From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action and identity in digital cultures

The period following the social mobilizations of 2011 has seen a renewed focus on the place of communication in collective action, linked to the increasing importance of digital communications. Framed in terms of personalized ‘connective action’ or the social morphology of networks, these analyses have criticized previously dominant models of ‘collective identity’, arguing that collective action needs to be understood as ‘digital networking’. These influential approaches have been significantly constructed as a response to models of communication and action evident in the rise of Independent Media Centres in the period following 1999. After considering the rise of the ‘digital networking’ paradigm linked to analyses of Indymedia, this article considers the emergence of the internet-based collaboration known as Anonymous, focusing on its origins on the 4chan manga site and its 2008 campaign against Scientology, and also considers the ‘I am the 99%’ microblog that emerged as part of the Occupy movement. The emergence of Anonymous highlights dimensions of digital culture such as the ephemeral, the importance of memes, an ethic of lulz, the mask and the grotesque. These forms of communication are discussed in the light of dominant attempts to shape digital space in terms of radical transparency, the knowable and the calculable. It is argued that these contrasting approaches may amount to opposing social models of an emerging information society, and that the analysis of contemporary conflicts and mobilizations needs to be alert to novel forms of communicative practice at work in digital cultures today

Towards an Embodied Sociology of War

While sociology has historically not been a good interlocutor of war, this paper argues that the body has always known war, and that it is to the corporeal that we can turn in an attempt to develop a language to better speak of its myriad violences and its socially generative force. It argues that war is a crucible of social change that is prosecuted, lived and reproduced via the occupation and transformation of myriad bodies in numerous ways from exhilaration to mutilation. War and militarism need to be traced and analysed in terms of their fundamental, diverse and often brutal modes of embodied experience and apprehension. This paper thus invites sociology to extend its imaginative horizon to rethink the crucial and enduring social institution of war as a broad array of fundamentally embodied experiences, practices and regimes

Oneself as another: from social movement to experience movement

Social movements have been largely understood within western civilizational models emphasizing collective identity and a civic conception of action. This article explores two emerging forms of movement, the contemporary anti-globalization movement and the qigong movement that emerged in China over the 1980s. The qigong movement involves forms of embodiment and intensified personhood rather than collective identity. In the anti-globalization movement we encounter a break with representation, grammars of presence/absence rather than 'we-ness', and embodied communication. These movements underline singularity and experiences of oneself as another, suggesting a shift from 'social movement' to 'experience movement'

Revolutions and the Military: Endgame Coups, Instability, and Prospects for Democracy

This article presents a systematic analysis of military coups following popular mass uprisings in nondemocratic regimes, conceptualized as endgame coups. Drawing on our original, medium-n data set of revolutionary situations, we find that such endgame coups form a distinct type of military intervention in politics. Compared to regular coups, episodes of popular mass contestation prompt conservative interventions in politics of the military’s leadership aimed at preserving the regime’s authoritarian infrastructure. A systematic test of factors characterizing postcoup political trajectories is based on Cox proportional hazard models and provides empirical evidence in contrast to the widely held notion of “democratic coups.” Our findings reveal that endgame coups are conservative rollback coups, executed by military leaderships, that result in continued political instability and illiberal politics

Rightful resistance revisited

James Scott (1985) placed 'everyday forms of resistance' between quiescence and rebellion. Others have noted that defiance in unpromising circumstances need not be quiet, disguised and anonymous if the aggrieved use the language of power to mitigate the risks of confrontation. How does 'rightful resistance' (O'Brien and Li 2006) relate to Scott's everyday resistance and other types of protest in contemporary China? Are rightful resisters sincere or strategic? Is their contention reactive or proactive? Does rightful resistance suggest growing rights consciousness or only a familiar rules consciousness? Rightful resistance in rural China has been criticized for (1) lacking 'peasantness', (2) shortchanging history and culture, (3) focusing on elite allies and one pattern of protest and (4) being overly rationalist, state-centric and caught in 'developmental thinking'. How do I respond?. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis