Student Protests Research Articles

Dwie drogi, dwa ruchy i zdrada – Ukraińskie narracje o rewolucji na granicie i ludowym ruchu Ukrainy

The article analyzes the Ukrainian narrative concerning the role of student protests in Ukraine in October 1990. The narrative in question competes with much more widespread knowledge about the actions undertaken by the so-called Rukh (People’s Movement of Ukraine, Narodnyi Rukh Ukrajiny) and its leaders as the nation strove for independence. The memory of the so-called the Revolution on Granite is passed on by the participants of those events. Thanks to the inclusive narrative, also moderated by the state, the alternative repre-sentation of the past and historiography has no potential to provoke a conflict of memory, being merely a different interpretative approach indulging in hypothetical scenarios of development of Ukrainian democracy had the key demands of the protesters been met (early elections in 1991).

Political graffiti in May 2018 at Nanterre University: A linguistic ethnographic analysis

Fifty years after May 68, spring 2018 in France was marked by mass student protest against the Parcoursup/ORE reform of university entry. After a riot police intervention on campus, Nanterre University was blocked and occupied. It was profoundly affected, both as a community and as a physical site. This linguistic ethnographic study proposes a systematic analysis of more than 500 physical interventions (political graffiti, tags and posters) on the campus during that period, to identify the functions of graffiti as political discourse. The graffiti (1) expressed resistance, reclaimed the university’s identity and manifested presence on site; (2) established dialogue with local and national authorities and (3) anchored the movement in a larger web of historical references and sites of political resistance. A striking feature was the complex indexicality of the graffiti. Each item was relevant at multiple scales beyond the here and now, anchoring graffiti in larger networks of relations, which endowed them with political power.

History, Naming and Intellectualism in the #FeesMustFall Protests

This paper considers the black student as an emerging representative of the public intellectual's confrontation with history, institutional culture and language in the #FMF student protests. It pursues the manifestation of this confrontation through an analysis of specific episodes of articulation and events where the student as public intellectual encounters an academia that is incapable of comprehending or conceptualizing their demands. The protests animated the emerging black student public intellectual's projection into being and their confrontation with history, violence and academia. This paper examines the collaboration between the state and university as mechanisms of control to preserve the system and structure of neo-apartheid in a post-1994 South African society. I argue that the fixation with subjective violence, detracted from the greater, yet hidden narrative—that of the possibility of violence as ubiquitous in human social relations. Violence is also used to negate power. In confronting a powerful racist history and systems of racism, the #Fallists reference to the on-going complex levels of violence lived as a reality by black South Africans, could be understood as a form of social power to unchain the forced consensus that has been perpetuated around black violence and black ineptitude.

Events, lines and interruptions: the production of university space

During 2015 and 2016 there were wide-spread student protests across campuses in South Africa. This contribution focuses on the protests at the University of Pretoria and in particular the way in which the spatiality of the campus and the city of Tshwane influenced the nature of the protests. In terms of the spatiality of the campus, I consider in particular the neo-brutalist architecture of the campus, the fact that it is fencedoff entirely and also its restrictive events policy. Within the city of Tshwane, the focus falls on a long history of marching to the Union Buildings as well as the Regulation of Gatherings Act, and how that related to the student protests. This contribution contrasts Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia with Henri Lefebvre’s concrete utopia, to call for universities to be concrete utopias. The student protests are framed as lines and as interruptions with reference to the work of Antonia Layard. Even though the student protests at the University of Pretoria can be distinguished from those on other campuses, it is connected and contextualised within the broader student movement through Doreen Massey’s concept of geographies of responsibility.

Militarisation, the state of exception, and fascism in South African universities

The militarisation of university campuses in South African has led to the promotion of the use of violence and force against students. During the national student protests in 2015-2017 university management and the South African Police Service (SAPS) used militarisation and force which perpetuated violence on campuses. By understanding the state of exception as the suspension of the rule of law it is evident that it can be used as a fascist way to react to those questioning the status quo. Many South African universities, particularly the University of Pretoria (UP), employed this as a tool to deal with student protests. This shows that South African universities have fascist tendencies when dealing with student protests.

Curating Violence: Reflecting on Race and Religion in Campaigns for Decolonizing the University in South Africa

During 2015 and 2016, staff and students at university campuses across South Africa embarked on two campaigns for decolonizing higher education, but the efforts were met with various forms of violent repression and rationalization of violence by state and private security services. In the face of the securatization of university campuses countrywide, ordinary mediums of teaching and learning proved inadequate for helping students reflect on their social reality, and similarly, public gatherings for socio-political deliberation and commentary became irregular because of the policing and surveillance of student protest action. By reflecting on the curation of three memorials and performances about seemingly racialized violence in this context, this article interrogates the meaning and the relation to the aesthetic, as well as the commentary on the context within which it is produced. Drawing on the work of Mbembe, Fanon, and Spivak as theoretical interlocutors with respect to how I understand violence, this article reflects on how three interdisciplinary curatorial events raise pedagogical challenges and opportunities for critical reflection in a context of repression. It was precisely through this interdisciplinary effort that the black body, violence, and context aligned to produce a public pedagogy on physical and representational violence. The three curatorial moments allowed for meaningful reflection on violence, resistance, religion, and the racialized self that not only drew attention to the artifacts and the performances but deliberately opened possibilities for a kind of public classroom where the discussion, articulation, and critique of violence is possible and productive.

Afterword: the shock of the new old

ABSTRACTAt the University of Cape Town in 2016, student protesters burned works of art, torn down from their long-established positions on University walls. A large bonfire was made in front of the empty plinth that had held, until he was forcibly removed, the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. Amongst the paintings burned were portraits of patrons of the University, largely white, over the previous decades. Also burnt were works of black resistance art, “collateral damage” (Pauwels 2017, 329) in a furious attempt to undo what these earlier resistance works could not: the apartheid style post-apartheid order, the new old status quo.

Queer intimacy during seditious times: revisiting the case of Ramchandra Siras

In this essay, I theorize a relation between sexual and caste politics to consider the interfacing between two suicides on university campuses that made public headlines for different reasons: the Dalit student Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad, and the gay Marathi professor, Ramchandra Siras at Aligarh Muslim University. In analyzing these two cases together, I want to ask what it might mean to retrospectively re-think Siras’ case through the language of political and public desire that Vemula’s case at the University Hyderabad (UOH) and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student protests present. To textually ground my arguments, I analyze the recent film Aligarh (Mehta:2016) praised for its sympathetic portrayal of Siras whose legal fight for privacy (and subsequent suicide) when he is caught having sex with another man constitutes the text’s central premise. Through an analysis of the film, I inquire into the occlusions that calls for queer privacy are predicated on. I thus ask: what is lost from queer analytical frames when public domains are disavowed in favor of rights to privacy? In triangulating the notion of privacy with queer politics (via the Siras case) and questions of caste and communalism (through the Vemula case and subsequent student uprisings), this essay gestures toward an articulation of queerness that would move beyond single-issue calls for judicial protection and instead reconsider the “seditiousness” at the heart of a sexual politics.

A critique of everyday life in Michel Houellebecq’s Extension du domaine de la lutte

ABSTRACT This article compares the critique of contemporary everyday life articulated in Michel Houellebecq’s first novel in particular, Extension du domaine de la lutte, with that elaborated by Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre throughout his long career. It demonstrates that Houellebecq’s portrayal of the destructive forces of neoliberalism and consumerism is very much in line with Lefebvre’s assessment of them. Paradoxically, however, Lefebvre’s ideas inspired some of the leaders of the May 1968 student protests, events figured in Houellebecq’s writing as precipitating the extreme individuation and dehumanisation at work in contemporary Western society. For Lefebvre, May ‘68 constituted what he defined as a ‘moment,’ a personal or collective experience of disalienation during which those who live it can envisage, if briefly, a freer and more fulfilling way of life. For Houellebecq, on the other hand, the protestors’ demands for new freedoms only succeeded in destroying the last vestiges of a moral order that at least had the merit of serving as a bulwark against human isolation. If for Lefebvre contemporary men and women suffer from acute alienation in spite of May ’68, for Houellebecq they do so largely because of it.

Mai 1968. L’anté 68 : 58-68

During the second half of the twentieth century there appeared throughout the world several protest movements in the economic and social but also psychiatric at different dates depending on the country. In France, there was talk of “May 68” to designate spectacular demonstrations of student protesters who also touched the university education of psychiatry, especially in Paris at the Clinique des Maladies Mentales et de l’Encéphale in the hospital Sainte-Anne. More or less similar movements took place around the world at the same time in other countries. During this decade of the sixties, the sixties, Antipsychiatry was born also first in Britain, another protest movement of psychiatry as it continued to be practiced in many countries and which has spread then in other countries. We will attempt to unravel the links that have been established in France between these various ideological currents during the years 1958–1968 and see what were the analyzes that were made afterwards.

‘Sistem te laže!’: the anti‐ruling class mobilisation of high school students in Bosnia and Herzegovina

AbstractThis article presents the case of a high school student‐led protest movement in the Bosnian towns of Jajce and Travnik. Over the course of 2016 and 2017, the students developed opposition to a plan for an ethnically segregated high school in Jajce. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnicity is strongly politicised and limits the political activities of citizens to what is prescribed by the elites of their respective ethnic groups. In particular, Bosnian youth is often named as part of an apathetic ‘lost generation’ whose voices are smothered by this ethno‐political framework. I argue that the political agency of ordinary young Bosnians should not be neglected, since the formulations of their relationship with the state form meaningful political activities. The student protests in Jajce and Travnik are telling examples of their political agency. In an analysis of the protest movement's actions, I show that the students adopt a narrative that opposes the ruling political class and their prevalence of personal interests over the future of younger generations.

“I’m Never Coming Back from that Trip”: The 1994 ANU Occupation and Student Protest Beyond the 1960s

ABSTRACTIn 1994 a major student occupation took place at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra in response to plans to introduce upfront fees. Coming twenty years after a similar 1974 occupation at ANU, the past was weaponised both by critics of the occupations and activists themselves. Critics argued that the 1990s protestors were solely motivated by self-interest and that their activism was far inferior to the radicalism of the Long Sixties. Simultaneously, activists invited veterans of the 1974 occupation to speak to the protestors and tried to treat the past pedagogically. Drawing on extensive oral history, this article analyses the 1994 occupations. It argues that the occupations have helped to complicate a historiographic narrative of the student movement's decline and moderation since the 1960s. Interviews show the thought, creativity and emotion invested in the occupations and their long-term effect on people's lives. Unlike 1974, activists resisted management attempts to funnel protest into bureaucracy. Above all, the occupation provided a glimpse into an alternative world, where student radicals “lived and breathed the occupation” and where “full on fucking direct democracy” could function, even if only momentarily.

Disrupting metaphors of coloniality to mediate social inclusion in the global South

ABSTRACTNew voices emerging in the global South are contesting the academy’s elitist and exclusionary ethos by disrupting the normalcy of coloniality. Concerns raised by the student protests of 2015 and 2016 have challenged the higher education sector to rethink its traditional teaching, learning, and assessment practices in response to student calls for decolonised and transformative curricula. This paper explores the ‘voice’ of the marginalised, who dare to ‘speak’ in authentic and provocative ways to call the university to action. We pose the questions: are alternative voices enough to inspire institutional change if traditional hierarchies of power remain intact? What does this mean for the collective project of re-imagining a university that carries a promise of social inclusion and social justice? What are the implications for academic development (AD) work, which finds itself on the margins, in service of mainstream (and dominant) epistemic and pedagogic practices? Using reflective narratives, and drawing on decolonial scholarship, this study explores a group process involved in curriculum change work at a university in South Africa. It raises challenges for AD and its role in the current context of change.

Discourse within University Presidents’ Responses to Racism: Revealing Patterns of Power and Privilege

BackgroundRecent incidents of racism at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have gained increased national attention. The backlash to individuals speaking out against racialized practices is often masked through discourse that dismisses the adverse effects of racism. Because university administrators often center their responses to incidents of racism on upholding free speech, scholars should analyze the ways that administrators’ responses might reinforce the existence of such racist behaviors and affect marginalized students.Purpose and Research QuestionsRather than placing the burden on students to disrupt institutionalized racism, the author critically analyzed the discourse administrators utilized in their responses to understand the role of power in language. The following research questions informed the study: (a) what are the various characteristics of the discourse of university administrators as they respond to incidents of racism? and (b) how do university administrators’ responses to racism support or disrupt larger patterns of social power and privilege?Research DesignThe author utilized critical discourse analysis (CDA) to deconstruct relationships between the speech patterns of university presidents and larger Discourses about social power. Through a process of description, interpretation, and explanation, the author sought to reveal the underlying ideologies that go beyond surface-level discourse about free speech.Data Collection and AnalysisBased on the context of increased police brutality and student protests on college campuses, the author reviewed data on recent incidents of racism at PWIs. The three final cases chosen for analysis represented varying approaches utilized by administrators to respond to racist incidents. Through multiple phases of coding, the author interpreted relationships between textual patterns to reveal a larger narrative about administrative accountability.FindingsEach university president utilized a different approach to campus racism. The major discourse patterns represented were (a) a direct reproach of individuals as accountable for racism; (b) an indirect and theoretical approach to the reality of racism; and (c) a denial of or diversion from racism through authority.Conclusions and RecommendationsAcross the cases, administrators utilized speech that either downplayed the existence of racism or defined it through privilege or colorblind ideology. With the last incident resulting in the firing of the president, the analysis revealed ways that presidents can utilize emotional speech without substantial action. In order to be more responsive to marginalized communities, administrators need to intentionally engage with marginalized groups who are often silenced because their beliefs do not fit the standard of the dominant norm.

Relationship between transformtion and institutional culture

Transformation of higher education (HE) is presently a buzzword in the higher education globally and in South Africa. Government policy has suggested a system of higher education relevant to the new South Africa. Since 1994 elections not enough transformation took place in South Africa. This was affirmed by violent student protests two years ago at universities sparked by fees’ hikes. In South Africa, institutional transformation and institutional culture have been approached as different phenomena, and recently it was demonstrated that the one cannot exist without the other. The turmoil at South African HE institutions in 2015 and early 2016 highlighted the issues of institutional transformation and institutional culture. The student protests were linked to lack of transformation and an institutional culture that alienates black students. This article explores the concepts of transformation and institutional culture, in the context of HE institutions. I conclude that these concepts are intertwined, therefore we cannot have a completely transformed HE in South Africa until the institutional culture also changes.

“The Battle is on”: Lakatos, Feyerabend, and the student protests

This paper shows how late 1960’s student protests influenced the thought of Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend. I argue that student movements shaped their work from this period, specifically Lakatos’s “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes” and Feyerabend’s Against Method. Archival evidence shows that their political environments at London and Berkeley inflected their writing on scientific method, entrenching Lakatos’s search for a rationalist account of scientific development, and encouraging Feyerabend’s ‘anarchistic’ theory of knowledge. I document this influence and draw two broader lessons: one lesson about the role of biography in philosophy and the other about the historiography of student protests.

Broken promises of Internet and democracy: Internet art in Serbia, 1996–2014

The article uses case studies of artistic and cultural practices on Internet in Serbia (1996–2014) to provide a deeper analysis of possible uses of internet technology and internet art for social and political change as well as showcasing changing attitudes toward the internet in a transitional semi-periphery state. Through analyzing these questions, the article defines several phases of development of internet and art projects in Serbia including (a) the phase of techno-utopia when internet technology was used for staging and supporting student protests and the so-called first ‘internet revolution’ in Serbia (1996–1999); (b) the phase of ambivalence or ‘mixed feelings’ toward the Internet, triggered of by Kosovo War and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led bombing of 1999–2000; (c) the phase of optimism and hope about the Internet after the ‘October 5th’ revolution (2000–cc. 2005); and (d) the phase of disillusionment with both the Internet and democracy (2010–2014). This study re-evaluates early achievements and democratic principles of networked society and illuminates core issues and accomplishments of cyberculture from the 1990s until present times through the point of view of multiple actors present within Serbian art and culture.

Mass student protests bring down Albania’s science minister

The government has bowed to pressure to fix the country’s research and higher education — but stopped short of repealing a controversial law. The government has bowed to pressure to fix the country’s research and higher education — but stopped short of repealing a controversial law.

Student Movements and the Power of Disruption

We seek to clarify the nature of militant student protest by proposing a theoretical distinction between two types of student-movement-initiated disruption that are too-often viewed as similar: structural disruption within educational institutions, centered around students' refusal to perform their role as such; and invasive disruption of other institutions, in whose functioning students do not have a routinized role. By drawing on a newspaper-based database of student-initiated protest in Argentina, triangulated by analysis of secondary accounts of these events and in-depth interviews with the activists who planned and implemented the protest, we seek to understand the strategic logic that leads to disruptive protest and to explore the differing dynamics that characterize structural and invasive disruption. Both structural and invasive protest by students (and other organized social groupings) can successfully interfere with the normal functioning of society and can therefore create usable leverage against institutional power holders. However, the tactical choice and the outcome of such confrontations derives from a complex equation of situational variables. The variables specific to student protest include the institutional target designated for disruption, whether the target has the formal authority and/or resources to grant the demanded reform, whether non-students who work or otherwise participate in the targeted structure support or oppose the demands and tactics of the students, and whether the protesting students have active allies among various non-student stakeholders. We conclude that structural disruption on campus can be a surer and less difficult-to-implement strategy, that it can generate leverage without the creation of alliances with outside groups and can force concessions if the administration has the authority and resources to deliver meaningful reform. In many circumstances, however, the institutional educational leadership cannot deliver meaningful concessions, and stu-dents therefore consider invasive disruption of neighboring structures aimed at delivering more comprehensive reforms, and consequently face far more complicated strategic and tactical decisions if they wish to generate productive leverage. These strategic and tactical choices rely on congealed experience from current and prior student protest and their capacity to generate alliances mediated by their understanding of what can succeed.

The 2015 Student Mobilizations in South Africa. Contesting Post-Apartheid Higher Education

In October 2015, a student protest at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), a historically white university (HWU), arising in opposition to the decision taken by the University Council to increase tuition fees, spurred a massive wave of mobilizations across the country. The protests drew national and international media attention to what became the #FeesMustFall movement, named after the most popular twitter hashtag adopted by the protesters. Why did a local mobilization at WITS in 2015 trigger a national wave of student protests? After ten days of protests, the South African President intervened directly to calm down the situation by announcing a 0% increase in tuition fees for 2016. To all appearances, ten days of protests allowed South African students to win their battle over the hike in tuition fees. How and why did they obtain this concession? To answer the questions above, I have combined various qualitative methods of analysis. I carried out several in-depth interviews with relevant actors involved in the issue; I analysed movement documents elaborated by the students in the year of the protest (2015) as well as the main policy documents on higher education in post-apartheid South Africa (1994-2016) released by the government.