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From the Arab uprisings to the indignados movement and the global Occupy sit-ins, recent protests and civil unrest have sparked new debates about political organisation, media representation and the nature of contemporary citizenship. But is there anything new about these occupations of public space? How are these protests legitimised or undermined by the intense mediation of streets and squares? And how are these different from expressions of dissent in other contexts, including those of ethnic minorities in the New Orleans mardi gras and survivors of natural disaster in the Philippines?
This book challenges the notion of a 'disappearance of public space' by reconsidering the significance of physical space and embodiment in the conduct and consequences of protest events. Looking at a range of assemblies-sustained and fleeting, spectacular and ordinary-this volume illuminates how square and street politics and their mediation become vehicles for new ideas of community, citizenship and public life.
List of contents
Acknowledgements / Introduction, Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong / Part I: Street Politics, Occupations and Dissent / 1. Identity, Place and Politics: From Picket Lines to Occupation, Pollyanna Ruiz / 2. Occupying the digital-popular, Paolo Gerbaudo / 3. Place, Protest & Communication: Protest Camps and the Mediatisation of Space, Fabian Frenzel, Patrick McCurdy, Anna Feigenbaum / Part II: Democratic Struggles, New Publics and Mediated Protest / 4. Protest as Interruption of the Disaster Imaginary: Overcoming Voice-Denying Rationalities in Post-Haiyan Philippines, Nicole Curato, Jonathan Corpus Ong, Liezel Longboan / 5. 'We Live in Public': Twitter and Self-Mediated Hyper-Visibility in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Joel Penney / 6. The Relationship between Online and Offline Participation in a Social Movement: Gezi Park Protests in the Diaspora, Christine Ogan, Roya Imani Giglou, and Leen d'Haenens / 7. Mediating Movement in Occupied Spaces: Documentation on Social Media Pages in the Context of the Umbrella Movement, Lisa Y. M. Leung / Part III: The Performance of Protest / 8. Performative Revolution in Egypt: An essay in Cultural Power, Jeffrey Alexander / 9. Hybridity in Street Performance of Zulu and Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans, Diane Grams / 10. Minority Groups and Strategies of Display and Dissent in Physical, Virtual, and Hybrid Spaces, Cheryll Ruth R. Soriano and Ruepert Jiel Cao / List of Contributors
About the author
Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong are both lecturers in media and communication at the University of Leicester.
Summary
Explores a rich variety of occupations of public space in order to explore new forms of public expression and modes of citizen participation.
