Time Of Protest Research Articles

Many Bodies, One Heart

Many Bodies, One Heart

Protests as a form of electioneering? A comparative study of the 2016 and 2021 local government elections protests in Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal

ABSTRACT South Africa is gripped by protests which have usually taken the form of service delivery protests that have become more manifest during election periods. However, each election cycle has different types of protests with varying degrees of intensity. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyse the link between elections and service delivery protests in South Africa with a focus on the 2016 and 2021 local government elections in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. This qualitative study relies on relative deprivation theory to tease out socio-economic issues driving these protests and rational choice theory to explore the rationale behind the timing of protests. Findings are that, in both provinces, although protests were linked to poor service provision, other factors like intra-party tension were notable. This article recommends a re-visit of cadre deployment policy, because the lack of capacitated and skilled cadres has fuelled service delivery especially in local municipality.

Political Imprisonment and Protest Mobilization: Evidence From the GDR

How does political imprisonment influence anti-regime protest? We argue that political imprisonment facilitates rather than stifles protest. Political imprisonment is a salient indicator of arbitrary rule creating ‘embodied grievances’. It enables the formation of dissident networks within prisons, and serves as a legitimating credential for former inmates to lead resistance. These mechanisms imply that political imprisonment is a self-defeating strategy, making it easier for the opposition to overcome their collective action problem. We test our argument with subnational data from the German Democratic Republic between 1984 and 1989. To account for endogenous latent dissent, we use originally collected archival data on local surveillance operations. Exploiting daily variation in the timing of protests in 1989, we analyze the long-term impact of political imprisonment on mobilization. Results from survival analyses lend support to our hypothesized relationship. Combined with semi-structured interviews to probe our mechanisms, our findings suggest that political imprisonment increases the likelihood of protest mobilization.

Minsk Narratives. An emerging learning biography in times of protest

Minsk Narratives. An emerging learning biography in times of protest

Italy in times of protest and negative voting: An introduction

The classic heuristics of voting behaviour have been eroded overtime especially in well-established democracies. Ideology, party identification, and social class have been gradually replaced by short-period factors. In particular, the personalization has represented an innovative variable that significantly contributes to explain voting behaviour. Cross-pressures between party identification, candidate assessments and issue preferences paved the way to the diffusion of protest voting, both against the élite and the system. In this respect, Italy represents a very interesting case from both a theoretical and an empirical point view considering the presence of protest parties and the important diffusion of anti-system movements which surfed the protest to consolidate their positions. The editors conceived this special issue aiming at analysing and measuring the impact of protest/negative voting in Italy between 2016 and 2020, a period in which protest parties and voters’ discontent have significantly increased. Data presented by the different papers confirm, albeit under different perspectives, the relevance of this peculiar form of political behaviour.

Political sociology in a time of protest

We live in a time of protest. Relative to sociology, political science has traditionally paid little attention to ‘extra-institutional’ forms of political behaviour. For its part, sociology has tended to prioritize the explanation of mobilization processes over political outcomes. Using bibliometric records from 14 political science and sociology journals over the last two decades, this study demonstrates that protest has witnessed a resurgence of interest in political science and that both sociology and political science now share a focus on the outcomes of protest. The article lays out key trends in this research agenda and suggests what is missing, arguing that a political sociology of protest should integrate recent findings from both disciplines to better understand elite decision-making, the mediation of protest information and protestor aims.

Outraged/Enraged: The Rage Special Issue

This introduction demonstrates the critical place of rage in our contemporary moment in the face of the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic, the surge of protests against police killings and the global Movement for Black Lives, and ongoing dissent against rising authoritarianisms around the world. In her overview of the special issue, Carla Kaplan explores the rich tradition of feminist scholarship on rage from Audre Lorde to Adrienne Rich. Kaplan reflects on the essential work of Signs in this moment as a critical space for engaged feminist public scholarship in a time of protest and crisis. Sarah Haley traces how Black feminist theories of rage have been foundational to broad feminist critiques of state violence and visions for a sustainable, livable world. Yet, Haley argues, Black feminisms are too often treated as a “commodity fetish,” appearing primarily as a citation rather than as a subject of extended engagement and analysis. Durba Mitra analyzes how feminist protest defines our contemporary moment, with no single origin and no end in sight. Mitra highlights the diverse modes of feminist outrage in global protests, from singing and dancing to art making, through the example of the Shaheen Bagh protests against anti-Muslim laws in India. The final section highlights the wide-ranging feminist themes linked to rage in the issue: protests in Puerto Rico, trans politics, intersex protest, sex work, carcerality, the question of white womanhood, white women’s gun ownership, disability, transnational #feminisms against sexual violence and femicide in Kenya and South Africa, Black girlhood, Indigenous feminisms, and disobedient humor in the age of Trump.

A cultural aperture: An inter-provincial analysis of FNMI representation in Canadian news dailies

This study acts as a multi-disciplinary contribution to existing research in discourses of news production practices, and representation of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) issues and protest. Specifically, quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed to explore FNMI representation across three mainstream Canadian dailies leading to and following the Idle No More (INM) movement from October 1, 2012 until February 28, 2013. In doing so, the study acts as a longitudinal confirmation of previous studies, revealing minimal FNMI salience during “everyday” news cycles, a narrow range of key topics, and a drastic increase in coverage during times of protest. Keywords: protest coverage, FNMI media representation, media bias, agenda-setting, uses and gratifications theory, Idle No More, news framing

Martha Rosler’s Protest

This essay reconsiders the photomontages that Martha Rosler began making in the late 1960s to protest the war in Vietnam. Typically understood as a means of protest against the spatial mechanics of domination—against the mediated production of the difference between the home front and the war front or the “here” and “there” that drives modern warfare—the photomontages, this essay argues, also engage the temporal politics of protest. The problem of how to be “in time,” “to be present,” the problem that frames street photography and its critical history, is at the center of this essay and, it contends, Rosler’s protest. By drawing out this critical framework, this essay addresses the still-urgent questions that Rosler’s photomontages pose: When is the time of protest? Does protest happen now? Is there still time for protest?

Friendship in a time of protest? Friedrich Schleiermacher and Russel Botman on the fabric of (civic) friendship

Friendship is not often associated with citizenship, politics or civil society – and yet this contribution proposes that civic friendship(s) may be worth consideration as an expression of peacemaking and peacebuilding: the dynamic interplay between our ‘social’ and ‘individual’ selves working towards peace and countering violence. This theological consideration of friendship deals with the interaction between individuality and sociability in the work and thought of a theologian who was deeply interested in such interplay and which may therefore be helpful in theological reflection on friendship. This contribution draws on two theologians who were involved in higher education themselves – the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who served as rector of the Humboldt University of Berlin (1815–1816), and the South African theologian Russel Botman, who served as rector of Stellenbosch University (2007–2014) – from whom we may learn about (civic) friendship.

EVERYDAY POLITICS AND COLLECTIVE MOBILIZATION AGAINST FOREIGNERS IN A SOUTH AFRICAN SHACK SETTLEMENT

ABSTRACTIn contrast to the tolerant and largely peaceful ‘living politics' of informal settlements, as embodied by the social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, this article considers a darker side of squatter politics: ‘xenophobic’ mobilization. I show how the historical stratification of citizenship in South Africa remains spatially embedded in longstanding informal settlements, where distinctive repertoires of collective action have been shaped by a (still unfinished) history of struggle for inclusion. Using archival research and interviews conducted in the informal settlements of Atteridgeville, Gauteng, I show how the continuing struggle for equal citizenship draws on shared experiences of mundane hardship and collective labour, giving rise to social distance between established local squatters and politically indifferent foreign newcomers. At times of protest, this polarity is concentrated by and converges with familiar practices of insurgent citizenship, creating a context for mobilization against foreigners. In this sense, ‘xenophobic’ mobilization may be seen to articulate a claim for inclusion by structurally excluded ‘citizens', rather than an exclusionary claim by those who already belong. The article provides a useful counterpoint to readings of ‘xenophobic’ violence that focus on the role of elite discourses, instrumental leaders or crude racial identities in shaping such mobilization.

Mektoub by Denis Soula

SOULA, DENIS. Mektoub. Paris: Joëlle Losfeld, 2012. ISBN 978-2-07-246221-4. Pp. 121. 13,50 a. A statement by Goethe about acceptance versus mere tolerance appears in an epigraph before the narrative. The story unfolds in eight major sections, each titled alternatively with the names Claire or Jiordan. Like a collage, texts of various lengths are strategically positioned together, showcasing moments in family, relationships, work, and not sequenced in specific chronological order. Homage is paid to Bob Dylan, whose music, recalling the sixties and seventies, times of protest and counterculture, is redolent with political, philosophical, and occasionally literary allusions. The book is brimful of French slang, providing linguistic immersion in popular culture prevalent during the early years of the current century. Claire, an only child from a working-class family, describes herself as a person of instinct, caring little about analysis and preferring daydreaming. Even if she sees herself as an ordinary person, she is drawn to the unusual: “J’aime les gens et les situations eccentriques. Sans doute parce que je ne le suis pas” (14). We meet Claire at the time that she plans to leave her husband, as both of them have grown apart. Her memory recalls her early years, her life at home, family closeness, their Sunday outings. The loss of her father and its resultant void in her life are aptly summarized by one sentence on a blank page: “Mais il ne conna îtra jamais mes fils et ça me poignarde chaque fois que j’y pense” (21). Claire’s thinking is infused with lines from Dylan’s songs which mirror her thoughts and at the same time help her face her struggles. Jiordan, a musician from Nigeria, travels with various musical groups, just as his father did. His father had worked with some important musicians in the jazz world while his mother was an educated woman: “Elle savait lire et écrire l’anglais, elle travaillait” (45). At the close of a school day as he leaves after teaching music in a workshop to a group of elementary school children, Jiordan is accosted by the police and arrested before horrified parents, children, and school personnel. His visa had expired seventeen months ago. Without forethought, he confides his instruments to Claire, a parent standing nearby. A police officer pulls them out of her hands and hurls them to the ground, smashing them. We follow Jiordan to the detention center, witness the harsh living conditions and the wait for deportation. When an inmate sets fire, it spreads; he manages to escape. A fugitive, he seeks his friend’s café where by coincidence or destiny, he again meets Claire whom he accompanies to her departing train. He then barely extricates himself from a violent attack which includes police dogs. Seriously wounded, he returns to the café where Bébert, the owner, hides him and alerts Claire, who voluntarily shelters Jiordan, her son’s beloved music teacher. As she nurses him back to health, the two become lovers and prolong their idyll in a weekend vacation . On the drive home, their car is met by a highway patrol. Claire despairingly cries: “Putain, c’est pas vrai” (122) while Jiordan’s whispered lament is “Mektoub” or destiny in Arabic (122). The plot advances in short, well-focused chapters; protagonists are known from the inside: through ongoing internal dialogue with conversation as needed. The novel looks at the transient lives of illegal immigrants in France, a useful addition to studies of contemporary culture. Neumann University (PA) Maria G. Traub Reviews 1005 ...

Second Panel: Reclaiming American Indian Studies

I want to thank the sponsors, studies at Arizona State University, for this conference. I want to thank all those speakers who have preceded us here today and all those great questions-I'm very stimulated by all the things that have been going on. And I want to thank Professor Duane Champagne for charging forward with the constitution and those of you who voted for that constitution, and those of you who abstained, and all those of you who voted against it. That shows democracy working here in this room, and I'm happy about that and glad that step has been taken. I'm relative newcomer to studies-it's not really term that I use, or American Indian studies. I began my academic career back in 1972 when I was at the University of North Dakota. It was time of protest. Although I'm not Lakota or Nakota or Dakota, we were out protesting the name of the fighting Sioux at the University of North Dakota. There was lot of political activism at the time and it seems to me that Native or First Nations or studies programs were born of protest, like protest discipline, or resistance discipline, or as Dr. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn said yesterday, a discipline of defense. It was interesting for me when 1 first started to take course in tribal government-I was unfamiliar with tribal government at the time, although I was born 0 N

Legislation in Australia: Social Control or Education?

The primary function of legislation in Australia is that of an educative one rather than an enforcement role. An example of legislation the main function of which is to educate is the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1985 (O.H.&S. Act). The main aim of the Act is to legislate for a safe work place, breaches of the Act can induce human suffering, therefore the Act is designed to prevent workplace accidents, not to prosecute.The O.H.&S. Act was introduced after a time of social change. The sixties and seventies were times of protest on matters concerning equality for women and for many underprivileged groups. As a result of this, a demand for the rights of safety within the workplace followed. With the advent of the Act in 1985 came a legitimation to the premises of workplace health and safety. The demands for workplace health and safety were recognised by the government and it accommodated by legislating for a safe workplace. The OH & S Act satisfies a need to educate the public on workplace safety and the right to workplace rehabilitation after a workplace illness, by using many social mechanisms. These mechanisms include the set up of a beaurocratic organisation—Workcover, to administer the Act. Workcover educates the public through the use of training schemes, graphic television commercials and standards as a guide to correct practice. Evolution of the Act to management of safety by employers and employees demonstrated that legislation is a self-referential system that has feedback loops which are the result of the education of society. The mechanisms used in the processes of education are socially constructed. Legislation is therefore used to guide society into acceptance of an ideal/framework.

Vivencia Infantil del Clima de Violencia y Represión bajo Dictadura su Relación con la Constricción y el Miedo, cuando Jóvenes

It presents the results of a study about the experience of fear amongst youth from poor areas, who as children lived through a climate of repression and protest that was characteristic of Chile during the 1980's, and throughout the military dictatorship. The study focuses on the emotional implications, past and present, of this era. It links the self-perception of the youngsters in a permanent constriction-expansion to the experience of fear. Two study groups were chosen for analysis, one intensely repressed and the Other repressed too lesser degree. The results show that, as children during the time of protest and repression, 37.2% lived through this moment with a intense, prolonged and disruptive sense of threat (629% of those who lived intensely repressed areas and 16.3% in areas that suffered repression to a lesser degree). However, as youngsters, 78,7% of them recognized themselves as expansive. As far as the experience of fear is concerned, a greater portion characterized themselves as fearless (67%)

Christian Higher Education: Consensus and Dissensus in Student Behavior Codes

Conservative Christian institutions of higher education promulgate rather strict codes of conduct for their students. The present study assessed the views of 496 students and 22 administrators in 4 nondenominational conservative Christian colleges. Responses to a questionnaire dealing with 13 ethical conduct areas yielded 8 orthogonal factor dimensions. Though these students tended to be generally conservative in outlook themselves, the much greater conservativism of the administrators was evident. The two groups differ markedly in their views relative to the areas of class and chapel attendance and sexual morality, while differing to a lesser degree on hedonistic consumption, moral actions and conduct, and gambling. Agreement is present in regard to personal dress and knowledge of the institutional policies regarding conduct. In this time of protest and challenge to American higher education, little has been heard about possible conflict between students and administrators in Christian colleges. Still, there is evidence in the student handbooks of such institutions that codes of conduct have been reexamined and rewritten in the light of some of the questions posed by contemporary society. Studies indicating a stressful relationship between the values of Christian liberal arts colleges and those of modern day America have been carried out by Mayhew (1962), Wicke (1964), and Pattillo and MacKenzie (1966). Mayhew perceives the main area of strain to be the religio-moral stance of these colleges as they encounter the secularisticmaterialistic orientation of our social order. In brief, the Christian college is looked upon as being the educative instrument by which Christian men and