This C-paper is a study of state practices around the anti-EU demonstrations in Gothenburg 2001. Based on Louis Althusser's recognition of repressive and ideological state apparatuses, I look at how a democratic state tries to control the political message of a demonstration, by relying on its force and ideology. My argument is that the state controls protests by locating them within a "space of sanctioned resistance." Being defined by state practices and discourse, this space becomes a part of the state system and can because of that never oppose it. This strategy of inclusion is in other words a way for the state to locate resistance under its own umbrella, thereby silenting it to become nothing but a pseudo-affirmation of the freedom of expression within the democratic state system.

No

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study assesses the role of service delivery protests (SDPs) in promoting access to services such as water, electricity, and housing in Gugulethu and Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The study was conceptualised within the context of escalating frequency and scale of SDPs in South Africa. Although the first decade of democracy saw a decline in protests, some groups and movements protested. However, since 2005, when SDPs took national prominence, South Africa has experienced soaring levels of dramatic protests. This frequency of SDPs invites research. Why have SDPs (e.g., for housing, water, and electricity) increased despite the government promising a ‘Better life for all’ for nearly three decades, and how have they unfolded?

No / The widespread protests of November 2019 may be marked as the bloodiest recent chapter of the Islamic Republic of Iran's history in terms of popular dissent. The two major protests in December 2017 and November 2019, followed by the public reaction to the shooting down of the Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 by the IRGC over Tehran after the US killing of General Soleimani, suggest that the prevailing dynamics of political protest in Iran are changing. There is an increasing sense of radicalisation among protesters, while the state is prepared to resort to extreme violence to maintain control. The geography of political protest has changed. The declining economic situation has had a profound impact on the more vulnerable segments of the society who are now increasingly playing a more proactive role in challenging the state. The methods of protest have been evolving over the last four decades, especially in the cultural arena. Last but not least, the willingness of the protesters both to endure and inflict violence is precipitously transforming state-society relations beyond recognition. This article begins by providing a brief overview of protest in the history of the Islamic Republic, up to the public reaction to the 2020 downing of the Ukrainian airline over Tehran. This provides a historical context to assess the ways in which both the political climate and protests have changed over the last four decades. A section identifying and analysing the factors which have created the current political cul-de-sac then follows. The changing dynamics of the protests are the result of the existing political gridlock and the economic crisis, and it is thus important to evaluate the prevailing conditions which have paved the way for the radicalisation of political climate in Iran. The final section examines the changing dynamics of political protest.

A massive open-cast coal mine was proposed for Phulbari in 1994, with the support of the government and international financial organisations. Threatened by displacement, the apparently powerless community mobilised against the mine. Allied with the national and the transnational activist organisations, they successfully stopped the mine. This remarkable success is the subject of the thesis. This resistance is compared quantitatively with the incidence of protests in 397 other mines in the South Asia. Predictors of protest include density of population, proportion of area under forest cover, and ownership by a multinational company. These factors alone would predict a high probability of protest in Phulbari. To understand how the resistance unfolded and why it was successful, the thesis relies on ethnographic evidence. I conducted participant observation and interviewed sixty-four individuals in Phulbari and Dhaka in Bangladesh and in London. Mobilisation against the mine can be explained in part by dialogic framing. Local challengers continuously opposed the dominant discourse of development. Crucially, they shifted their identity to legitimize their opposition to the mine by tagging it with nationalism. As a result, local resistance established links with national left-wing activists. Mobilisation culminated in a mass march of 70,000 in 2006, which was fired on by government forces, with several casualties. Repression failed to quail the resistance. Continued mobilisation was motivated by emotional responses like anger, and facilitated by cultural practices like the obligatory funeral procession. Media reports of the repression catapulted the resistance on to the global stage. This alone is not sufficient to explain the formation of a transnational alliance against the mine. This was maintained by the presence of a large community of Bangladeshi living in Britain, and the mediating role of the left-wing activists in Bangladesh; both groups could translate between locals and western NGOs. This transnational coalition impeded the mining company by targeting international financial organisations, Western governments, the government of Bangladesh, and investors in London. As a result, the company’s share price has collapsed and there seems little prospect of the project proceeding.

Magister Artium - MA / This study explores the lives of Kanana residents, an informal settlement in Gugulethu Township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It pays particular attention to their everyday lives to dispel negative and simplistic representations of informal settlement residents when they collectively take part in protests. Although there are extensive reasons for the protests in the informal settlements, the media and the South African government have reduced these protests to portraying them as demands for “service delivery”, and furthermore as criminally induced protests. I point out that this problem is partly due to scholarly work that does not engage these misleading representations and illustrate the lives of shack residents in the ordinary, when they are not protesting. Thus the focus of this thesis is life beyond protests. I argue that the lives of shack residents who participate in the protests are complex. As opposed to negative and simplistic representations, this thesis illustrates that one needs to be immersed in the lives of shack residents so as to understand them as identifiable human beings who make meaning of their lives. I explore their lives in the shack settlement further and argue that these human beings live their ordinary harmonious lives centred on the practice of greeting. To highlight the complexity of life of protesting informal settlement residents this thesis makes a point that there exist unsettling realities in the shack settlement; unsettling realities that make residents feel to be less of human beings. Kanana residents, therefore, draw from these perpetual unsettling realities to organise and protest. This thesis is based on ethnographic research, which was conducted between September 2015 and February 2016. During fieldwork, I observed and interacted in informal conversations with Kanana residents. With the main co-producers of this work, I carried out their life histories and further in-depth interviews.

Marriage has come to be center-stage in a semiotic and ideological “culture war.” The issue of same-sex marriage has emerged as a defining political argument shaping the manner by which the contemporary gay rights movement positions itself. In Georgia’s 2004 election, a constitutional amendment was proposed defining marriage as legal unions between only biological men and women. In response, campaigns were organized by both supporters and opponents to same-sex marriage. This thesis examines the politics of spectacle at play through which both sides of this argument positioned themselves. This thesis employs anthropological theory, queer theory and public sphere literature to illuminate the campaign against same-sex marriage as one of not only the denial of citizenship rights, but of identity recognition. The methods of theatricality employed by both sides of this debate are examined alongside the manners by which they represented themselves as legitimate voices in the fight over “marriage.”

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984.

Thesis (M.L.I.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

La biologie synthétique est une biotechnologie émergente qui vise à produire des organismes qui n’existent pas dans la nature pour des finalités industrielles. Bien avant que ses applications ne soient développées, ce projet attise de vifs intérêts, mais aussi de précoces critiques. Cette technoscience a attiré très précocement l’attention des pouvoirs publics en France et aux Etats-Unis, cherchant à la gouverner « en amont » de ses applications – et à répondre aux contestations précoces qui s’y opposent. Cette temporalité de gouvernement est l’objet d’étude de la thèse, enquête menée avec les outils de la sociologie des sciences et des risques. Nous suivons la construction sociale des risques et des problèmes de la biologie synthétique, les dispositifs mis en place et les nombreux.ses acteur.rice.s qu’ils mobilisent : bio-ingénieur.e.s, chercheur.se.s en sciences sociales, agents du FBI, biologistes amateurs, contestataires. En France, le premier problème de la biologie synthétique est sa capacité à être contestée, comme le furent les organismes génétiquement modifiés avant elle. Ses promoteur.rice.s politiques et scientifiques cherchent à la développer et à satisfaire la société civile par des dispositifs participatifs qui n’ont toutefois aucune prise sur ce développement. Aux Etats-Unis, les critiques sont marginalisées, et il est surtout craint que la biologie synthétique soit employée par des terroristes, ce que le pouvoir cherche à prévenir tout en préservant la technoscience et ses marchandises de toute régulation. Ainsi, par delà la variété de ces dispositifs, la thèse rend compte de deux formes de gouvernement « en amont », qui ont pour point commun de ne jamais mettre en cause la biologie synthétique, mais de gouverner les problèmes qui pourraient la freiner : un gouvernement sciences-société en France, un gouvernement sécurité-marché aux Etats-Unis. / Synthetic biology is an emerging biotechnology which aims to produce micro-organisms as they do not exist in nature for industrial ends. As it is not yet industrially developed, this technoscience is mostly known for its economical promises but also for being precociously contested by social and environmental movements. Synthetic biology has also attracted public authorities’ attention in France and in the United States, which aim to govern and regulate it in an “upstream” manner (before its applications are developed). This political temporality is the object of study of our thesis, and we have analyzed it in the perspective of sociology of science and sociology of risk. We follow the social construction of the risks and problems of synthetic biology, the apparatus which are dedicated to govern such risks and the numerous actors they rally: bioengineers, social scientists, FBI agents, amateur biologists, activists... We argue that in France, synthetic biology’s main problem is its ability to be socially contested as genetically modified organisms were before it. Its political and scientific supporters thus aim to develop synthetic biology and to satisfy civil society with participatory devices, which have yet no way to intervene in the technological development. In the United States, critics are marginalized, and synthetic biology’s main problem is its ability to be used by terrorists. Public authorities try to prevent such terrorism, while preserving technoscience and its commodities outside the scope of regulation. Thus, beyond the variety of regulation apparatus, the thesis aims to present two ways of governing synthetic biology “upstream”, which have in common the specificity to never focus on synthetic biology, but to govern the problems which might slow its development. We propose to understand these two ways as a sciences-society regime of government in France, and a security-market regime of government in the United States.