i.e., the Independent Web Journal, Our Planet TV), I argue that the conventional taxonomies applied to journalists and journalistic praxis do not easily apply to Japan. Even in the period of heightened political activism following the March 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster, the country’s stalwart kisha (press) club infrastructure proved too great an obstacle for comparatively informal challengers such as the FPAJ. While resistance movements and protest groups have made much use of the internet here, as in other parts of the world, the FPAJ’s attempt to provide direct streaming access to official sources of information largely failed to attract official sources to its press conferences and to generate consistently newsworthy material. The FPAJ attempted to argue that anyone in Japan could be a journalist, but its eventual bankruptcy and dissolution ultimately wound up serving the argument for a professional and official journalistic class put forward by the colleagues whose monopoly over the information they were fighting against.

ALGERIA: Protest Group Dissolved

ALGERIA: Protest Group Dissolved

Scandal in Somers town: conspiracism and Catholic schools in early Victorian England

The middle years of the nineteenth century are notable in the history of Catholicism in England for the development of the ‘papal aggression’ crisis. Catholic emancipation had been met with suspicion by Protestant groups and this suspicion grew into violent antipathy with the publication by Nicholas Wiseman of ‘Ex Porta Flaminia.’ At the same time that this crisis was emerging, Catholic charitable organizations were also attempting to garner support from the state for the building of Catholic schools. With a boom in the poor, urban population, fuelled by the arrival of Irish refugees, this assistance was urgently required. In the midst of this a small school in the heart of London became the focus of a cause célèbre. The belief that this school had been funded by lucre, defrauded from dying and vulnerable members of the Somers Town community by simonist priests, provided the source of a widespread conspiracy theory. The result of this conspiracy theory was a lawsuit, brought in 1851 by the relatives of a deceased benefactor of the school, against the newly enthroned Cardinal Wiseman. Metairie vs. Wiseman became one of the most celebrated and cited cases of the early Victorian era.

Political Consumerism in Hong Kong: China’s Economic Intervention, Identity Politics, or Political Participation?

This study examines the recent emergence of political consumerism in Hong Kong. Given its potential implications, we document the origin and maturation of this development and theoretically explain political consumerism from three perspectives: as a response to China’s economic intervention, as a form of identity politics, and as a new form of political participation. Drawing on original data collected from a representative survey of the local population, supplemented by interviews with stakeholders from the pro-democracy economic circle, we found that people who opposed China-Hong Kong economic integration and expressed a strong local (as opposed to national) identity tended to support boycotting. People who engaged in political consumerism were active in both legal and radical protests, pointing to the complementary nature of these different forms of activism. Further, by adopting a mediation analysis, we find that support towards the Anti-extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement only partially mediate the effect of the factors on political consumerism, suggesting that they are distinct development despite their shared origins. This article provides a novel perspective on the political polarisation in Hong Kong among consumer markets.

Parish Politics and Godly Agitation in Late Interregnum Scotland

AbstractFollowing the English invasion of Scotland in July 1650, ministers and laymen in the Church of Scotland splintered between Protester and Resolutioner factions: The Protesters argued that the Church of Scotland required further moral reformation in order to appease a vengeful God, and the Resolutioners were more content to accept the reintegration of former royalists into places of trust following the civil wars. This article explores the profound ways in which this split fundamentally altered relationships in the unusually well-documented parish of Crichton in Midlothian. Unlike other studies that have emphasized the ways in which the Protesters moved toward a position of separation from the rest of the kirk, this article explores a group of Protesters who sought to actively reform the kirk from within. Godly agitation in parish affairs was characterized by three traits: it was coordinated, remarkably litigious, and disseminated in manuscript libels and petitions rather than print. Ultimately, while this godly elite was adept at agitating for further reformation at the parish level, it did so without seceding from the structures of the national church altogether.

Transitional justice for whom? Contention over human rights and justice in Tunisia

ABSTRACT Despite the promise to address socioeconomic injustices and unemployment, these issues remain in political and public debates in ‘democratizing’ Tunisia without having no radical and systematic approach to resolving them in place. The existing literature notes that Tunisia’s ‘transition to democracy’ has been largely shaped by the old neoliberal approach, leading many youths to take to the street again. This article contributes to the literature and more broadly to the study of resistance in neoliberal times by exploring the relationship between the post-2011 transitional justice regime’s governing through rights and justice and the Mafrouzeen Amniya Movement, which consists of a group of unemployed protesters who claim that their right to work was violated by the state as a result of their protests against the authoritarian regime. Drawing on critical approaches to neoliberalism, human rights and social movements, I argue that transitional justice in Tunisia partly served neoliberal governing by marginalizing revolutionary demands for structural changes and social justice and promoting individualized forms of human rights. Crucially, the neoliberal function of transitional justice was not a top-down process but was constituted through a form of social movement whose dominant liberal human rights discourse was (re)produced by the state as well as by grass-roots movements including the Mafrouzeen Amniya group. In arguing this, rather than present unemployed protesters as being co-opted and subordinated to the state, this article offers a nuanced understanding of how they can reproduce and at the same time challenge the neoliberal transitional justice movement.

Why Reciprocal Intergroup Radicalisation Happened between Islamists and Anti-Islamists in Britain but Not in Norway

ABSTRACT Between 2009 and 2015, both Islamist and anti-Islamist protest groups were active in Britain and Norway. However, while these opposing groups regularly clashed violently in the U.K., such interactions never occurred in Norway. This paper seeks to explain why seemingly similar group dyads produced different outcomes in different cases. In doing so, we trace relevant causal mechanisms derived from social movement theory in a comparative case study design. The paper can also be read as a response to Busher and Macklin’s call for improving conceptual clarity in research on “cumulative extremism.” Part of our response is introducing an alternative concept: Reciprocal intergroup radicalisation (RIR). Our analysis further shows that in Britain, RIR was fuelled by the presence of militant activists on both sides, a competent leadership, a central enemy image of the adversary, and a perception of unjust repression by security authorities. Conversely, the absence of these factors contained RIR between the Norwegian groups. In conclusion, our paper cautions against exaggerating the threat from RIR as multiple conditions must combine for RIR to occur. Even in Britain, by many considered a hotbed for RIR, the combined presence of these conditions was short lived.

The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement as a non‐profit organization: An empirical study on the use of visual branding practices for social change

AbstractIn this article, we draw our attention to the growth of a new social movement, as a non‐profit organization which aims to effectively communicate its collective identity and messages to larger audiences. Initially, we provide a critical discussion on the interrelationships between marketing theory/practice and protest groups' promotional tactics. Afterwards, we focus on the interface between visual branding practices and new social movement's strategies to create a visual branding identity around their protest symbols and aims. In order to do so, we adopted a moderate participant observation approach to explore how the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement employed forms of visual branding to engage local and global audiences and induce social change. Drawing on a close examination of field notes and a visual analysis of digital archives and images from the protest sites, we identify and discuss the presence of several visual branding techniques for the imaginative promotion of the movement's demands and causes. Our findings suggest that the 2014 Umbrella Movement protesters coordinated and acted as non‐profit organization which employed innovative and creative visual branding methods to enhance the movement's unity and trigger emotional responses from diverse audiences. We conclude the article with suggestions for future research around the interrelationships between social movements' protest symbols, transnational visual branding practices and non‐profit organizational practices.

Policing the Pedal Rebels: A Case Study of Environmental Activism Under COVID-19

Australia, along with nation-states internationally, has entered a new phase of environmentally focused activism, with globalised, coordinated and social media–enabled environmental social movements seeking to address human-induced climate change and related issues such as the mass extinction of species and land clearing. Some environmental protest groups such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) have attracted significant political, media and popular commentary for their sometimes theatrical and disruptive forms of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. Drawing on green and cultural criminology, this article constitutes an autoethnographic account of environmental protest during the final stages of the initial COVID-19 lockdown in NSW, Australia. It takes as a case study a small protest by an XR subgroup called the Pedal Rebels. The article explores the policing of environmental protest from an activist standpoint, highlighting the extraordinary police resources and powers mobilised to regulate a small peaceful group of ‘socially distanced’ protesters operating within the existing public health orders. It places an autoethnographic description of this protest in the context of policing practice and green and cultural criminology. Additionally, it outlines the way in which such policing is emboldened by changes to laws affecting environmental protest, making activism an increasingly risky activity.

Digital Mobilization: New Mechanisms and Opportunities for Political Governance

The article examines the ways and methods of digital mobilization of citizens for protest marches in the cities of the Russian Federation (for example, the city of Pskov) on January 23 and 31, 2021. The research issue is the need to understand the system of digital mobilization — from campaigning to the transition to collective, public action.As part of the study, an expert interview was conducted among the organizers of rallies, the regional establishment, party workers, and trade union activists. The monitoring of protest groups in social networks (VKontakte, Telegram, Instagram) was also carried out for the tonality of information and the mechanisms for mobilizing citizens presented. They also used the method of observing the process of transition from digital mobilization to collective action and directly following the protest processions themselves.During the analysis, the author concludes that social media is a key channel of communication and consolidation of protest activity, with the social networks VKontakte and Telegram playing the main role in Russian political practice. In this connection, conclusions are drawn about the possibility of political management of protests using an information strategy aimed at stopping negative information labels and media occasions on VKontakte and Telegram, as well as developing an alternative protest agenda.

Stickin’ it to the man: The geographies of protest stickers

Stickers are a frequent sight on city streets, adorning street furniture and walls around the world. They serve a range of purposes, including advertising, graffiti, and street art. Many stickers, however, are dedicated to resistance; they promote protest marches or rallies, radical or subversive opinions, and protest groups and social movements. Small, self‐adhesive pieces of paper, vinyl, or plastic, protest stickers range from the hand drawn to the professionally printed. Cheap to produce and easy to distribute, they are a common tactic in the repertoires of activists across the Global North. Despite their ubiquity, protest stickers have been overlooked by academics from across the social sciences and humanities. Using methodologies connected to both material and visual cultures, this paper utilises analysis of an archive of more than 5,000 photographs of protest stickers taken over six years in 53 locations to argue that protest stickers should be significant tools in attempts to understand the geographies of resistance, public space, and the right to the city. This paper explores what protest stickers are, the purposes they serve, how they communicate their messages, where they are located, and how they circulate. Finally, I propose a future research agenda including four key areas that should be pursued in order to better understand the relationships between protest stickers, public space, and the geographies of resistance.

Populism and Religion in Brazil: The View from Education Policy

This article is a case study of Brazil, a country where Catholic-based organizations have historically played a key role in providing education and welfare services. Since the 1980s, these organizations have supported progressive changes at both the national and subnational levels. Nevertheless, the influence of religion on education policy has shifted in the last few decades. Pentecostal and Neopentecostal groups have gained prominence through representatives in the National Congress, and, in 2018, formed a coalition enabling the election of a right-wing populist President. We analyse the trajectory of religious groups’ influence on Brazil’s education policy over time (colonization to the 1980s, the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s, and the 2000s until now) through a qualitative-historical analysis of primary and secondary data. This article argues that both Catholic and Protestant groups have influenced progressive changes in Brazil’s education policy, but they also share conservative ideas impeding further advances.

Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in U.S. Political Culture

Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in U.S. Political Culture

Policing the Pedal Rebels: A Case Study of Environmental Activism Under COVID-19

Australia, along with nation-states internationally, has entered a new phase of environmentally focused activism, with globalised, coordinated and social media-enabled environmental social movements seeking to address human-induced climate change and related issues such as the mass extinction of species and land clearing. Some environmental protest groups such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) have attracted significant political, media and popular commentary for their sometimes theatrical and disruptive forms of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. Drawing on green and cultural criminology, this article constitutes an autoethnographic account of environmental protest during the final stages of the initial COVID-19 lockdown in NSW, Australia. It takes as a case study a small protest by an XR subgroup called the Pedal Rebels. The article explores the policing of environmental protest from an activist standpoint, highlighting the extraordinary police resources and powers mobilised to regulate a small peaceful group of 'socially distanced' protesters operating within the existing public health orders. It places an autoethnographic description of this protest in the context of policing practice and green and cultural criminology. Additionally, it outlines the way in which such policing is emboldened by changes to laws affecting environmental protest, making activism an increasingly risky activity. © The Author(s) 2021.

Victims or Burdens?: Angolan Refugees and Humanitarian Aid Organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1961-1963

The onset of the Angolan war of independence in 1961 set off a humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. By the summer of 1962, the number of Angolans refugees rose to nearly 150,000. The UN High Commission for Refugees [Caritas], the League of Red Cross Societies [LRCS], the Catholic charity Caritas, and Protestant church aid groups all provided aid to Angolans. However, the UNHCR and LRCS quickly viewed the Angolans as overly dependent on humanitarian assistance. Echoing colonial anxieties about unsettled African populations, secular and Catholic organizations tried to resettle refugees. UNHCR and LCRS staff blamed Angolan nationalist leaders for coercing refugees to stay in exile rather than return to their homeland, ignoring how refugees themselves described how Portuguese troops had indiscriminately tortured and murdered civilians. Protestant aid groups actively collaborated with the FNLA Angolan rebel movement, to the displeasure of other aid organizations who contended the Protestants violated the humanitarian ideal of neutrality. This case indicates tensions between humanitarian organizations that considered refugees as a burden in need of continued oversight with others who considered the Angolans as victims of colonialism deserving of help.

The role of national symbols in the political protests: case of Mexico

This article explores the specificity of using national symbols in the political protests. The construction of the new meanings of national symbols by protest movements is viewed in the frame of collective memory. The goal of this research is to determine the peculiarities of involving unofficial national symbols in the protest discourse by the opposition political forces on the example of modern Mexico. It is demonstrated how the radical protest Neozapatismo movement uses the image of the country's national hero Emiliano Zapata for legitimizing the own agrarian program and rule in the state of Chiapas, as well as a resource for mobilizing the supporters of drastic agrarian reforms. The conclusion is made that due to such characteristics of national symbols as sacred nature, wide occurrence, recognition, they possess high mobilization potential, carrying out mobilization function in the political protests. It pertains to both, state symbols (flag, coat of arms, anthem) and unofficial symbols. National symbols can also be used by protest movements as a means of legitimation / deligitimation of authority. The author underlines that the use by political actors of national symbols, which may cause strong emotional response of the audience, should be considered as manipulative political technology.

Hong Kong Protests—A Commentary on Stott et al.

It is important to clarify from the outset that my observations are not a commentary on either the aims or actions of the Hong Kong protesters, or indeed the legitimacy of the policing response, but rather they are focussed on the research methodology and findings, particularly their applicability in a UK setting. Policing protest is a challenge because it is unpredictable: the bigger the protest group the greater the challenge, because by definition there are more individuals involved, each of whom has an independent mind and can be capable of instigating an action that can alter the course of events. Contentious protest is a dance between protesters and police, the action of one party will prompt a reaction from the other, which can escalate or calm a situation. As such, the assumptions underpinning the model advanced in the paper have long been recognized in public order policing. Evaluating the key...

“We shall be the Mother of Jesus.” Visions of power among radical religious women in northern Europe, 1690–1760

ABSTRACT This article examines the radical Protestant movements in England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the twin kingdom of Denmark and Norway from the turbulent 1690s to the 1760s. It argues that, in contrast to the intellectual environments of radical Enlightenment, it was easier for women to assert themselves within radical Protestant movements, such as the Quakers, the Philadelphians, and the radical Pietist and Moravian communities. Within these radical movements, it was possible for women to create a space in which they could express themselves as prophets. Among these groups were some women who achieved quite prominent positions, such as Jane Lead in London, Johanna Eleonora Petersen in Magdeburg, and Marie Wulf in Copenhagen. Furthermore, the article discusses how these movements created new religious discourses that challenged traditional gender boundaries and social hierarchies. Some radical Protestants emphasized that there were feminine attributes of Christianity, whereas others allegedly prophesied that in the future millennium, women would achieve a special status as the mothers of Jesus and as co-regents. Prophecies constituted a shared transnational discourse within radical Protestantism through which traditional gender roles were negotiated and could sometimes even be revoked.