Militant training camp and the aesthetics of civil disobedience

This paper examines the current interest in ‘art activism’ (Grindon 2010), and the relationship between artistic expression and civil disobedience. Boris Groys has argued that the lack of political dissidence within contemporary art is not down to the ineffectiveness of the aesthetic, but the far more effective intrusion of the aesthetic by the political (Groys 2008). As such, the political question of civil disobedience is necessarily an aesthetic one. At the same time, this raises problems for how politically effective artistic dissidence can be. As Grindon argues, if art activism often only mimics ‘real’ social activism, it remains within the boundaries of the gallery system with no real consequences (2010: 11). Most art activism fails to be effective civil disobedience, in this sense, as it already operates within the confines of pre-established curatorial spaces. As such, the use of art for the purposes of civil disobedience cannot be, then, mere aestheticism, but rather must act as ‘an insight into the transformed mechanisms of conquest’ (Groys, in Abdullah & Benzer 2011: 86): a conflict over the topology of disobedience which exposes the interrelation of aesthetics and politics through medium, space and archive. This paper critically assesses attempts in contemporary art to re-appropriate the symbolic dimension of dissidence as an aesthetic; in particular the use of militancy, asceticism and dissidence as an attempt to move beyond mere counter-political protest and towards a reclaiming of aesthetics from the intrusions of politics. It uses as a specific case example Militant Training Camp, a social experimental performance camp held at Arcadia Missa Gallery in London, March 2012. This weeklong performance piece was designed to explore the activity and mind-set of militant groups and the idea of non-pacifist activity within wider social movements. Engaging with not only the tradition of anarchist activism, but also more recent artistic engagements with civil disobedience (such as the Yes Men; Avaaz.org; Bike Bloc), the camp involved a residential ascetic ‘training programme’ followed by a series of violent performances open to the public, often disturbing other sites of protest such as Anarchist theatres and Occupy sites in the process. The paper uses first-hand documentary evidence and critical reflection on the event in order to argue that, as both an act of civil disobedience, and an exploration of the limits of its aesthetic treatment, the event raises two specific issues surrounding the notion of disobedience and its conceptual possibilities. The first issue is the representation of rage within the context of art activism. Here, the performance is discussed with particular reference to Sloterdijk’s arguments that argues that militancy and revolt operate under a ‘thymotic economy’ (2010: 58). However, Sloterdijk’s re-appropriation of the thymotic – a conceptualising of ‘rage’ which is not absorbed within the sublimination of psychology or Habermasian symbolism – is not as simple as offering an alternative, ‘non-symbolic’ rage. Given that modern militancy is always subject to containment (the ‘civility’ of civil disobedience), the second issue raised is the formative role of ‘curating’ acts of disobedience. Using the work of Groys on aesthetics and power, the paper assesses how ‘events’ of civil disobedience such as Militant Training Camp are located, represented, circulated and even stored, and the ways in which they might resist their reduction to or supplementing of a further economy (be it symbolic, banal or simply pious) which conceals the formative ‘rage’ of disobedience

Manufactured vulnerability: eco-activist tactics in Britain

This article examines the development of tactics in radical environmentalist protests against new roads and other environmental issues in Britain during the 1990s. These tactics depend heavily upon the technical creativity of protesters. Their repertoire has been influenced by British traditions of non-violent direct action and by tactics used previously by radical environmentalists in other countries, notably Australia. This form of non-violent direct action is defined here as manufactured vulnerability because of its reliance on technical devices to prolong vulnerability. Much evidence in this case confirms past studies of how new action forms are developed. Evidence also suggests that development of tactics in radical environmental groups is particularly likely to be influenced by latent networks of activists and cross-national diffusion

State of Civil Society 2013: Creating an Enabling Environment

Welcome to the second edition of the State of Civil Society report produced by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. This report is not ours alone. The 2013 State of Civil Society report draws from nearly 50 contributions made by people active in civil society all over the world -- from our members, friends, partners, supporters and others in the CIVICUS alliance. They contributed 31 new pieces of analysis and thinking on the state of civil society. Our analysis also benefits from 16 responses to a questionnaire from national civil society platforms that are members of either our Affinity Group of National Associations (AGNA), or the International Forum of National NGO Platforms (IFP). Together, their contributions, published at http://socs.civicus.org, form the full report. Our summary report is a synthesis of this impressive array of perspectives. We believe that together their contributions offer a body of critical, cutting edge thinking about the changing state of contemporary civil society. We thank them for their efforts and continuing support. It is also important to acknowledge in this report the work of coalitions such as the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness and BetterAid, and the subsequent CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness, in bringing together many CSOs working in the development sphere in recent years to advance the debate on civil society's contributions to development effectiveness, including on the issue of the enabling conditions for civil society that are a necessary part of increasing CSO effectiveness. This report is also intended as a contribution to those wider efforts, in which we at CIVICUS are happy to be active partners

Slut Pride: The Reappropriation Attempt by SlutWalk

This study examines an open letter created by the Black Women’s Blueprint Organization in response to the reappropriation of the term “slut” in SlutWalk Toronto, a protest march against rape culture. Using Kenneth Burke’s cluster criticism method, it evaluates the effectiveness of this rhetorical strategy through the lenses of race, ethnicity, and socio-economic differences. This study enables those involved in the movement to move forward productively, more inclusively. The research question addressed is as follows, the latter acting as a sub-question of the first: (1) In regards to United States Third Wave feminist goals, are SlutWalks achieving the desired long term outcome? (2) Is the strategy of reclaiming “slut” having the desired effect? Analysis offered insight into four themes: (1) reinforcement, (2) oppression, (3) lack of space, and (4) difference

Civil disobedience in a distorted public sphere

Rawls’s notion of civil disobedience, which still dominates the literature on this subject, comprises at least these three characteristics: it involves breaking the law, is non-violent and public. But implicit in this notion is a certain tension: it shows pessisimism about the proper functioning of the public sphere as earlier normal appeals have failed, but it also displays a certain optimism about its proper functioning as it assumes that civil disobedience may be effective. In my paper I argue that Rawls cannot explain how civil disobedience may be effective as a public appeal for social justice because he does not fully understand what it means for civil disobedience to be public in relation to the public sphere. His analysis would require an additional notion of publicity which, as I argue, is the notion of hermeneutical publicity. From a Bourdieusian perspective I then make a case for the claim that public spheres always suffer from hermeneutic invisibility. This may explain why non-violent appeals for social justice fail as dialogical practices. Finally I suggest how we nevertheless could understand that civil disobedience can be effective as a dialogical practice