resistance

Digital Resistance Call for Papers

Digital Resistance: Call for papers

Special thematic issue of the Journal of Resistance Studies

Editors: Nora Madison & Mathias Klang

This call as a pdf is available here

In many spaces, mobile digital devices and social media are ubiquitous. These devices and applications provide the platforms with which we create, share and consume information. Many obtain much of their news and social information via the personal screens we constantly carry with us. It is therefore unsurprising that these devices also become integral to acts of social activism and resistance.

This digital resistance is most visible in the virtual social movements found behind hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #TakeAKnee, and #MeToo. However, it would be an oversimplification to limit digital resistance to its most popular expressions. Video sharing on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have revealed abuses of police power, racist attacks, and misogyny. The same type of device is used to both record, share, and view instances of abuse. The devices and platforms are also used to organize and coordinate responses, ranging from online naming and shaming, online protests, physical protests. The devices and the platforms are then used to share the protests and their results. More and more the device and the platform are the keyhole through which resistance must fit.

Our devices and access to platforms enable the creation of self-forming and self-organizing resistance movements capable of sharing alternative discourses in advocating for diverse social agendas. This freedom shapes both the individual’s relationship to both power and resistance, in addition to their identities and awareness as activists. It is somewhat paradoxical that something so central to the activist identity and the performance of resistance is in essence created and run as a privatized surveillance machine.

Digital networked resistance has received a great deal of media attention recently. The research field is developing, but more needs to be understood about the role of technology in the enactment of resistance. Our goal is to explore both the role of digital devices and platforms in the processes of resistance.

This special edition aims to understand the role of technology in enabling and subverting resistance. We seek studies on the use of technology in the acts of protesting official power, as well as the use of technology in contesting power structures inherent in the technology or the technological platforms. Contributions are welcome from different methodological approaches and socio-cultural contexts.

We are looking for contributions addressing resistance, power, and technology. This call is interested in original works addressing, but not limited to:

  • Problems with the use of Digital Resistance
  • Powerholders capacity to map Digital Resistance-activists through surveillance
  • How does Digital Resistance differ and/or function compared with Non-digital Resistance?
  • Problems and advantages with combinations of Digital Resistance and non- Digital Resistance?
  • Resistance to platforms
  • Hashtag activism & hijacking
  • Online protests & movements
  • The use of humor/memes as resistance
  • Selfies as resistance
  • Globalization of resistance memes
  • Ethical implications of digital resistance
  • Online ethnography (testimonials/narratives provided by online participants)
  • Issues concerning, privacy, surveillance, anonymity, and intellectual property
  • Effective rhetorical strategies and aesthetics employed in digital resistance
  • Digital resistance: Research methods and challenges
  • The role of technology activism in shaping resistance and political agency
  • Shaping the digital protest identity
  • Policing digital activism
  • Digital resistance as culture
  • Virtual resistance communities
  • The affordances and limitations of the technological tools for digital resistance

Abstracts should be 500 – 750 words (references not included).

Send abstracts to noramadison@gmail.com

Important Dates

Abstracts by 15 January 2019

Notification of acceptance 15 February 2019

Submission of final papers 1 April 2019

  • Max 12000 words (all included)
Posted on by Mathias Klang

Americanisms: Is folks a term of resistance?

One of the fun (and frustrating) things about moving between countries and cultures is discovering that things are done differently than you have come to expect. This is particularly true of language. Some of it is local dialect – every time people in Philly say water (pronounced wuder, or wooder) I cant help but smile. Some of it is spelling (the famous aluminium or aluminum discussion) and some of it is just different words for similar things; do you say car boot or trunk? And in my house the biscuit/cookie & muffin/cupcake discussions can take epic proportions.

But there is one word that fascinates me and that is Folks. Originally I heard it being used by people of color, but once I recognized it I heard it being used by activists from many communities. Usually when I hear the work folk in english – I think of folk dancing:

Swedish Folk Dancing

 

As I am not big on folk dancing it doesn’t play an important part in my life. But a more possible reason the term seems unusual is that it is reasonably common in Swedish (same spelling). It refers to people but it also refers to race and, in part, to nation. This is understandable as its etymology is, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary

Old English folc “common people, laity; men; people, nation, tribe; multitude; troop, army,” from Proto-Germanic *folkam (source also of Old Saxon folc, Old Frisian folk, Middle Dutch volc, Dutch volk, Old High German folc, German Volk “people”). Perhaps originally “host of warriors:” Compare Old Norse folk “people,” also “army, detachment;”

Its germanic roots and use in modern german is what makes it a bit jarring. The term Volk has strong connections for me with the Nazi race ideology where the focus on volk was key – and its definition included elements of race, geography, and culture. The idea of volk was used heavily in their propaganda. They spoke of herrenvolk = master race; and volksgemeinschaft = racial community. And so much more.

Naturally, the american use for the term doesn’t come from these roots, and as far as I can tell american nazis seem to favor race over volk/folk. The american use, as far as I can tell, is more connected with family, relatives, relations, and kinfolk (where are your folks from?) and is a word more used in casual conversation (think of sportscasters addressing the crowd -other terms would be too formal). Naturally it is also strongly connected to the rural world where folk music, folk art, and folk medicine stand in contrast with the urban experience.

Aside from its folksy roots and its casual usage, the word folk (with its vaguely unnecessary plural: folks) is being used among activists in settings that are not intended to be folksy or particularly causal. Here is a quote by Heather Cronk of Showing Up for Racial Justice from the transcript from Bitch Media’s episode A Guide to Trump Resistance

Not all white folks are experiencing this election in the same way. So I identify as queer. I come out of LGBTQ organizing. And for a lot of queer folks, especially a lot of trans folks, even if you’re white, especially if you’re queer and trans and poor, you’re experiencing this election and experiencing having these kinds of conversations with friends and family in different ways. So I would never say to folks you have to have this conversation. For a lot of folks, that isn’t safe for a whole lot of different reasons.

Here folk is a group that shares a common interest that may be defined by race/color, but could also be defined by gender/sexuality.

Its difficult to say that the word is being re-appropriated since the germanic volk seems not to have been a strong connotation in American English. But it does seem like the word is evolving to become a central term in activist circles which does make it a marker of resistance to traditional norms of white, cis gender power.

Posted on by Mathias Klang

The Resistance of the Monks

From Human Rights Watch comes this fascinating report on the monks resistance in Burma and its aftermath.

This 99-page report written by longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, describes the repression Burma’s monks experienced after they led demonstrations against the government in September 2007. The report tells the stories of individual monks who were arrested, beaten and detained. Two years after Buddhist monks marched down the street of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hundreds of monks are in prison and thousands remain fearful of military repression. Many have left their monasteries and returned to their villages or sought refuge abroad, while those who remained in their monasteries live under constant surveillance.

Posted on by mklang

Thoughts in the London Drizzle

Its kind of sad when wifi rules your thoughts and I am pretty sure that their are lots of ways of rationalizing the need for an internet connection but I must admit it is pretty sad. Sad people should be pitied but when it comes to Internet connections they are not pitied they are preyed upon. The prices hotels seem to think they can charge (maybe they can) for a connection are absolutely ridiculous. Amazingly enough the better the hotel the higher they want to charge – it should sort of be the other way around. The hotel last night only had wifi in the lobby and wanted to charge 80 pounds for a 24 hour connection!!!! This was a new record for me and naturally I went without until today when I can scrounge off someone else.

After arriving yesterday I gave a lecture at the LSE on Disobedience and Resistance in Online Environments – it went very well and the students were quick to join the discussion. Today I will be discussing PhD projects with four students and then its out in the London drizzle. Thanks to the Internet connection I uploaded the last of the Ljubljana pictures – the city is a very cool center for innovative street art.

The rest of my photos are on Flickr

Posted on by mklang

Sports, Politics and Resistance

Tommie Smith was the winner of the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. His teammate John Carlos came third.

carlos-smith.jpg

“The two American athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty…” Both the americans and the silver medalist wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges. “Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, but Norman suggested that they share Smith’s pair, with Smith wearing the right glove and Carlos the left. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture which became front page news around the world. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd.” Wikipedia

This is a classic image in symbolic resistance which has been an inspiration to all those who struggle.

The coming Chinese Olympics have already been the target of political campaigns. The Chinese civil rights record is a natural target for acts of civil disobedience – whether symbolic or not.

In order to prevent any such things the British Olympic chiefs are going to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from traveling to Beijing. (Daily Mail)

OK, so maybe there cannot be any official positions taken from the participating countries but to prevent individuals from protesting is going to far. The Chinese naturally see the Olympics as a perfect opportunity to present their position and of course this has not gone unopposed – for example AOL video, RSF, and Yahoo.

Posted on by mklang

Resistance Technology Seminar

On Thursday next week (14/2) I will be holding a seminar on technology and resistance. The goal of this seminar is to develop my material which will be included as a book chapter in an upcoming work. Here is an abstract:

The purpose of this chapter is to look at the ways in which technology can be used in civil disobedience. The chapter will analyze the legal weaknesses faced by those wishing to conduct acts of civil disobedience using the Internet as a communications infrastructure. This approach is often referred to as functional equivalence and this chapter will address the following questions. What is functional equivalence? What obstacles are faced by disobedience online? Is the Internet failing as an infrastructure of democratic disobedience?

The background material for the seminar is available here. It is based upon my thesis which is available online from here.

Time: 15.15-17.00 (we usually go get a beer afterwards)
Place: the Annedalsseminariet, Konstepidemins väg 2, room 325

Posted on by mklang

Web2.0 & Resistance

It is easy to recognize the potential social benefits of web2.0 networking sites. This may be why when they are flooded with pointless, time-consuming trivia the frustration of some is quick to rise to the surface.

This is why, despite (or maybe because of) widespread popularity people tend to question (I have written here) the value of Facebook and other sites, for example Hodgkinson of the Guardian, have argued eloquently against it on a wide range of arguments.

And yet occasionally it is interesting to see that the organizational potential of these site are put to a use beyond the goal of replacing quality with quantity, deep friendship with networks.

The idea of the protests against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, was born less than a month ago on the social networking Web site Facebook, and more than 100,000 people in 165 cities around the world confirmed their participation. (CNN)

Their are many stories told of the utility of social networking sites and some of them are bound to be true. And yet it is difficult to keep from becoming cynical. An apocryphal tale I heard recently was about a conversation between two young adults overheard on a bus:

First young adult: I have joined Amnesty.

Second young adult: Thats great! Is that a cause or a group*

—

* If this makes no sense to you then you are probably not on Facebook

Posted on by mklang

Real academics walk the walk they talk

Like most academics I know, I tend to say yes to most offers to do extra work. Your schedule seems too full? No way! Of course you accept to give a lecture, write a chapter, hold a seminar, write a short text, give an interview…

Therefore at the beginning of the new year I doubt that I am alone in playing Tetris with my calender in a vain attempt to fit in all the things I promised and still find time to work with the mundane everyday task of research. Despite being aware of this I have already promised to do several things besides my actual work for example:

  • Book chapter on digital resistance in Swedish
  • Revise two research papers
  • Review two research papers
  • Write a commentary on the GPLv3
  • Launch a new journal
  • Teach in Lund & Göteborg
  • Lecture in Stockholm
  • Hold a seminar in Göteborg

And it’s still only January. I must be more protective of my time or I shall be totally unable to implement my major plan for being a productive academic. Why is it that most academics seem to be only too happy to say yes to all the extra work? In the past I had an idea that if I turned an extra task down I would never be asked again. This may be true but it is still not really a strong reason for saying Yes.

Part of me says Yes because I am flattered simply by the fact that I was asked. Another part of me says Yes because I want to show that I can do the job. The academic system that schooled me taught that many of the extra tasks we do (for which the only reward is a dubious honor or community recognition) are all part of the way in which an academic should behave. Part of the norms which make up the academic community. In a sense the extra work is not our reward but it actually defines who we are as academics. Or could it just be that I am a glutton for punishment?

Posted on by mklang

Steal This Film II

Copyright never was what it used to be and the struggle to define the purpose and limits over the protection of intellectual property (or indeed the idea of intellectual property) continues daily.

One example of the ongoing debate is an op-ed in the Swedish paper Expressen a group of Swedish politicians called for the legalization of file sharing. One of the politicians was a police officer. But this is more an example of the exception than the rule.

The real attempt to draw the lines that may limit copyright occur every day and are defined in the way in which we all collectively use our technology. The act of file sharing by an individual is, in of itself, an unimportant act. Taken collectively file sharing is a massive active form of resistance and a re-interpretation of the the general consciousness of justice, right, wrong & morality.

Another important position is taken by those who actively comment and interpret the acts of all those involved in the re-definition of copyright. An important contribution to this is the film Steal this Film II. It features scholars such as Yochai Benkler, Felix Stalder, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Howard Rheingold and portrays file sharing and the copyright debate as a historical development in the urge to regulate the spread of information.

Over at the Industrial IT Group blog Jonny has written a very good analysis of the importance of the film. Watch the movie, read the analysis and get involved in the most interesting re-defition of law in our time. 


Posted on by mklang