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- Convenors:
-
Hanabeth Luke
(Southern Cross University)
Darrick Evensen (University of Edinburgh)
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- Formats:
- Panels Roundtables
- Location:
- STB 2, Science Teaching Building
- Sessions:
- Thursday 5 December, -, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the value, and role of, of public protest in contemporary society, exploring how public protest has or has not influenced policy in regards to issues such as (but not limited to) fracking, climate change and live animal exports. We also examine the role which researchers do and should play in such contentious debates.
Long Abstract:
We propose linking two sessions, starting with a standard panel of presentations, transitioning into a round table discussion on the role of protest in contemporary society in Australia, and globally. We ask the question, is activism a useful force for influencing policy and regulation in contemporary society? And importantly, what is, or should be, the role of researchers in reporting on activism?
Over the past decade, there has been a notable resurgence in protest activities in relation to extractive development, agriculture and a range of other industries. In the academic literature, the social license concept has received growing interest, particularly with regard to the role that broader public outcry or local resident protest can influence industry activities, productivity and growth. This has been increasingly recognised as a real risk to companies, projects and industry, which needs to be better understood and managed. Others may view this increasing participation in protest activities as a signal for much needed changes in regulation and policy on some big contemporary issues, such as climate action. In some places, however, being an activist may be viewed as undesirable or stigmatised, therefore protest occurs via other less overt means, if at all. While we invite presentations on social license, public protest, climate justice and social movements emerging in Australia and globally, we also are also interested in reflections on researcher experience of conducting study on contentious topics.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 4 December, 2019, -Darrick Evensen (University of Edinburgh) Nathan Delwart
Paper short abstract:
Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots protest group demanding the UK acknowledge urgency of climate action, has drawn substantial media coverage in the year since it formed. We examine the nature of this coverage as a potential avenue for communication of novel ways of engaging with climate change.
Paper long abstract:
In the second half of 2018, grassroots activism on climate change proliferated globally. In the UK, a notable component of this movement has been 'Extinction Rebellion' ('XR'), an organisation that has protested to demand the UK Government recognise the urgency of climate action. Extinction Rebellion itself, and numerous scholars, have acknowledged that mass media portrayals notably affect perceptions of issues such as climate change. XR introduced new avenues for the media to explore climate issues, including a radical eco-centric set of principles and demands. Our research focuses on how key mass media outlets in the UK portray the XR movement, as well as policy and science on climate change, through coverage of XR (this could be called coverage of 'Extinction Rebellions'). We consider the ways and extent to which such media coverage of a protest group could present an avenue for the communication of novel ways of engaging with climate change. We analyse online coverage from UK newspapers The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail, which covers the political spectrum of Britain's high-circulation media - whilst providing a mix of broadsheets and tabloids. Survey data from a representative UK sample reveal that the readership of these news sources varies considerably on climate change beliefs. A theoretic approach adopted from Critical Discourse Analysis is used to investigate how the media have portrayed XR over 2018-2019. This information will be coupled with a classification of climate change storylines within each individual article, opening up various cross-sectional lanes of analysis.
Gabriel Bayarri Toscano (School of Advanced Study - University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposal aims to carry out a study of the “Bolsonarim rhetoric” presented in the public protest of Brazil from June 2013 until the Brazilian electoral campaign. The analysis explores how these public protests involved demands for rights and recognition linked to the far-right in this country.
Paper long abstract:
This paper proposal aims to carry out a study of the rhetoric of collective mobilizations at the Brazilian public space from June 2013 that involves demands for rights and recognition linked to the far-right in this country. When discussing this rhetoric from the anthropological point of view, we can undertake an analysis of the legal sensitivities, the political and moral grammars in Brazil, in order to investigate processes of reclaiming of groups that are understood in this public space as far-right.
In Brazil, demands of rights related to reclaims of differentiated identities can be observed in situations of conflicts that involve the recognition of the identities and rights of citizenship of the so-called "Bolsonaro’s Project". The anti-corruption rhetoric in the electoral campaign is fundamental in the construction of such identity claims and collective mobilizations.
This paper seeks to discuss how the actors from the far-right use different regimes of engagement to justify their claims, making them legitimate in this public arena through the use of the “Bolsonarism rhetoric”.
Mayane Dore (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to analyse how participatory planning can control and undermine activism whilst it shapes a specific form of collective action. For that, it focuses on the urban redevelopment of Waterloo, Sydney's largest inner-city public housing estate and highlights technologies of state power.
Paper long abstract:
This paper aims to analyse how participatory planning can control and undermine activism whilst it shapes a specific form of collective action. For this discussion I use ethnographic data from the ongoing redevelopment in Waterloo, Sydney's largest inner-city public housing estate. This project is part of the New south Wales´s Community Plus program and claims to be an innovative approach to public housing as it undertakes community consultation and other participatory planning techniques. In this studied case, despite the democratic effort, the process seems to have a contrary effect. Rather than enhancing democratic debates around urban planning, the community becomes demobilize, organizing very limited actions, mainly around bureaucratic tasks such as meetings, reports and motions. As observed, these artifacts create a narrative of action but can also hide the hollowness of the political debate and activism.
This paper intends to explore the understanding of participatory planning as a structure capable of defining, at the same time it orders, regulates and controls the multiple possibilities of collective actions by dictating how, where and when to engage politically and "have our say". Underlying this discussion is an analysis of the techniques of power and social control articulated in these specific cases and its implication on the emergence of forms of resistance and activism. In conclusion, this paper seeks to contribute with the panel by questioning how the structure of participatory planning can reframe the meanings of activism and its forms of influencing policy in contemporary societies.
Stanley Shanapinda (La Trobe University)
Paper short abstract:
Young people are increasingly political and tech-savvy and may be referred to as 'digital natives'. In doing what feels innate to them - using social media apps to organise a protest - digital natives attract national security scrutiny, and this undermines their purpose.
Paper long abstract:
The value of any protest is to bring about change on a particular subject - whether it is to stop an extradition law or to require action on climate change, by demanding that a coalmine project be stopped. These laws and projects may be justified on the basis that they are in the national interest - law and order, to grow the economy and to create jobs. Young people are at the forefront of demanding change. These are the same tech-savvy individuals to whom the use of location aware social media applications is innate. So, they use mobile communications to organise and protest something that is labelled as of national interest. They are in turn labelled as posing a threat to national security. This labelling has the effect of creating the impression of illegality and unpatriotic behaviour to the community. This labelling potentially attracts the attention of the national security apparatus, inquiring into the cell location data of their mobile devices, and without judicial warrants, or to hack their social media apps, to disrupt their activities. The young then become persons of interest by exercising their democratic rights and are under suspicion of behaviour that is similar to being treasonous. This in turn has a chilling effect - it undermines the desired change, and getting public buy-in. The community is discouraged from being sensitive to the cause. This paper discusses the impact modern day surveillance powers have on the right of modern youth to demand change by using protest technologies.
Hans Baer (University of Melbourne)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation focuses my involvement as a scholar activist within the context of the Australian climate movement since 2007 and my efforts to push for a more radical stance within the movement as an engaged and critical anthropologist.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2007, as part of a large process of developing a critical anthropology of climate change, I have engaged in climate activism in several groups, including the Climate Emergency Network, Climate Action Moreland, Psychology of a Safe Climate, and the Socialist Alliance. I have identified two main tendencies in the Australian climate movement. The first is a green social democratic one which urges lobbying politicians and persuading business people to embrace a regulated green capitalism which would result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, largely by adopting a carbon price and renewable energy sources. The second tendency is a smaller anti-capitalist one, consisting of a mixture of eco-socialists and eco-anarchists, who while favouring particularly an emissions tax and renewables, calls for transcending capitalism and replacing it with an alternative system committed to social justice, democratic processes, environmental sustainability, and a safe climate. In that I have personally identified with the latter tendency, in this paper I reflect upon my own efforts to push for a more critical analysis and actions within the Australian climate movement as well as in the international climate movement.
Lina Koleilat (Australian National University)
Paper short abstract:
Are all ethnographic studies political? What is the value and the role of the ethnographer, and how does this role change when researching contentious debates? Having conducted research with communities of resistance, in this paper I aim to explore some of these questions in relation to my research.
Paper long abstract:
Being an ethnographer of activism, protest and resistance presents several challenges. The first and most important set of challenges are in relation to the communities being 'studied'. What does the ethnographer own the people they live and work with? And how do we give back to the communities/people we learn from? The second set of challenges is in relation to the academic community. What is the positionality of the researcher? Is the ethnographer "too close" to the community they work with and learn from? Does this closeness inhibit a rigorous academic debate? Is there a position of objectiveness or neutrality that the researcher can occupy which leads to more desired research outcomes? Having myself conducted research that dialectically deals with these questions I explore in this paper some of the ways we can think about these questions using critical theory and decolonizing methodologies as those discussed by Tuhiwai Smith. This paper explores the value of ethnographies and the role of the ethnographer in contentious political debates.