ContentionPub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.3167/CONT.2019.070107
Ben J Hightower, Scott East, Simon Hunt
{"title":"Pranks in Contentious Politics","authors":"Ben J Hightower, Scott East, Simon Hunt","doi":"10.3167/CONT.2019.070107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/CONT.2019.070107","url":null,"abstract":"There is often a division between scholarly publication and activist knowledge—something that Sarah Maddison and Sean Scalmer (2005) suggest may be countered by taking the knowledge produced by activists seriously. In this interview, Simon Hunt reflects on the genesis of Pauline Pantsdown, a drag persona that he developed in the late 1990s in reaction to Australian Conservative politician Pauline Hanson, who generated controversy for her racist and divisive views. The introduction briefly considers the importance of activist accounts and contextualizes Hunt’s practice in relation to arts activism and networked societies. From there, Hunt discusses a range of significant considerations for activism, notably the significance of using persona as a means for activism, the affordances and challenges of using social media, and methods for activating participation in a changing media landscape.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88874053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.3167/CONT.2019.070102
Ben J Hightower, Scott East
{"title":"More than Luck","authors":"Ben J Hightower, Scott East","doi":"10.3167/CONT.2019.070102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/CONT.2019.070102","url":null,"abstract":"This introduction begins by challenging a common narrative formed in relation to Australia—that it is a “lucky country.” This “exceptionalist” view of Australia is also evidenced in national legal frameworks relating to human rights. Drawing on histories of Australian politics, it is argued that social justice stems not from luck or an exceptional legislative system, but from various forms of social contestation. Especially since the global protests of 2011, more scholars are considering the organization, impacts, and practices of social movements that occur on a global scale. Despite the evolution of globalized protest, this collection is informed by Connell’s southern theory (2007), which identifies the unequal geopolitics of knowledge. The articles in this issue provide a diverse range of case studies that can inform protest practices and evidence the vitality of dissent in Australia. Activist knowledges and a quest for collaborative approaches to protest are the two elements that run throughout this issue of Contention.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84378158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.3167/CONT.2019.070106
R. Garbutt
{"title":"Creating Space for Protest and Possibility","authors":"R. Garbutt","doi":"10.3167/CONT.2019.070106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/CONT.2019.070106","url":null,"abstract":"This article brings together the ideas of protest and counterculture in a productive engagement. If protest is understood as publicly bearing witness in opposition to something, then countercultures often do this as rejections of dominant cultures that are folded into everyday life in order to create spaces for possible futures. The countercultural experiments undertaken in the region around Nimbin, Australia, are an example of such space creation. Using interviews, presentations, and archival materials collected at a 2013 community conference marking the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Nimbin Aquarius Festival, I will explore these experiments in the context of countercultural protest. The Festival not only gathered together people under the banner of the counterculture, but provided a unique space for gathering around common matters of concern to create an ongoing countercultural community. This community continues to develop practical knowledge regarding sustainable living and innovations in grassroots environmental protest.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90580056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/CONT.2018.060204
P. Bleakley
{"title":"A State of Force","authors":"P. Bleakley","doi":"10.3167/CONT.2018.060204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/CONT.2018.060204","url":null,"abstract":"Australian history is littered with examples of situations\u0000in which police have engaged in the use of force—in some cases,\u0000disproportionate violence—to maintain order and stability. In addition\u0000to this effort to control the population and ensure social order,\u0000extreme use of force was a key factor in repressing civil dissent\u0000and preventing marginalized communities from exercising their\u0000voice within the social discourse. Former Queensland Police Commissioner\u0000Frederic Urquhart was at the forefront of several high-profile\u0000examples of police enforcing social control during his tenure\u0000with the Queensland police, including the punitive expeditions of\u0000the Native Mounted Police Force, the civil disorder of the 1912\u0000general strike, and the chaos associated with the 1919 Red Flag\u0000riots. In developing an appreciation for Urquhart’s behavior and\u0000motivations, it can be seen that the Queensland police have always\u0000served as a body dedicated to ensuring conformity through any\u0000means necessary.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86385166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2018.060202
Donatella della Porta
{"title":"1968 – The Resonant Memory of a Rebellious Year","authors":"Donatella della Porta","doi":"10.3167/cont.2018.060202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2018.060202","url":null,"abstract":"The year 1968 has been considered a historical moment\u0000in the study of protest. What is celebrated on its fiftieth anniversary,\u0000as for any historical event, is a particularly specific vision\u0000of that year. This article bridges social movement studies with\u0000memory studies, arguing that social movement studies should give\u0000more attention to how movement events are remembered by subsequent\u0000movements. I argue that the memory of 1968 has proven to\u0000be selective, contested, and changeable over time. I suggest that, as\u0000memories of democratic transitions intertwined with anti-austerity\u0000protests, the memories of 1968’s rebellious year acquire a central\u0000relevance in times of quick transformation, in which old identities\u0000and relations are unsettled and new ones emerge. I explore\u0000this through a discussion of current debates on memory distortion,\u0000contestation, and fluidity.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"83 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74677381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2018.060206
H. Slim
{"title":"Regime Collapse and Revolution","authors":"H. Slim","doi":"10.3167/cont.2018.060206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2018.060206","url":null,"abstract":"John Dunn’s provocative interview in Contention volume\u00005, issue 2 inspired an array of responses from the scholarly and\u0000practitioner communities. In the original interview, Dunn suggested\u0000that the era of modern revolutions has come to a close and\u0000that we are now witnessing a phenomenon better described as\u0000“regime collapse.” In this response to Dunn’s conception of revolution,\u0000Hugo Slim, an expert on non-international armed conflicts,\u0000challenges Dunn’s claims with examples of revolutionary liberation\u0000movements in Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Venezuela,\u0000as well as Islamist revolutionary movements in the Middle East.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80409480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/CONT.2018.060208
Benjamin Abrams
{"title":"The End of Revolution, and Its Means","authors":"Benjamin Abrams","doi":"10.3167/CONT.2018.060208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/CONT.2018.060208","url":null,"abstract":"In Contention volume 5, issue 2, Benjamin Abrams interviewed the political theorist John Dunn on the topic of modern revolutions. In the interview, Dunn advanced the view that the “Epoch of Revolution” had ended by 1989 and that what many scholars called revolutions today were simply instances of regime collapse. The interview received a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners including Hugo Slim. Slim challenged Dunn’s concept of revolution in this issue, and Dunn responded defending his ideas. This article attempts to tease out the differences underlying the two scholars’ disagreement as to whether the Epoch of Revolution has truly passed. The article proposes that while processual approaches (such as Slim’s) conceive of revolution primarily as a political means, Dunn’s “programmatic” approach to revolution conceives of it as not only a means but also a political end. The article also considers the implications of Dunn’s theory of revolution, and the representative challenges of academic interviewing.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88396289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2018.060207
J. Dunn
{"title":"Reply to Hugo Slim","authors":"J. Dunn","doi":"10.3167/cont.2018.060207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2018.060207","url":null,"abstract":"Responding to Hugo Slim’s critique, John Dunn defends\u0000his notion of the “Epoch of Revolution.” The response advances\u0000that this protracted epoch was defined by the unique way in which\u0000the category of revolution itself defined key possibilities for collective\u0000political, social, and economic transformation. In doing so,\u0000Dunn argues, this category transformed the conditions of political\u0000action across a large part of the world. Dunn classifies Slim’s cases\u0000as instances of rebellion that, though significant and important, do\u0000not share the teleological character of revolution.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82768584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2018.060203
M. Schoene
{"title":"Protest Wave or Protest Spike?","authors":"M. Schoene","doi":"10.3167/cont.2018.060203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2018.060203","url":null,"abstract":"Recent scholarly attention has designated European protest\u0000activity from 2011 to 2013 a “protest wave,” a term with specific\u0000sociological meaning. While many European countries indeed\u0000experienced a period of unrest, I argue that for protest activity to\u0000be considered a wave, the protest in question must be significantly\u0000higher than normative levels of participation. To this end, I conceptualize\u0000national protest culture as an explanatory factor for recent\u0000protest activity. Using the European Social Survey, a series of multilevel\u0000mixed effects regression models for 22 countries demonstrates\u0000that the most powerful predictor of protest in 2012 is the protest\u0000rate for each country in 2008. I therefore question this period’s\u0000designation as a protest wave and instead choose to refer to it as a\u0000set of discrete protest spikes.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77247095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ContentionPub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2018.060205
S. Popović, Slobodan Djinovic
{"title":"How Can Social Movements Help Defend Democracy?","authors":"S. Popović, Slobodan Djinovic","doi":"10.3167/cont.2018.060205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2018.060205","url":null,"abstract":"This piece of “movement writing” is written by the\u0000coheads of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies\u0000and the cofounders of the Otpor! movement that ousted Yugoslavian\u0000President Slobodan Milošević in 2000. The article discusses\u0000the most promising tactics in contemporary prodemocracy activism,\u0000drawing on the authors’ considerable experience working with\u0000activists across the globe. Popović and Djinovic argue that the efficacy\u0000of traditional nonviolent strategies has waned with respect\u0000to contemporary prodemocracy struggles—which often seek to\u0000defend institutions rather than dismantle them—and advocate for\u0000more creative, humorous approach to contention.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80824493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}