In the spirit of Guillermo Del Toro, “Disobedience is a virtue” in life and acts as an essential element in the art of cinema, which allows filmmakers to tell stories about their nativism and imagination. With disobedience, it is a theme that allows filmmakers to resist and rebel against traditional methods of film production and storytelling found in mainstream Hollywood films while breaking barriers of the Cultivation Theory in which molds such Latino stereotypes through the way the media paint the landscape of society. American cinema has utilized stereotypical Latino characters portraying Cholos, occasional sex symbols, indolent labor workers, illiterate immigrants, house housekeepers, nannies, and violent criminals. Mexican and Mexican Americans embodied the importance of disobedience in life to obtain opportunities and with that, filmmakers have used film to their advantage in telling both Latino and non-Latino narratives that branch out from Hollywood’s formula and business of cinema. I will examine six Latino filmmakers and a selected film from each filmmaker to analyze their use of disobedience within their narratives and filmmaking practice. By analyzing the films of Luis Valdez, Gregory Nava, Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, and Fernando Frías De La Parra, I will explore and define how each filmmaker embodies their version of disobedience in the context of Neufeld’s (2015) aesthetic disobedience concept along with Burgous and Linlott’s (2023) additional categories of artistic (filmmaker) disobedience and art world (story world) disobedience.

Ce mémoire sur les fondements de la désobéissance civile se divise en trois parties. Le premier chapitre concerne la définition de la désobéissance civile d’après l’analyse d’Hugo Adam Bedau. Le deuxième chapitre traite des origines historiques du concept à partir des textes de David Henry Thoreau et Léon Tolstoï jusqu’aux campagnes de Mohandas Gandhi et Martin Luther King. Le dernier chapitre porte sur la pratique de la désobéissance civile dans les régimes démocratiques selon John Rawls. L’objectif de ce mémoire est de démontrer que la désobéissance civile est conforme à la justice malgré son caractère illégal, qu’elle a été bénéfique historiquement à l’évolution des mentalités et qu’elle est nécessaire en démocratie. / This study regarding the foundation of civil disobedience is divided in three parts. The first chapter concerns the definition of civil disobedience by Hugo Adam Bedau. The second chapter deals with the historical origins of the concept from the writings of David Henry Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy to the campaigns of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The last chapter focus on the practice of civil disobedience in democratic regimes according to John Rawls. The purpose of this study is to prove that civil disobedience is true to justice despite being illegal, that it has been historically beneficial in the evolution of mentalities and that it is essential to democracy.

From 1988 to 1994, the Carmanah and Walbran valleys on southern Vancouver Island emerged from obscurity to inspire international newspaper headlines, ecotage, and election platforms, and figure in British Columbia’s Commission on Resources and the Environment (CORE), the genesis of the current provincial land-use status quo. With Canada’s tallest tree, first marbled murrelet nest, and proximity to Victoria, the area’s old-growth forests became the site of a touchstone conflict in BC’s War in the Woods (ca. 1980-1995), one which resulted in Carmanah and the Upper Walbran and Lower Walbran becoming designated as Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in 1995. The Central Walbran remains open to logging, which as recently as 2016 has incited backwoods blockades not dissimilar to those from July and August 1991, the climax of my narrative. This thesis explores how and why the Walbran land-use resolution disappointed Victoria-based environmentalists, Cowichan Lake forest workers, the Nuu-chah-nulth, and the nation-state of Qwa-Ba-Diwa, and why the fate of the watershed remains subject to debate. Analyzing the roots of BC’s wood “exploitation axis” helps contextualize why Carmanah Walbran campaigns in Cowichan Lake and Victoria failed to produce satisfactory outcomes despite significant compromises from provincial governments after much deliberation. In short, dissidence failed to engender land-use consensus because forest capitalism and its co-constitutive partner, colonialism, have since the nineteenth century crafted policy based on a conception of the world rooted in forestry-based development, a durable ontological construct against which other imaginaries of nature have had to compete. The Tree Farm Licence system brought the International Woodworkers of America into a Gomperist bargain with companies and the state after World War II, and contributed to decades of overharvesting, overoptimistic regrowth projections, and corporatization which culminated in falldown and forest community crisis before environmentalists began to shape the public discourse regarding nature in the late 1980s. A fundamental inability to produce a satisfactory vision of sustainable forestry and a narrow state narrow response—wilderness parks—to broad, diverse environmentalist demands allowed nature to remain envisioned as a store of raw material for industrial forestry. This thesis additionally seeks to problematize environmentalists’ “wilderness” narratives to elaborate how green knowledge production can act as discursive violence. Our “natures” are more than workplaces, sites for recreation, or pristine ecosystems. They are environments within which to find and make meaning. Or perhaps more accurately, nature is a symbol with which to construct narratives; narratives which, in Carmanah Walbran, often left little room for work in the woods. Environmentalists’ depictions of unpeopled nature advanced their wilderness-preservation cause at the expense of marginalizing Nuu-chah-nulth land claims, loggers’ paycheques, and ecocentric worldviews based on holistic conceptions of interconnectedness and/or radical dissent against the forest industrial complex. In short, the Carmanah Walbran War in the Woods added 16,365 hectares of new parkland, contributed (along with log exports) to the 2001 closure of the Youbou mill, the last at Cowichan Lake, and ensured that an isolated gravel road still ends at a bridge to nowhere. / Graduate / 2020-09-12

Though ultimately seeking more just law, civil disobedience still entails the breaching of a law. For this reason, most theories hold that people who practice civil disobedience must be willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions. On the other hand, a nation that is truly committed to justice will recognize that its constitution and legal order may in some ways fall short of perfect justice. In this thesis, I defend Rawls’s theory of civil disobedience as unique in its capacity for justification and even government toleration. Appealing to a shared conception of justice, Rawlsian civil disobedients are able to ground their actions in the same principles to which the state is committed. I argue that Rawls’s shared conception of justice is further substantiated when read in the light of his later theory of the overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines. I ultimately conclude that civil disobedience construed in the Rawlsian sense ought to receive some degree of toleration by the state, and particularly by constitutional states which maintain a formal commitment to justice in the protection of rights and intentional design of government institutions.

本論文題旨為：德渥金論公民違抗。公民違抗概念的存在與政治哲學同時並起 而大興於二十世紀，包括甘地以之倡議印度獨立，乃至於六○年代的美國用以爭取黑人民權、女權、反越戰、校園反叛等等，如今更是民主國家中人民意見表達、抗議之常見方式。在違抗政府的意義界定上，公民違抗與流血革命不同，其特質為（廣義的）非暴力（non-violence），目的並非推翻政府，而是人民基於良心、基於正義，同時也基於對政策、法律的不同意見，迫使政府改變其法律、政策。 然而，公民違抗不僅是一項政治與社會實踐。對本論文的中心關懷而言，更重要的是，公民違抗產生的原因與背景是什麼？它背後所代表的意義又是什麼？ 筆者認為，儘管公民違抗作為一政治、社會實踐，在實踐過程中充滿變化與挑戰，然而就理論思考而言，公民違抗不啻為探究與反省民主理論之最佳對象。要之，公民違抗為人民自發性的行動，旨在違抗政府政策、法律等政令；然而在基礎意義上，以民主作為立國基礎之國家，政治是向人民開放的，即，民主國家中的人民具有參與政治的權利與權力──公民違抗的出現使得這項民主定義被凸顯出來而被重新檢視：人民被迫以違法抗議的方式作為意見表達的出口，必然在政治參與的理論與實踐上出現難以跨越的橫溝與歧異。據此，審視公民違抗的實踐之於政治理論，有其時代意義與重要性。 本論文共分五章，分別簡述如下： 第一章為導論，分為兩節。第一節為問題脈絡，主要就現實社會的觀察提出思考與反省：政治的本質是什麼？公民違抗與政治的關係又是什麼？第二節為研究進路，說明本文以德渥金的權利理論作為探查公民違抗及其背後所代表意旨的角度。公民違抗本質上強調與爭取人民權利，而德渥金權利理論正是取眼於人民權利保障，本論文寄望在兩者之間，取得理論與實踐之調諧與平衡。 第二章旨在回溯公民違抗議題的發展，主要分為三節。第一節以蘇格拉底、金恩等人所從事之違抗事例說明，對公民違抗者而言：惡法非法；因而面對不義的法律，人民不僅不應遵守，更應起身違抗，使生命更為正義。第二節藉由德渥金與梭羅等人之眼進一步指出，違抗不義的法律之於人民正義生活的必要性，以及政府面對基於正義而違抗法律的人民時，應以寬容的態度對應之。第三節則是兼顧羅爾斯與鄂蘭的見解，指出公民違抗雖出自於人民的正義感與良心，但最終應立基於人民對公共議題的關懷與共識；同時，藉由「公民違抗的憲政地位為何？」與「寬容、以政治方式處理公民違抗的意義為何？」等提問向契約理論開放。 第三章藉由古典契約論與當代契約論之比較，指出契約論中的同意理論才是憲政理論的重心，而公民違抗相關於憲政體制，應取眼於同意理論中保障人民權利的視角，作為公民違抗立論的基礎。本章共分為三節，第一節回溯古典契約論者霍布斯、洛克等人對自然狀態的看法，並指出同意概念與自然權利是契約理論的思考核心。第二節接續前節對古典契約論的回顧，指出盧梭最初提出公共意志的真意，並檢討同意理論的實踐問題，包括多數決原則、代議政治等所產生的弊病。筆者認為，同意中的明示（express consent）之於政治同意並不構成基礎性的問題；問題在於默許（tacit consent）。包括洛克、盧梭甚至更早的蘇格拉底都認為，居住是作為對國家、政治權威與制度的一種同意，是一種默許。問題在於，這種默許方式對於國家╱政治權威正當性的肯認基礎過於薄弱，而這正是公民違抗在契約理論中、在憲政層次上存在的必要地位：公民違抗作為一種不同意的表示，在違抗法律、政策並要求改變的同時，也間接反證了違抗對象存在的正當性。第三節旨在說明，當代契約論者羅爾斯的正義理論著重「人們將同意什麼樣的政治制度」，而忽略了「人們憑藉著什麼而得以同意、以及為什麼不同意」這個面向。同時，德渥金也指出，假定的契約不是契約──契約論者要保障的正是人民同意所憑藉的「權利概念」，並進入第四章討論公民違抗與德渥金的權利理論。 第四章鋪陳公民違抗與德渥金權利理論的關係，共分三節。第一節鋪陳德渥金權利理論的法學基礎，指出在德渥金權利理論中，以原則（principle）為論旨中心：在法學理論上，權利理論以「法律的發展相應於道德的發展」恰恰與法實證主義相對舉。第二節指出，在德渥金的權利理論中，公民違抗的行動理據證立在「個人有權反對國家」這項命題上。簡言之，當前民主制度以多數決原則作為解決公共爭議的方式，卻凸顯出少數在數量上的弱勢；而在多數的集結經常以利益作為考量的情況上，「個人反對國家」的強意義權利更能對比出利益多數之於政策制定的不公義。第三節討論平等權利與公民違抗。德渥金的權利理論最終以平等作為自由的基礎，其中德渥金的自由主義式平等觀更異於一般：作為平等的個人而受到平等對待的權利。德渥金指出，作為平等的個人所受到的平等對待權利是一種平等的關心與尊重的權利；政府在政策的制定與抉擇上，不能只考慮效益主義齊頭式的平等觀，而必須考量作為少數的弱勢：在利益與機會等的分配上，應該有一種被容許的不平等分配方式，供政府做出整體的決定。要之，公民違抗作為一種政治參與的方式，事實上是一種消極的抗議表達；與其等到人民對於政治現狀、政策法律達到無可忍受的地步，不如在政府施政的同時，便多著眼於人民權利的注重與人民平等地位的關懷，作為一積極意義的政治思考，對於促進人民生活更能有進取性的助益。第五章為結論，主要分兩部份。第一部份總結本論文的研究所得：公民違抗終究只是一種手段，真正的目的仍舊在於使人民獲得公平、正義、良善的生活。第二部份回顧現實：除了台灣近日在政治作為上體現德渥金所言：「公平之路存在於寬容之中」之外，鄰近的菲律賓總統下台事件道出公民違抗的積極面「主權在民」，而當前世界各地反全球化的抗議浪潮更顯示，人民的抗議對象已經從過去在政治上所面對的國家，轉而成隱藏在國家背後的經濟統合體系。德渥金的自由主義式平等觀作為一種資源與福利的分配正義，對本論文的研究題旨而言儘管是一項限制，然而卻在新時代的挑戰中成為新問題的可能進路：過去人們在政治上爭自由與平等，如今人們可能因為經濟問題陷入另一層次的不自由與不平等。據此，德渥金的自由主義式平等觀有更進一步研析的重要性，本文囿於題旨與篇幅限制，僅將此問題向未來開放。

John Milton, par son œuvre polémique en prose, a exercé une influence importante d’abord sur les colonies américaines, et ensuite aux Etats-Unis. C’est autour de l’interprétation de son statut de Dissenter que se met en place la construction d’une figure d’identification qui traverse les époques, pendant la Révolution et la campagne abolitionniste notamment. Cette thèse cherche à identifier les mécanismes et les moments fondamentaux de cette transmission culturelle, à travers le parcours de plusieurs auteurs américains : le Quaker John Woolman, l’abolitionniste William Garrison, et le Transcendantaliste Ralph Waldo Emerson. On analysera comment l’évolution de la définition du dissent a permis à l’œuvre de Milton d’accompagner différents mouvements intellectuels américains. On verra comment, à partir de racines anglaises, les problématiques soulevées par Milton dans les années 1640 à 1660, ont pu frapper ses lecteurs transatlantiques comme étant pertinentes pour leur époque, et comment l’œuvre en prose de Milton a pu participer à la définition de la désobéissance civile. / : John Milton in his prose works had a deep influence in North America, first in the colonies, and then in the United States. His status as a Dissenter, subject to many interpretations, enabled him to remain relevant throughout the different stages of American history, allowing actors from the American Revolution or the abolitionist campaign to identify with him and his works. This dissertation aims at identifying the mechanisms and stages of this form of cultural transmission, through the study of several American authors: the Quaker John Woolman, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and the Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Rooted in the English Civil War, the issues raised by Milton between 1640 and 1660 nonetheless strike a chord within his American readers as germane to their time. This work shall also investigate how Milton’s prose work, through the shifting definitions of Dissent, directly influenced the concept of civil disobedience.

The study “The Mobilization of Civil Disobedience” intends to shed light on how environmental movements frame climate change issues, present solutions and mobilize climate action through their communication on the social media platform Instagram. This study will examine the case of Återställ våtmarker (Restore wetlands), a Swedish movement known for its civil disobedience protests. The study’s theoretical framework consists of Collective action frames, Core framing tasks, and Emotional frames. The qualitative content analysis method is used to analyze the content together with the multimodal analysis tools of modality, lexical choices, denotation, and connotation to analyze both textual and visual modes.   The analysis showed that the organization makes a unique case by communicating strong emotions and opinions through its Instagram content. The main issue is explained as excavated wetlands that produce huge amounts of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The cause of the issue was claimed to be the lack of action from the Swedish government, and they are also argued to be responsible for restoring the wetlands and saving the climate. However, the organization strongly emphasizes the Swedish citizens' democratic and civil responsibility to fight climate change and engage in protests. Occasionally, the organization even blames individual citizens for not prioritizing climate change or saving their children’s futures. The motivational reasons to act are made by an apocalyptic doom narrative, where the climate crisis is explained as urgent and as an ongoing catastrophe or a future “climate hell”. Despite the presence of moral emotions, such as guilt and shame, the organization sometimes offers a more hopeful motivational framing that citizens' collective action is a powerful and successful way to pressure politicians to act.

In an era where civil disobedience is more commonly used as a tactic for climate movements and media coverage is key for the success of the movement, this study explores the interplay between news media portrayal and activists strategies in the context of environmental activism, focusing on civil disobedience actions targeting famous artworks. By analyzing articles from prominent international newspapers and interviewing activists, this study delves into how news media frame these particular actions, and how activists themselves navigate challenges posed by news media portrayal. Drawing on research on the protest paradigm, the public nuisance paradigm and the activist dilemma, this study reveals that while media coverage often employs negative language to depict their actions and tactics, activists strategically utilize civil disobedience to amplify their message regardless of the risk of backlash. Despite initial challenges, activists remain committed to fostering dialogue and raising awareness of climate change by targeting iconic images, with the belief that people will hate them and their actions, but start talking about the climate.

Denna kvalitativa studie ämnar undersöka vilka diskurser, perspektiv och aktörer som speglas i media kring ämnet klimataktivism. Detta har undersökts genom en kritisk diskursanalys i vilken tematisk analys har använts för att analysera 193 stycken medieartiklar från de fyra mest lästa svenska tidningarna. Studien har utförts i en svensk kontext och begränsats till ett tidsspann mellan 2018-2023. Ytterligare presenteras tidigare forskning inom ämnet för ny klimataktivism samt klimataktivism och media. För analysen av resultatet har Foucaults (2003, 2009) teorier kring disciplin, makt och kunskap, ideologi, diskurser, den reglerande apparaten samt olydnad använts som ett övergripande ramverk, vilka kompletteras med begrepp från Mathiesen (1982). Utöver detta har Becks (2009, 2012) teorier om risksamhälle och hot använts, vilka kompletteras med begrepp från Altheide (2013), för att kunna analysera resultatet på omfattande och djupgående sätt, anpassat till det moderna samhället. Medelst detta visar undersökningen en djupgående och omfattande bild genom att rama in mediers speglande av ämnet klimataktivismen i samtiden. Det visades olika, delvis motstridiga, diskurser: ”kampen för klimatet”, ”klimataktivismen som hot” samt ”politiken som hot”, vilka också innefattar olika mindre diskurser om exempelvis ”domedagen” och ”civil olydnad”. Vidare framkom att alla diskurser innefattar positiva och negativa diskursiva aspekter, där dock alla diskurser och aspekter ramas in av en allomfattande ”riskdiskurs” som uttrycks genom de olika perspektiven inom ämnet klimataktivism. Sist förs en avslutande diskussion om konsekvenserna och utkomsterna av denna diskursiva framställning av klimataktivism; en reflektion kring vad som sker och kan ske genom mediers porträttering och vilken vikt media har för produktionen av upplevelser i samhället. / This qualitative study aims to analyse discourses, perspectives and actors which are represented in media within the topic: climate activism. The study was implemented through critical discourse analysis (CDA) in which thematic analysis was used to analyse the material of 193 news articles from the four most read Swedish newspapers. Furthermore, the study was delimited to Sweden and in a timeframe from 2018-2023. Also, previous research about today’s climate activism and climate activism and media is represented. For the analysis of the results, Foucault’s (2009, 2003) theories about discipline, power and knowledge, ideology, discourse, the ruling apparatus, and disobedience have been used. These theories have been completed by concepts from Mathiesen (1982). Moreover Beck’s (2009, 2012) theories of risk society and threat have been used and completed by concepts from Altheide (2013), to be able to analyse the results in an extensive and profound way which fits today’s modern society. Through that, the study shows a deep and including picture that frames how media portraits the topic: climate activism. The study has shown discourses, that in some ways are contradictory: “fight for the climate”, “climate activists as threat” and “politics as threat”. These discourses include several smaller discourses, for instance “doomsday” and “civil disobedience”. Also, it has been shown that all discourses include positive and negative aspects, yet all discourses and aspects of them set in an all-encompassing “risk-discourse”, which takes form through the different perspectives that are included in the subject of climate activism. Lastly, a final discussion is held about the consequences and outcomes of the discursive representation of climate activism; a reflection about what is and what can be happening because of the representation through media and what significance media has in the production of experience in society. / <p>2024-05-30</p>

This written thesis is a companion to a 30-minute documentary video of the same title. The documentary is a presentation of the historical conflict between the United States Navy and the people of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. For over 60 years the island was used by the United States Navy as a military training facility. The documentary attempts to present an analysis of the struggle between citizens of the island and the Navy. This written component presents a summarized history of Puerto Rico, Vieques and the conflict with the United States Navy. In addition, the preproduction, production and post-production process of the documentary are discussed. A theoretical analysis of the filmmaker's approach and technique are addressed and analyzed as well. The thesis's goal is to provide a clear understanding of the Vieques conflict to United States audiences who do not a familiarity with the topic. The thesis is presented from the perspective of a person who grew up in Puerto Rico.