<p> This work explores the importance anti-capitalist protest in the
contemporary international system. In doing so, I address some of the
practical, philosophical and ethical considerations of academic
depictions of protest through examples in Toronto, Canada and Seoul,
South Korea. Drawing on fieldwork at protest sites in both places, I
focus on forms of contemporary anti-capitalism through a political
economy of 'Capital' and the inherent contestation of contemporary
political decision making. I outline how it is important to develop
subjective accounts of political protest that utilize ethical and
psychoanalytic insights to come to terms with the tension between
conformity and resistance. Contrasting what I call 'militant
masculinties' of protest with 'alternative masculinities' of anticapitalism,
I problematize some of the commonly held assumptions about
the distinction between activism and academic efforts. Instead, I
demonstrate how the methodological insights of an 'ethnographic
sensibility' can benefit International Relations scholarship by
discussing the possibilities and limits of political participation in
the contemporary capitalist system. This research seeks to contribute
to debates about political subjectivity and political activism through
an examination of the efforts to challenge economic decision making
power that rests in the hand of a few supposed experts. This thesis is
an effort to democratize the way we think about participation in the
site of protest, in order to encourage popular and academic engagement
with the local and global struggles taking place across the world.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/17254 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Bousfield, Dan |
| Contributors | O'Brien, Robert, Political Science |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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