‘Making space public’ through occupation: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Iveson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Single Site ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Spatial Strategy ◽  
Australian Capital ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Arab Spring

Through the actions of activists involved in the Arab Spring uprisings, European anti-austerity movements and the Occupy and Umbrella movements among others, long-term occupations of public space have re-entered the repertoire of insurgent social movements to spectacular effect. These events have dramatised the challenges and limits of occupation as a spatial strategy for ‘making space public’. This paper seeks to make a contribution to the critical geographical literatures on occupation and public space, through analysis of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy – a politically motivated occupation of a patch of land in the Australian capital that is now entering its 45th year. The Embassy activists mobillised occupation in the process of making and sustaining a counterpublic. Counterpublic participants face a distinct set of geographical challenges in making space for both withdrawal and representation in the face of spatial subordination. Occupations like the Embassy seek to resolve these challenges by combining both of these activities in a single site. The Embassy draws our attention to two important sets of issues in relation to the counterpublic geography of occupations. First, it has much to teach about how space is made public through occupation, including dynamics related to the location, duration, reproduction and relations of occupation. Second, the Embassy issues a challenge about whose space is made public through occupation – as an embodied enactment of indigenous sovereignty, the Embassy reminds us that democratic politics in settler colonial nations like Australia is premised on a violent dispossession that has yet to be fully acknowledged or addressed.

The Society of the Digital Swarm

2019 ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Daniel Toscano López
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Digital Communication ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Reality Principle ◽  
The Way

This chapter seeks to show how the society of the digital swarm we live in has changed the way individuals behave to the point that we have become Homo digitalis. These changes occur with information privatization, meaning that not only are we passive consumers, but we are also producers and issuers of digital communication. The overarching argument of this reflection is the disappearance of the “reality principle” in the political, economic, and social spheres. This text highlights that the loss of the reality principle is the effect of microblogging as a digital practice, the uses of which can either impoverish the space of people's experience to undermine the public space or achieve the mobilization of citizens against of the censorship of the traditional means of communication by authoritarian political regimes, such as the case of the Arab Spring in 2011.

“State of Barbary” (Take Two): From the Arab Spring to the Return of Violence in Syria

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Droz-Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
National Movement ◽  
Syrian Revolution ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Ideal

Unlike the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings in 2011, the Syrian Revolution has endured for more than three years. The uprising burst from the “peripheries” of the regime into an organized national movement, clinging at the beginning to the ideal of a nonviolent, nonsectarian upheaval aiming at a democratic Syria. Yet, the dynamics of contention between the regime and social movements have been re-shaped, leading to a return of violence with the risks of sectarian civil war looming.

The New Politics of Movement Activism

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Kenney
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Islamist Movement ◽  
Muslim Brothers

This paper examines the challenges facing the Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt as it negotiates the democratic opening of the Arab spring. An Islamist movement with an established ideological track record, the Society of Muslim Brothers has played a prominent role in Egyptian society for over eighty years. It has now emerged as a major political faction, but its Islamist values and goals may conflict with the democratic politics to which it has committed. Compromise is not new to the Society of Muslim Brothers; it has survived as a movement by doing so. Working on behalf of the Islamist cause in the streets, however, is vastly different than representing an entire nation in the halls of power. Now the Society of Muslim Brothers must decide whether to reinterpret its Islamist agenda for the good of the polity or reinterpret democracy for narrow movement interests.

Saudi Arabia’s Soft Power

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 233-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulio Gallarotti ◽  
Isam Yahia Al-Filali
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Shock Waves ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Its Region ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Oil Wealth ◽  
The Arab Spring

When people are asked the question, what is the source of Saudi Arabia’s power, who would cite factors other than oil? This equation of Saudi power exclusively with its oil wealth is mistaken. Historically, a principal and the most consistent source of Saudi power at the domestic, regional and global levels has not been revenues from oil, but the cultural power that inheres in a nation that is both the capital of the Muslim and Arab worlds. This soft power accounts for as much, if not more, of Saudi influence than even oil itself. To a large extent, this power explains why Saudi Arabia has remained stout in the face of the shock waves of the Arab Spring. Saudi soft power also accounts for much of the leverage that the Kingdom enjoys in its region and the world at large. This article assesses the principal sources of Saudi Arabia’s soft power, discusses the modern day international, regional and domestic challenges facing Saudi Arabia, and finally analyzes how Saudi soft power can effectively deal with those challenges.

Assessing (In)security after the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 709-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gledhill
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
The Arab Spring

More than two years after the heady days of protest and uprising that characterized the Arab Spring, the glow of revolution has given way to the intricacies and complications of regime building. Coalitions are being formed, constitutions written, judiciaries vetted, and security services (re)built. As collective attention focuses on these complexities of regime restructuring, it is worth noting that a fundamental security paradox sits at the heart of transitions in the Middle East and North Africa. On one hand, individuals who hit the streets or battlefields in support of revolution in 2011 did so in the belief that a new form of government would improve their political, social, and economic security over the long term. On the other hand, subsequent (and ongoing) efforts to draft new rules of the political game have triggered internal conflicts and, on occasion, those conflicts have compromised citizens' physical security over the short term.

scholarly journals Acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood Transnational Social Movement in Turkey Post-Arab Spring

Jurnal ICMES ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-218
Author(s):  
Nabhan Aiqani
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
Cognitive Change ◽  
Turkish Government ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
Relational Change ◽  
The Arab Spring

This article discusses the acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood (IM) movement in the middle of Turkish society after the Arab Spring. After the turmoil of the Arab Spring, this movement has been banned in various countries, ranging from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, to Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, IM continues to grow in Turkey. This article analyzes this phenomenon by using the concept of three categorization of the emergence of transnational social movements until they are accepted in a country, namely environmental change, cognitive change and relational change. Environmental change in Turkey shows that Turkey is currently controlled by the AKP Party and it begun to look at the strategic Middle East region. Cognitive change explains the IM appreciative attitude towards the current Turkish government. Relational change shows that IM, which faces restrictions many countries, needs to look for other political opportunities so that its movement continues to exist, so in this case of IM, it chooses Turkey. Relational change categorization found the connection between a social movement and the elite in government which can be explained by the concept of elite alliances, where social movements and the ruling government share interests on the basis of ideological similarities and views.

scholarly journals Whither 'Arab Spring?

ICR Journal ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-537
Author(s):  
Christoph Marcinkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Arab Spring

Since December 2010, the ‘Arab Spring’ has featured techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of the new social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and censorship. In the case of Tunisia, Egypt, and - most dramatically - Libya, the protests have actually led to the departure of long-established regimes, whereas the situation in Syria and Bahrain remains unsettled to date.

The State of Being LGBT in the Age of Reaction

2019 ◽  
pp. 266-281
Author(s):  
Mehmet Sinan Birdal
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
The State ◽  
Lgbt Rights ◽  
Current Regulation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter provides an overview of LGBT politics in the Middle East and North Africa region, with a specific focus on Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey. It argues that LGBT movements in these countries must be understood within the context of how the state is engaged in a broader range of authoritarian and/or state-centered regulations of social movements after the period of the Arab Spring. It also illustrates how the current regulation of LGBT rights has historical roots in the understanding of sexual identities during the colonial era. The chapter argues, therefore, that the understanding of LGBT rights as part of a “progress” or “democratization” narrative is simplistic and does not account for the historical and structural conditions that created the contexts and possibilities for contemporary LGBT organizing.

scholarly journals Reforming Higher Education in the Middle East—and Elsewhere

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Altbach
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Additional Funding ◽  
The Arab Spring

The Arab Spring came, in part, from the region's universities. Students are central actors throughout the region. The weaknesses of the universities have been highlighted by these social movements. Additional funding, higher standards, and other improvements are needed. High levels of unemployment of graduates need also to be reduced.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document