Resistance Studies

Stellan Vinthagen December 18th, 2011

FSSK, CUS and CSM invite you to a conference day:
Urban Uprisings in Contemporary Europe
Paris 2005, Athens 2008, London 2011 – What’s next?

When: Wednesday 15th of February 2012. 9.50am -16.30 pm
Where: Linnésalen, Mediehuset, Seminariegatan 1B, Campus Linné

A Spectre is stalking Europe – the spectre of suburban youth revolts. Europe is a
continent marked by growing inequality, racism and social tensions. In recent years we
have seen battle like pictures on TV from Paris, Athens, Lyon, Rotterdam, Copenhagen
and most recently in London and other British cities. During the last two years different
areas in the metropolitan districts in Sweden has also become a part of this picture.
How should we understand this development, how do we explain these uprisings? Are
there general patterns that could be seen in all cities?
The unit for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Forum för Studier av Samtidskultur -
FSSK), the Centre for Urban Studies (Centrum för Urbana Studier) and Gothenburg
CSM (Forum for Civil Society and Social Movement Research), all at Gothenburg
University, arrange a one day conference on these issues and we welcome you to this first
conference day in a series on urban movements and urban change.
The conference is free (and includes coffee and bun) but has a limited number of seats.
We therefore require that you send us an email if you like to participate before the 8th of
February to ensure your seat.

Email to:
catharina.thorn [at] kultur.gu.se
ove.sernhede [at] gu.se
hakan.thorn [at] sociology.gu.s

• Conferences , Police , Protest , Resistance , Resistance Studies , Violence , subaltern agency
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Stellan Vinthagen May 12th, 2011

Dear Resistance Researchers,

We are planning to organise a resistance studies panel at the International Studies Assocation (ISA) in San Diego  2012 (see http://www.isanet.org). Organisers of the panel are Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen. The plan is: (1) to discuss resistance studies (2) to meet each other live! (3) to make our work known for others who might be interested. So, if you think this is interesting, join us! Send your abstracts (with title) to Stellan Vinthagen (stellan[dot]vinthagen[at]gmail[dot]com) at the LATEST the 22 May, and then we will put up the panel and connect your paper to the panel. If many people submit papers we register the ones we get first.

However, we are also planning to have meeting and dinner during the same day as our panel, and all will be invited to this that show interest.

All the best,

Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen

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Stellan Vinthagen April 5th, 2011

Joint Conference of PJSA and the Gandhi King Conference

Hosted by the Christian Brothers University, Memphis, TN ~ October 21-23, 2011

Jointly present a dynamic conference experience:

“A Living Movement: Toward a World of Peace, Solidarity, and Justice”

The Peace & Justice Studies Association (PJSA) and the Gandhi-King Conference (GKC) are pleased to announce our first-ever jointly sponsored annual conference. The PJSA and the GKC are partnering this year to promote dynamic exchange among individuals and organizations working for a more just and peaceful world. This partnership promises a unique conference experience that combines the best of scholarly and grassroots perspectives on the pressing justice issues in our communities and around the globe.

We invite submissions for the 2011 Annual Conference, to be held on the campus of Christian Brothers University, in Memphis, Tennessee, from Friday October 21 through Sunday October 23, 2011. We welcome proposals from a wide range of disciplines, professions, and perspectives that address issues related to the broad themes of solidarity, community, advocacy, education, and activism as they are brought to bear in the pursuit of peace and justice.

Our goal is to create a stimulating environment where scholars, activists, educators, practitioners, artists, and students can build community and explore interconnections. We invite participants to engage in various modes of exploration, including papers and presentations, hands-on practitioner workshops, and a youth summit. We aim to foster an experience in which attendees will have multiple opportunities to meet and dialogue in both formal and informal settings, against the unique historical backdrop of Memphis, TN.

The deadline for proposal submissions is April 15, 2011. Abstracts are limited to 150 words, and must be submitted electronically through the PJSA website.

For more information, contact: info@peacejusticestudies.org or info@gandhikingconference.org

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Stellan Vinthagen March 30th, 2011

A Decade of Terrorism and Counter-terrorism since 9/11: Taking stock and new directions in research and policy

Call for Papers

Organising body: Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group (CSTWG) of the British International Studies Association

Supported by: The British Academy, Consortium for Research on Terrorology and Political Violence; Communication Research cluster, University of Strathclyde

Location(s): University of Strathclyde and Glasgow City Chambers, Central Glasgow.

September 11, 2011 will mark ten years since the terrorist attacks on America and the start of the global ‘war on terrorism’. The extensive changes engendered by these processes in the last decade have yet to be fully understood and appreciated. There is consequently a real need for rigorous and sustained retrospective analysis. In a year that will see a wide range of special commemorative and academic events, this conference will seek to assess the widespread impact of terrorism and counter-terrorism since 2001 from a distinctly ‘critical’ perspective. More specifically, the conference will foreground inter-disciplinarity and seek to review what we have learnt in a period of unprecedented interest in the study of terrorism and counter terrorism. There will be a range of debate sessions between ‘critical’ and ‘mainstream’ scholars, and engagement with policy actors, including speakers from the government ‘Contest II’/’Prevent’ campaigns, the police, legal officials, civil libertarians and Muslim community representatives.

Key note speakers include Joseba Zulaika (University of Nevada in Reno), Michael Stohl (University of California Santa Barbara), Michael Scheuer (ex-CIA), Richard Jackson (Aberystwyth) Caron Gentry (St Andrews) and Dr. Bob Lambert (Exeter, ex-Special Branch)

The conference is intended to play a significant role in the expansion of interest in, and the re-orientation towards a more empirically informed and theoretically sophisticated practice of, studies of terrorism and political violence. Subsidiary aims include to foster knowledge exchange between social science and natural science disciplines; and to contribute to the re-evaluation of policy on terrorism and counter terrorism.

Scholarship on terrorism has expanded exponentially in the past decade. The subject itself is clearly of major importance inside and outside the academy. While the conference is an initiative from scholars who are part of an openly ‘critical’ working group on terrorism, the conference organizers are concerned to open up dialogue on the shared problems of data, methods and theory which most observers agree are important issues in ‘terrorism studies’. We will bring together an unusually interdisciplinary group including exponents of both ‘orthodox’ and ‘critical’ terrorism studies, and those from other areas of social and natural science who are often not part of the mainstream discussion of ‘terrorism’.

There will be a strong policy and civil society element to the conference with policy actors and human rights activists debating responses to terrorism, civil liberties, and ‘suspect communities’.  We will also host roundtable discussions featuring those with experience of political violence from a variety of conflicts.

In addition, we will host advanced research training workshops for conference participants, together with interdisciplinary research sessions including a small number of ‘master classes’ where leading researchers will reflect on interdisciplinarity and on their own research methods and practice. We intend  to offer both early career and established scholars an opportunity to discuss practical questions outside the formality of the set-piece keynote addresses and we hope that this will encourage sharing of new and developing methods in the field especially in the context of the new opportunities and issues thrown up for methods by new digital technologies. We hope to use these methods workshops to focus in the interdisciplinary workshops on fostering research networking for the future.

Conference themes
The conference is intended to look back and review how we have understood terrorism and counter-terrorism, and attempt to think through where the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism should go from here. Themes in the conference include, among others:

•    ‘Non-state terrorism’, including but not limited to terrorism as an instrument of power;
•    ’State terror’ and repression, including, but not limited to Western State terror;
•    ’Counter-terrorism’, risk governance and ‘radicalisation’;
•    ‘Advances in terrorism studies’ with a particular focus on data, methods and theory, including the contribution of critical terrorism studies;
•    ‘Communicating terrorism’: cybersecurity, social media, influence agenda, public diplomacy, information operations and strategic communications;
•    Gender and terrorism/counter-terrorism;
•    Historical materialism, terrorism and counter-terrorism;
•    The war on terror and the global South;
•    The ways in which conflict resolution can inform the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism policy.

The conference will include a mix of plenaries, keynotes, panel, debate and workshop sessions.

Abstracts and Expressions of Interest
The organizing committee welcomes the submission of
1.    Abstracts (max. 350 words) on these and related topics;
2.    Panel proposals (with a minimum of 3 abstracts, plus a short overview of the panel (circa 250 words))
3.    Workshop proposals (with either a policy/civil society or methodological/practical orientation max 350 words of workshop description plus max 250 words on any individual elements)
All abstracts will be reviewed by the organizing committee to meet rigorous academic standards. Abstracts will be reviewed for relevance, conceptual quality, innovation and clarity of presentation. At least one author of accepted papers is required to attend the conference in order to present the paper.

Abstracts should be sent to Jan Bissett jan.bissett@strath.ac.uk by Wednesday 1 June 2011.

Publication
Papers from the conference will be selected competitively for inclusion in either:
1.    A special issue of the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism; or
2.    An edited volume on the conference theme published by a major academic publisher.
These outputs will be edited and overseen by an overlapping editorial team led by the organisers. It is anticipated that the journal will focus on advances in terrorism studies. The book will focus substantively on 9/11 and its legacies incorporating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives. The edited collection will be divided into key sections reflecting the conference themes. It is important to note that the papers for the book will be needed in near final draft form in advance of the conference.
Costs: Conference costs  will be announced shortly. It is envisaged that full costs will be around £200 with reductions for student, policy and civil society participation. Accommodation will not be included in conference costs and should be booked separately. It is the responsibility of delegates to book their own accommodation. A list of hotels, hostels and B&Bs will be provided by the conference organizers.

Conference organizing committee
David Miller (Strathclyde) (convenor), Helen Dexter (Manchester), Piers Robinson (Manchester), Dave Whyte (Liverpool), Vicki Sentas (King’s), Bela Arora (University of Wales, Newport), Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet (Manchester), Jessie Blackbourn (Salford), Idrees Ahmad (Strathclyde), Roy Revie (Strathclyde), Steven Harkins (Strathclyde), Rizwaan Sabir (Strahclyde), Tom Mills (Strathclyde), Cyrus Tata (Law, Strathclyde), Rachel Hendrick (Strathclyde), Rani Dhanda (Strathclyde)

Administrative support Jan Bissett:jan.bissett@strath.ac.uk
Conference blog: http://decadeofterrorismandcounterterrorism.wordpress.com/
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/911plus10

Keynote speakers
The conference will hear several keynote addresses from world leading authors on terrorism and political violence.  Each Plenary speaker will also run a Masterclass on research techniques in terrorism specifically aimed at Postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Keynote addresses confirmed so far:
Joseba Zulaika is the Director of the Centre for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada in Reno and an anthropologist by training. Among his research interests are the international discourse of terrorism. His 2009 book Terrorism: the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy was published by the University of Chicago Press. His recent explorations of terrorism focus in particular on the role of intellectuals and reflect on the domain of terrorism studies.

This self-reflexive focus – which is comparatively rare in academic work on terrorism – is the reason why we particularly want Prof Zulaika to deliver a keynote at the conference.
Michael Stohl is Professor of Communication at the University of California Santa Barbara. Stohl’s current research focuses on organizational and political communication with special reference to terrorism, human rights and global relations. Stohl’s foundational work on state terrorism, his focus on Terrorism as communicatively constituted violence, and his current work on terrorism networks and counter terrorism are the key reasons why he is being invited to deliver a keynote. He will also lead a workshop on network analysis in relation to terrorism.

Michael Scheuer (invited) spent 22-years with the CIA in which he held various positions including Senior Adviser for the Usama Bin Laden Department, Chief of the Southwest/Southeast Asia Counternarcotics Operation, and Chief of the Sunni Militant Unit. Dr. Scheuer is the author of Imperial Hubris. Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism (2004) and Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of the United States (2003), as well as Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (2008).

Richard Jackson Professor in International Politics (Aberystwyth). He is the founding editor of the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism. Together with Jeroen Gunning and Marie Breen Smyth, Richard Jackson is co-editor of the Routledge Critical Terrorism Studies Book Series. Richard Jackson has published numerous books and articles on terrorism-related issues and international conflict resolution.

Caron Gentry was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas and has recently taken the post of Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. Her previous work has been published in the journal Terrorism and Political Violence.  Her research interests are gender, terrorism and political violence.

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Stellan Vinthagen September 2nd, 2010

Abolishing Slavery in the Atlantic World: The ‘Underground Railroad’ in the Americas, Africa, and Europe

The Tenth Anniversary Underground Railroad Public History Conference
Sponsored by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc.

April 8 – 10, 2011 at Russell Sage College, Troy, New York

Where there was slavery, there was resistance, escape, and rebellion. The Transatlantic Slave Trade (1400s to 1800s) was a global enterprise that transformed the four continents bordering the Atlantic, and that engendered the formation of a multifaceted and international Underground Railroad resistance movement.

The broad geographic nature of this freedom struggle is the theme of the 2011 UGR Public History Conference. We invite proposals that address capture, enslavement, and resistance within and across borders in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, historically and contemporarily, as well as proposals that address the preservation of the voices of the past and their relationship with us today.

Possible questions to be considered:

• What were the similarities and differences among the slave systems created by Europeans in the Americas?
• How did the enslaved and their allies engage in resistance, rebellion and revolution in the four continents and the Atlantic Ocean?
• What were the forms that global abolitionism took?
• What roles were played by escaped slaves, inlcuding those who crossed national borders?
• What is the range of experience captured by slave narratives and testimonies in various countries and on different continents?
• How did Africans and people of African descent involve themselves with indigenous peoples in the countries and colonies of the Americas and the other continents?
• What are contemporary manifestations of this international freedom struggle?
• How can we preserve the voices of the past and relate them to us today?

Proposals on related questions, not directly on this theme, are also welcomed.

Proposals may be for a 60-minute panel session, workshop, cultural/artistic activity, media production, poster, or other exhibit that addresses these questions and this theme. When possible, activities should encourage audience interaction. Proposals should include: title, content description, type of presentation, names and contact information of presenters, target audience, and technology needs.

Proposals should be submitted by July 31, 2010 Via postal mail to:
URHPCR, PO Box 10851, Albany NY 12201 or via email to urhpcr2011@gmail.com

For more information, call 518-432-4432

“The gold standard of Underground Railroad conferences… bringing together an extraordinary spectrum of attendees, ranging from noted scholars and authors to large numbers of interested laymen, in spirited and informative workshops which both bring history alive and open new avenues of research.” — Fergus M. Bordewich, author, Bound for Canaan

Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc. researches, preserves, and retells New York’s regional history of the Underground Railroad, highlighting the role of African-American freedom seekers and local abolitionists

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Christopher Kullenberg June 6th, 2010

On the 16th and 17th of June, the Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau will hold a free conference and workshops in computer security, crypto anarchy and how to avoid surveillance and blocking on the internet.

Teheran, Gaza, China and Burma are recent examples of places where the internet has been under strict surveillance by governments, as it was used as integral parts of resistance practices.

From the Telecomix News Bureau Interfax:

As you may have become aware, computer networks, and the internet in particular, are under surveillance by both states and corporations. From east to west and north to south, the internets is a harsh environment. This is especially true for bloggers, dissidents and pirates.

With the aid of cryptography and security in mind however, this can be avoided. Varying between the very simple to the extraordinarily complex measures to conceal communications, users can render their internet footprints almost invisible.

The conference is free for everyone, and during the second day, the workshops will give instructions and training on how to use the encryption softwares. Bring your laptops! The event is held at IT-university at the Hisingen Island in Gothenburg. See the schedule here.

See you there!

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Stellan Vinthagen January 31st, 2010

Some of us within the Resistance Studies Network are going to the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in New Orleans, USA, Feb 17-20. See the conference site at: http://www.isanet.org/neworleans2010/

There will be a panel on resistance studies on Feb 17. If there are more people from the network coming to the conference, it would be great to meet up. Let us know if that is the case. Email to me: write “stellan.vinthagen” and then add “@” and after that you add “resistancestudies.org”.

See you in New Orleans!

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Stellan Vinthagen January 15th, 2010

Some members of the Resistance Studies Network will be participating in an antimilitarist conference in Ahmadabad, India during the next coming two weeks. Activists and scholars from around the world will meet to discuss the profiteers of war and international and local nonviolent resistance. It is about the connections between forced removal of local communities, the transnational corporations’ resource extraction and military production, the war machine and our possibilities to forge transnational collaboration to resist such anti-human processes.

The conference is organized by the War Resisters International. Among the key speakers are the world renouned author and anti-militarist activist Arundathi Roy, toghether with Medha Patkar from the resistance movement NBA against the Narmada dam project and Ashis Nandy, a famous gandhian author. You find more information about the conference here.

Depending on time and Internet availability we hope to give a report during the conference. Stay tuned!

“There is an inescapable link between the globalisation-induced displacement, dis-employment and dispossession that are results of internal wars and ravage local, traditional and indigenous natural-resource based communities everywhere. There is a linkage between these and the monstrous international wars – whether they are fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo or Somalia. The biggest challenge therefore is to build alliances that are local and global at the same time, and those that not only resist injustice but also present alternatives.” 

Medha Patkar

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Stellan Vinthagen December 17th, 2009

During the UN Climate Conference COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, we have seen the birth a Global Climate Justice Movement. The conferences goes on, dissidence is articulated inside the conference and links with the protests on the streets. The Climate Justice Movement has activities both inside and outside the official UN process.

We have seen the biggest climate demonstration in the world history. About 100 000 people demonstrated on Dec 12 2009. We have also seen several smaller nonviolent actions, e.g. against the Coal Factory DONG in Copenhagen, against the closed EU borders against environmental refugees, for an ecological small scale agriculture and against a consumption lifestyle that destroys our planet. During Dec 16 some 1 000 activists took part in the mass-direct action in which the movement tried to create a “Peoples Assembly” inside the official conference area. Totally over 1 500 activists have been arrested  during the last week. Many activists have been wounded and Copenhagen has been transformed into a police state. It is still too early to evaluate the results of the resistance. We will have reasons to come back to that.

In the meantime here are some links where you can find more information about the various resistance done in the new Global Climate Justice Movement:

http://www.climateroots.org/dru/

http://en.cop15.dk/

http://www.erantis.com/events/denmark/copenhagen/climate-conference-2009/index.htm

http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/un-climate-talks/global/2009/the-flood-is-coming

http://www.motkraft.net/nyheter/3557

http://www.climate-justice-action.org/

http://www.klimaforum09.org/?lang=da

http://12dec09.dk/

http://notyourbusiness.hacklab.dk/

http://www.global-n30-callout.org/

http://nevertrustacop.org/

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Stellan Vinthagen November 16th, 2009

Thinking Network Politics: Methods, Epistemology, Process

We invite the submission of abstracts for the first event of the AHRC funded networking project ‘Exploring New Configurations of Network Politics’. The event will combine a series of position papers followed by round table discussions and interventions exploring the issues and challenges raised by those papers.

The attempt to grasp the depth and breadth of network politics demands novel and transdisciplinary approaches not always native to the humanities and social sciences, such as graph theory and the study of code as cultural practice. Thus there is a drive to explore the broad spectrum of practices and discourses to help rethink the articulations of politics in network culture. New modes of political activity that take advantage of new platforms from Twitter to Youtube necessitate new conceptual positions for network culture, counter-power and resistance. The papers should work towards adapting concepts such as, for example but by no means exclusively, the Multitude, free and immaterial labour, emergence, swarms and ’smart mobs’ and new forms of creation, activism and engagement in civil society. The aim is to rethink what we understand by politics. Further questions which need to be asked include: what kind of epistemologies do we need to incorporate into our analysis? How can we take into account the particularities of networks when approaching the elusive, ephemeral nature of politics of/in networks? These are just examples of the directions into which considerations of “network politics” might lead us. Because this is such a fast developing and challenging arena of research the event will aim to be open and fluid, encouraging engagement, conversation and innovation wherever possible, while focussing on this core problematic of the tools and processes for thinking network politics.

The papers for this event will thus ideally investigate the methods and innovative approaches to mapping and thinking such new network politics. The March event will thus aim elaborate on the nature of the network and forge new routes to thinking about the processual, dynamic nature of networks as well as the particular “objects” such approaches fabricate.

The papers should be in the format of short (max 10 minute) position papers on key concepts or keywords that lead into group work and discussions into the questions of network politics and methods and approaches for analysis. Instead of normal academic papers followed by a short Q&A, we would like the event to encourage collaboration, collective discussions and agenda setting.

The event takes place in Cambridge, UK, Anglia Ruskin University, on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 March 2010.

Please submit your abstracts and any suggestions (max 300 words) by January 8, 2010 to

(to avoid spam the emails are written with spaces, delete them when you send your email) joss.hands @ anglia.ac.uk and/or jussi.parikka @ anglia.ac.uk

The research project functions under the auspices of the Anglia Research Centre in Digital Culture (ArcDigital ) – http://www.anglia.ac.uk/arcdigital

Please forward any inquiries to either Dr Joss Hands or Dr Jussi Parikka.

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jj October 26th, 2009

International Conference, Ahmedabad, India, 22 – 25 of January 2010

There is an inescapable link between the globalisation-induced displacement, dis-employment and dispossession that are results of internal wars and ravage local, traditional and indigenous natural-resource based communities everywhere. There is a linkage between these and the monstrous international wars – whether they are fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo or Somalia. The biggest challenge therefore is to build alliances that are local and global at the same time, and those that not only resist injustice but also present alternatives.

Medha Patkar

War Resisters’ International is cooperating with Indian partner organisations for an international conference investigating the links between local nonviolent livelihood struggles and global militarism, including war profiteering. This participatory conference will bring together campaigners from all over the world to analyse the role of states and multinational corporations in depriving local communities of their sources of livelihood, and learning from the experience of nonviolent resistance at various levels – from the community to the global – and at various phases, from preventing displacement to planning for return.

More info here.

Registration here.

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Stellan Vinthagen May 23rd, 2009

As the first trade fair for counter culture and resistance technology the “Subversive Fair” (www.subversivmesse.at – page available in German and partly in English) presents recent projects/actions/works and poses questions: Which inventions make resistance easier? Which ideas undermine the system? Where are revolutionary forces lurking? What can we do to successfully dissolve hegemonies?

The fair program includes workshops (e.g. on guerrilla gardening, rebel clown training etc.), performances and a day-long symposium on art, normality and practices of resistance and subversion.

Posted by:
Lena Freimueller

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Stellan Vinthagen May 18th, 2009

Dear Resistance Researchers,

We are planning to organise a resistance studies panel at the International Studies Assocation (ISA) in New Orleans 2010 (see http://www.isanet.org)  Organisers of the panel are Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen. The plan is the same as last year: (1) to discuss resistance studies (2) to meet each other live! (3) to make our work know for others who might be interested. So, if you think this is interesting, join us! Send your abstracts (with title) to Mona Lilja (write “mona.lilja” and then add “@globalstudies.gu.se” to a complete email address) at the LATEST the 22 May, and then she will put up the panel and connect your paper to the panel. If many people will submit papers we register the ones we get first.

See you all in New Orleans!

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Stellan Vinthagen February 21st, 2009

The Resistance Studies Network held two panels at the International Studies Association Conference at New York. Panel 1 was on Resistance and Social Movements. Panel 2 was on Every day Resistance. Both led to really productive discussions. The first one had only few attending in the audience since it was already at 8 AM, but the second one filled the (small) room we were assigned. Both panels were recorded and the tapes will appear here later on.

It was an important step in the development of Resistance Studies to have these panels and for some of the network members to meet.

In addition the network made important links with researchers on nonviolent resistance at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. They had a panel on nonviolent interventions and nonviolent revolutions.

More on the substance of the panels later.

Best,

from Norwich, USA.

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Stellan Vinthagen November 26th, 2008

[Please forward to all who may be interested]

On 11-12 December 2008, the Centre for the Study of ‘Radicalisation’ and Contemporary Political Violence (CSRV), based in the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, will host a conference exploring perspectives on the ‘War on Terror’ as it is seen and experienced in the Global South.. The conference is part of a series of seminars, funded by the ESRC with additional financial support from BISA, on under-studied aspects of what is variably called ‘terrorism’, ‘political violence’ or ‘radicalisation’, but which for reasons of inclusivity we refer to as ‘political violence’. The aim of this conference is to provide a forum for scholars engaged in considering the ‘War on Terror’ from a Southern perspective, and to encourage scholars with knowledge in this field to focus on this rather neglected topic. Research focusing on this topic is rather thin on the ground, and we hope that this conference will go some way towards addressing this deficit.

Drawing both on regional studies and thematic analysis, the conference is organised in three panels: The ‘War on Terror’: Regional Implications; The Effect and Effectiveness of Counter Terror Policies in the ‘War on Terror’; and Human Rights and the ‘War on Terror’. The conference will finish with a plenary session, drawing together themes and issues from these discussions. Speakers will engage with the experience of the ‘War on Terror’ in a wide range of regions and countries: Latin America; Africa in general; Uganda and Tanzania; Morocco; Turkey; Pakistan; India; the Phillipines; and Sri Lanka. Issues considered include the securitisation and the politicization of aid; militarization; impacts on peace processes and domestic politics; repression; counter-insurgency policy; Islamism; and anti-terror legislation.

A sponsorship has allowed low fees, just £50 for staff, and £35 for students.

For more details, and a booking form, please visit: http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/conferences.htm
Or alternatively, email the conference administrator, Charlie Thame at

cet06 @ aber . ac. uk (type the address without spaces when you email)

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Christopher Kullenberg November 5th, 2008

At the conference Cognitive Capital and Spaces of Mobility, the Resistance Studies Network arranged a panel. The video capture can be watched here (or download it here). Participants include José Manuel Viegas Neve, Marco Schirone and Stellan Vinthagen. It is almost two hours long, but if you couldn’t make it to the conference or have a general interest in resistance research, this video is for you!

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Stellan Vinthagen May 29th, 2008

During the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in New York City, February 2009, there will be two panels organized by the Resistance Studies Network: one on individual everyday resistance, one on organized collective resistance (with social movements, etc). These two panels represents the current division within resistance studies, one is focusing on discourses, the micro-physics of power relations, non-articulated resistance which goes on, sometimes unnoticed in the ordinary life of people. The other direction is focusing on resistance organizations, revolutions, social movements, and dramatic resistance actions. This division has historical roots. Early resistance research did only see the public, collective and organized (and violent) forms of resistance. Not until the ground breaking work of James Scott (1985, Weapons of the Weak) did resistance researchers observe the importance of hidden, everyday and individualized forms of resistance.

I think one of the key research areas today is to investigate the dynamics, mechanisms, techniques and contexts in which everyday forms of resistance transforms into collective organized resistance. Sometimes open rebellion erupts, revolutions develop in contexts where no signs did exist. In subaltern groups living under similar conditions you find that some groups do public resistance, others not.

So, when do the one turn into the other? What are the necessary conditions? What do resisters need to do in order to turn everyday resistance into open rebellion?

One possibility is that what you need is a strong resistance culture, a well developed culture of symbols and stories, a “fertile ground” in which more public forms could grow. But I am sure the answer is a lot more complicated than that. Hopefully we will see more students in the future focusing on this key problem.

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Stellan Vinthagen December 19th, 2007

Mona Lilja and I are proud to tell that from January 21st there will be a first full-time course on Power, Resistance and Social Change at Museion, Gothenburg University, Sweden. During the whole semester (20 weeks) about 30 students will study different theories, groups and methods of resistance. At the end of the course there will be a “Resistance Conference” in which activists, researchers and interested from the public will attend and discuss the research papers the students will present.

For those reading Swedish the course curriculum exists online.  All others will during the semester term get to know the students and our course through regular reports and blog entries from the group. The plan is to integrate their study into the network as much as possible.

In the same way as the network as a whole the course will engage with “resistance” from various theoretical and political perspectives, and bring forward the variation of societies, social groups, methods, motivations and interactions in which resistance plays a role. And, the critical engagement with the representations of mass-media, politicians, partisan groups and the resisters themselves will be central. The hope is for all of us to get a better understanding of what resistance is, how it can contribute to democratisation, liberation and justice, how it can avoid turning into new forms of oppression and violation of human rights.  It is of course a huge challenge.

Feel welcome to participate through the coming discussions from January until June 2008!

• Academia , Conferences , Resistance Studies , The Network
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jj October 25th, 2007

Conference in Oslo, Norway

- What is the impact of gender concerning relations between minorities and majorities?

When: Thursday 10 and Friday 11 January 2008.

Where: Georg Sverdrups Hus (The Library), Blindern, Universitetet i Oslo.

Some key note speakers: Benita Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies; Christine M. Jacobsen, Postdoc.scholar at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo; Sherene H. Razack, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education and Birte Siim, Professor at Institute for History, International and Social Studies Aalborg University. (See below).

Minority and majority relations in a multicultural society could be related to religion, ethnicity, national background or indigenous groups. The aim of this conference is to analyse and discuss the impact of gender and class on the formation of minority and majority relations. Focus will be both on symbolic representations, social relations and structural organization. How are minority and majority relations constructed through institutional framework, organizations, media and research?

We welcome researchers, scholars, students, activists, public institutions and NGOs to participate. Those who wish to present papers at the workshops must submit abstracts within November 20 to helga.eggebo@skk.uio.no. Papers can be presented in English or in Scandinavian languages.

Registration: Conference fee Nkr. 300.- which includes lunch and dinner, must be paid within December 3 (e-pay): https://www.uio.no/pay/shop.ordercreate.action?project=100922
The FEMM-network is a national network for researchers, academics, students and others. The aim of the network is to discuss and reflect on questions concerning feminism, multiculturalism and antiracism.

Master students

We wish to welcome master students to participate at the conference. Students will pay a reduced conference fee, 150 NOK. It is also possible to apply for reimbursement of travel expenses. There will be a paper session for master students, and participants are encouraged to present their work. For questions or further information, contact Helga Eggebø (helga.eggebo@skk.uio.no).

Thematic for paper sessions:

Citizenship

How do we understand the concept of citizenship in a multicultural society? In what ways are people or groups of people excluded from full citizenship? How is citizenship related to religion and secularism? What is the impact of gender on citizenship? How can groups and organizations mobilize for equal citizenship?

Images and representations

How are images of the ”others” constructed through for example media and research? What is the impact of gender and discourses of gender equality on the majority populations in represented? How are minority constructions influenced by religion and secularism? What consequences do stereotypes and discriminations have for the minority populations, and how do they mobilize and resist discrimination? What are the privileges of the majority position in different situations and social relations?

Some keynote speakers:

Christine M. Jacobsen: ”Migrant Female Victimhood in Scandinavian Gender Constructions.”

Jacobsen is postdoc scholar at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. She is currently working with the Prostitution, gender and migration (PROGEMI). The project is built around two main research interests: Transnational prostitution as a form of female migration, and prostitution as a field where important political and academic conflicts around gender and sexuality are played out. The project aims to link the issue to larger processes of female migration, and discuss how discourses on prostitution and migrant women can give insights on dominant ideas about gender and sexuality. The empirical focus will be on Russian women selling sex in Norway.

Sherene H. Razack: “In Bed with the Racists and the Neo-Cons: Contemporary Feminist Responses to Muslim Women.”

Razack is professor at Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Professor Razack have done extensive work on race, anti-racism and gender. She is currently working on the project Race and Violence Against First Nations. Razack have received special awards for the two books Dark Threats and White Knighs and Looking White People in the Eye. A new book, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. It includes case studies from Norway, Canada and U.S., is coming out soon.

Benita Roth: ”Multiple Roads to Feminism: Questions of Definition, Coalition, and Competition.”

Roth is associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies. Professor Roth studies the interaction of gender, race/ethnicity and class in post-war social protest, particularly feminism. She has written the book Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave. Professor Roth’s ongoing projects continue her concerns with different sites of protest and agency both historically and currently. One project involves an historical look at the impact that images of nationalist/liberationist Third World women had for U.S. based feminists in different racial/ethnic communities as they fashioned feminist politics; a second is interview-based, and looks at the transition of anti-AIDS activists from militant street protest to institutional roles.

Birte Siim, professor at Institute for History, International and Social Studies, Aalborg University.Professor Siim is currently working on a project on globalization, migration and gender focusing on how the relationship between gender and ethnicity is formed by welfare, integration and equality policies and discourses.

Arranged by FEMM-network, Cultural complexity in the New Norway (CULCOM), www.culcom.uio.no and Nordic Insitute for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, NIKK www.nikk.uio.no

• Academia , Conferences , Gender , Resistance , Resistance Studies
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Justin October 17th, 2007

On Monday 22^nd October there will be a summit in Glasgow called by the new Scottish Government bringing together Government Ministers, Peace Campaigners, Academics, Trade Unionists, Environmentalists and Journalists to begin to develop a strategy to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons. It does not appear to be their intention to make this a long drawn out empty gesture but to find real and practical ways to stop the UK government from stationing its weapons here, and thereby bringing into doubt its ability to station them anywhere. Although the devolved Scottish Government has no control over UK defence matters, it does control issues such as health and safety, environmental policy and planning matters.

The Herald newspaper environmental correspondent, Rob Edwards, reported on October 17^th that “Plans to refurbish the Clyde naval bases to accommodate a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system could be stymied by Scottish ministers, according to an internal memo from the Ministry of Defence (MoD). A new dry dock for servicing nuclear submarines would require planning permission, while other developments would be subject to a raft of pollution controls. These are all the responsibility of the Scottish government, not Westminster. On October 22, Scottish Nationalist ministers are holding a summit in
Glasgow aimed at identifying ways of preventing the UK government from going ahead with a replacement for Trident”. 

This follows on from a recent meeting between Peace campaigners and the Scottish Justice Minister. It was organised by peace campaignes, including Angie Zelter who was a prime mover behind the Faslane 365 year of daily blockades that ended on October 1^st. Campaigners stressed that they are not going to stop protesting until the Government scraps Trident, and are going to continue to support the Scottish Parliament in its struggle to outlaw these weapons of mass destruction. On November 3^rd there is going to be a demonstration outside Parliament in Edinburgh, under the wonderful slogan: “People and Parliament against Trident”. 

A group of activist academics attended the final blockade on October 1^st – the last in a year of blockades that has helped keep nuclear weapons centre stage and thereby helped to elect an anti-nuclear Government in Scotland that is not afraid to stand up to London on this issue. The academics at the meeting in Edinburgh had also attended the two delightfully effective Academic Conference Blockades organised by Stellan Vinthagen and others earlier in the year, delightful both for the quality of the papers given and by the fact that they happened on the road blocking workers and military seeking to enter the base.  

In a paper Stellan gave at one of the conferences, he wrote about the way in which the media and the law can seek to isolate any act of opposition and so make it appear foolish (what is the POINT of blocking a road and disrupting traffic for a day? What can ONE person do?), and he wrote about the way all the tiny acts of production that make holocaust possible are linked in a production chain in which each individual involved experiences themselves as “just doing my job”. He wrote that:
“The judicial system, like the economic system, makes processes of injustice disappear by treating them as isolated acts. The practical genius of the system is to connect seemingly unconnected acts to a whole complex production chain. The ideological genius of the system is to seemingly disconnect the very same acts, and dissolve their moral and political meaning.”Whether protesting, dialoguing and presenting papers on the roads outside bases, or in discussion with Government Ministers, we will continue to disrupt and engage with the chain that is producing starvation, war and environmental devastation; and we will continue to make the connections despite the way the system seeks to render such connection-making futile and foolish. The success we are experiencing does, however, suggest quite a startling potential resolution to the question of whether progressive and radical social change can only be made by seizing state power (Callinicos 2005) or whether we can change the world without taking power (Holloway 2005). The implication being that rather than either seeking to seize power or refusing to take power, we can act in a way which reconfigures, redistributes and reorientates power through remaining open to those who appear to still be holding all the power while refusing to let the centre of gravity slip away from our purposeful actions. Rather than asking our representatives to act for us (and instead of us) we need to act in a way which includes them (if they are willing) or leaves them behind (if they are not). This requires an ability to remain open to those who appear to be wielding coercive power, in order to connect with the real person in the role, in order to seek to bring them onside while refusing to accept that in carrying out that power they are anything but powerless. A small example: I was taking part in one of these peaceful blockades of this Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, as part of this year long attempt to persuade the public to elect politicians who will dismantle our weapons of mass destruction. Along with several others I was arrested and held in a police van before being taken to the police cells for a much needed good nights sleep. The power structure of coercion is pretty evident in the situation, but there is also another aspect. When one policeman was left on his own with us for a brief spell, I handed him a badge which said simply “Question Authority” on it. He looked at it and smiled, saying “my boss wouldn’t like this”. I said he was welcome to keep it, and he hesitated before smiling again and putting it in his pocket. His willingness to receive this gift involved accepting the spirit of the gift, perhaps made possible because the words on the badge and his action were perfectly aligned not despite, but because of, his awareness of the structures of power.

Developing ways of confronting coercive power that builds relationality and mutuality by defying the internalised message that nothing we do can ever be enough to change the system, is perhaps itself a crucial way of unravelling the system of coercion and reweaving a politics of mutuality. 

• Academia , Civil Disobedience , Conferences , Democracy , Nonviolent Action , Police , Protest , Resistance , Uncategorized , War
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Lena Freimueller June 30th, 2007

An intense week of globalizationcritical protest, action and discussion took place in Rostock/Heiligendamm, Germany from the 2nd-8th of June 2007. Various social movements, activist groups, academics, artist and individuals from all over the world gathered and created once again a strong momentum against the violent and oppressive politics of the G8 and the current imperialist and capitalist world system as well as its institutions – a strong momentum for creative resistance, peaceful exchange and livable alternatives.

To me the most significant impression was the variety of approaches and forms of resistance and transformations that were present during this week. Not one mean of opposing and delegitimizing the G8 is more relevant than the other but the simultaneous action and continuation of the struggle seems crucial. As Stellan points out (in his entry from the 22^nd of June) the effort of the blockaders aiming to delegitimize and hinder the G8 summit went hand in hand with the public discussions and workshops during the alternative summit creating visions and feasible alternatives. The creative and visionary approaches of the art projects and the enormous presence of creative forms of non-violent protest during the demos where equally important and showed the empowering energy of humor in resistance and social movements.

What follows here is long entry since it was a long week of protest and action that I consider to be most relevant to the discussions on the RSN platform.

For all that prefer an “audiovisual” sum up of the events I suggest to go to http://g8-tv.org/topics.php and enjoy the video activist work (the daily half-hour live shows or single video clips).

On Saturday the 2nd of June 80.000 people took part in the great demo. All that most people heard about the G8 protests has to do with the media pictures that portrayed the violence which broke out when the demo reached the harbor. I do not want to further comment on this topic here but rather point at the variety of creative and peaceful ways of resistance that were present at the demo and the concerts and speeches that continued while the violence broke out and helped to deescalate the situation (www.move-against-g8.de). During the manifestation different samba-batterias created a vivid soundtrack for the demo, various groups of rebel clowns army helped to humorously cope with the overwhelming police presence and radical cheerleaders motivated the demonstrators on their way. Over hundred huge puppets participated in the manifestation and where present during the whole protest week and a group called “the Dispensables and precarious Superheroes” creatively persiflaged current labor conditions.

On Sunday many peaceful demonstrators still suffered from the effects of tear gas and police intimidation and especially families with small children and elderly demonstrators, who were present in a large numbers, were frightened and shocked.

For me Sunday was one of most interesting days since I participated in an day-long open space workshop with John Holloway (author of the book “Change the World Without Taking Power” and often associated with the Zapatista movement). John Holloway is an inspiring personality and very poetic speaker who talked about how capitalism especially frustrates creativity, about the “cracks in the system” and how these cracks form open spaces where horizontality is practiced. One of his major achievements was to facilitate intense group discussions on the questions of “survival”, “state” and “multiplication and expansion of cracks”. A lot of people from all over the world (many have last met at the WSF in Kenya) discussed for hours around the big circus tent in camp Rostock.

During these vivid discussions I especially had the chance to learn from the realities and struggles of the Latin American women active in the social movements and Wangui Mbatia from Kenya who inspired me with her language that was so different and resisted the common academic vocabulary – very refreshing!

There were two more open space events held during the alternative summit were the framework of open space itself was critically discussed. Out of these discussions around citizen’s participation arouse a “people’s parliament” on Thursday which was spontaneously initiated and facilitated by Dorothea Haerlin and Wangui.

An interesting link regarding these discussions is www.turbulence.org.uk – some of the authors of this magazine were also present.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday rallies/action days and demos on the topics of agriculture, migration and war&torture took place. All these rallies directly related to every day live in Rostock since they visited sites in the surrounding of Rostock which are linked with these issues (e.g. fields with genetically manipulated corn, refugee camps and weapon industry).

The “Block G8” (www.block-g8.org)team facilitated several trainings for civil disobedience daily in various languages and all camps so activists were well prepared and highly motivated when the blockades started on Wednesday the 4^th. The long term planning, the large number of participants and the rich experiences (mostly coming from the anti-nuclear movement in Germany) made the blockades a huge success for the movement. Many locals spontaneously supported the blockaders with food, coffee and blankets.

The huge “alternative G8 summit” (www.g8-alternative-summit.org) and the project/public interventions “art goes heiligendamm” (www.art-goes-heiligendamm.net) offered space and time for discussion and constructive approaches to social change. During the alternative summit I especially enjoyed the contributions from Ana Esther Cecena (University of Mexico City) and on the last day I used the opportunity to stay overnight at the “silver pearl”, a “hotel” that formed part of the art goes heiligendamm campaign.

• Art-related resistance , Civil Disobedience , Conferences , Nonviolent Action , Resistance
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Stellan Vinthagen June 22nd, 2007

Last week I took part in a unique conference at the School of Global Studies at Gothenburg University; Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance. It was organised by one of the worlds leading civil society researchers, Jan Aart Scholte. It brought together a huge number of research projects on how civil society has influenced various multilateral regimes or governance organisations (as e.g. WTO, the World Bank, IMF, OECD, OIC, ICAAN) which regulate different areas of the world’s activites. The way the conference was organised was in itself an example of how a dialogue in a civilised society could happen: each research paper was presented of a researcher on that governance organisation, then two commentators gave their critical reflection on the paper, and lastly a long part of the session consisted of how everyone gave their critical questions or comments to the researcher. When the paper on WTO was presented the commentators where from WTO itself and from one of the civil society organisations that are trying to influence WTO. So, various actors in the global struggle for governance were present.

The conference is part of an ongoing research led by Scholte which will be presented at the UN and published in a book. Already now it is clear from the research done that civil society is not only having a strong influence on present global governance, making it accountable for its doings and failures, and in that sense somehow democratising the world, but also that some forms of governance is done through civil society organisations themselves, like e.g. in establishing the rules and standards of fair trade (through the umbrella organisation IFAT: International Fair Trade Association). Still, the research also shows that most civil society organisations are themselves having problems to be accountable to the people they say they represent or the social groups they effect by their activity.

One weakness, though, of the research papers and discussions in the conference was that it focused on a special kind of civil society, that which Mary Kaldor and Hilary Wainwright describes as the “tame civil society” (in Kaldors description of various versions of civil society in the book “Global Civil Society”, see the argument by Wainwright in “Civil Society, Democracy and Power” on the web at the institute for scholar-activists, Transnational Institute), the civilised society that do not disturb the present configuration of power, but tries to reform it through dialogue. In the papers and in most of the discussions existed a silence: the role of the confrontative and resistant civil society.

Still, arguably the resistance against IMF through the IMF-riots of the 1980s and the de-facto effective blockade of the WTO conference in Seattle 1999 played a huge role in facilitating the growth of (other more tame) civil society organisations that gained access and influence to parts of the Breton Woods institutions, sometimes even in a consultative status (mainly the World Bank but also partly the IMF and WTO). As such, resistance oriented civil society groups play both the role as institutional door-opener for tame civil society organisations and the role of critical civil society watch-dogs, empowering as well as pressuring those more dialogue and reform oriented organisations.

I am very impressed by this conference model and think it is something we could develop and use within resistance research, which as we already have concluded (through the input from mainly Jane Pickerhill during the recent Resistance Seminar, see earlier blog entry), demands of us a different research methodology, different to the conventional research on rule and power conformative behaviour. Resistance is, as Mona Lilja has shown in her dissertation (see earlier blog entry), often messy, changing and contradictory – and as the classic research of James Scott has shown – often hidden, informal and disguised. Studying research then, demands methods that brings forward various actors in a critical reflection. One of the ways to bring it out in the open and visible for investigation might be through stakeholder conferences like this one. Having said that, it might be exactly the wrong thing to do at other times, since there are sometimes really good reasons for resistance to be hidden and changing, in order to avoid detection by power surveillance, and it should not be our role to facilitate that control of resistance. Our research need firstly to be done in respect of the subaltern or subordinated individuals who do resistance and in such a way which facilitate their empowerment and autonomy. Still, stakeholder conferences might bring out perspectives and views which otherwise might be silenced and repressed by certain knowledge regimes or established/conventional understanding.

• Conferences , Democracy , Norms , Protest , Resistance
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jj May 20th, 2007

Surveillance Camera Players statement on NYPD surveillance during the 2004 Republican National Congress

Of course, we are not at all surprised that — during the course of its truly extensive surveillance of political activists who intended and/or actually managed to protest against the cynical decision to hold the 2004 Republic National Convention (RNC) in New York City, just three years after the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center — the New York Police Department (NYPD) paid a fair amount of attention to us.

We are mentioned a total of five times in the surveillance reports that were assembled by the NYPD’s “Intelligence Division” between 3 October 2003 and 4 September 2004, and finally released to the public on 16 May 2007 due to a court order that the NYPD decided not to appeal. Two of these references, which can be located under “Key Findings” for 13 February 2004 and in a report by the “Research and Analysis Squad” for 11 March 2004, are substantive. Brought together, but without changing a word, these reports[1] say that:

The Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) is a self-described anarchist group founded in NYC in 1996. It primary focus is to protest the use of surveillance cameras in public places. The group is apolitical, aligning itself with no political party, citing the belief that democracy should be direct, not “representative.”

The total membership is unknown, but SCP encourages others to perform the acts as they do without necessarily recruiting them, so the actual number of persons involved in this sort of activity can be significantly greater than actual membership.

SCP conducts walking tours of Manhattan to point out the locations of surveillance cameras, demonstrating how these cameras “infringe on the Constitutional rights” of New Yorkers who are unaware that they are being filmed. The group has conducted these tours in security-sensitive locations such as the United Nations and City Hall. These events, which are publicized on the Internet have usually attracted up to 15 participants. As of this date, these events have occurred without incidents. In one such tour, it was suggested by a group member that wires necessary to operate a particular surveillance device was easily accessible, and therefore vulnerable.

The group also conducts and encourages others to conduct “Surveillance Camera Theater.” This entails performing short plays in front of security cameras, generally lasting two minutes.

SCP maintains a website, www.notbored.com, that includes their beliefs, past and future activities, and information about similar groups worldwide. On their website, the group encourages performers to disperse at the order of a police officer and avoid arrest, but adds “only get arrested when you want to get arrested.” The site also includes a page that lists the military and governmental visitors to the site, which SCP pledges to keep updated as the RNC approaches.

Information from the group’s website indicates that it will be active during the RNC. The site contains a map with camera locations in the general vicinity of the RNC site. The area detailed on the site encompasses 11th Avenue to 6th Avenue from W 32d to W 38th Streets. SCP has organized the cameras into groups according to who they think is maintaining them (NYPD, Traffic, Private, etc.), along with the number of devices maintained. The legend reads as follows: Private surveillance cameras, 217; Government Surveillance cameras, 12; New York City or NYPD cameras, 5; Traffic surveillance cameras, 3; Elevated surveillance cameras, 2. The total number of cameras mapped by SCP is 239.

The group plans the following actions during the convention: update and distribute its map; “inform” protestors, RNC delegates and the media about the level of surveillance they will face when they come to New York City; perform in front of publicly installed surveillance cameras (the times and places will be announced forehand, presumably via their site); a walking tour of the convention area each day that the RNC is in session (meeting times and locations announced beforehand).

The page on their site dedicated to the RNC reiterates their claim that the group does not condone criminal acts nor does it intend for any information it shares on the site to be taken as an encouragement to commit crimes.

There are remarkably few errors here, certainly much fewer than in the articles published about us in such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, etc. etc. Just because we are not part of the two-party electoral spectacle does not make us “apolitical”; our walking tours have “attracted” as many as 25 people; our website is not “www.notbored.com” but “www.notbored.org/the-scp.html.” But these are insignificant errors, hardly worth correcting. This much should be clear to all: these reports were certainly not written by “average” cops: they were written by highly educated people who are trained writers. That is to say, by professionals, by professional intelligence analysts.

As we have said, we were not at all surprised. Our political activity in part directly concerns the NYPD[2]; as early as December 2001 we had surmised that the NYPD was aware of our existence and had been issued orders on how to deal with us[3]; and, as the NYPD’s own report(s) indicate, for many years prior to the RNC we had used a few simple procedures to determine and list “the military and governmental visitors to the site.”[4] Not only was the NYPD keeping tabs on us, but so were the FBI, the NSA, the NRO, the Executive Office of the POTUS, the US military, et al (no doubt they all still are keeping and updating these “tabs”).

But what does surprise us — it even disgusts and outrages us — is the fact that, despite our reiterated position on violence and the complete absence of any “incidents” during our performances and walking tours, the NYPD has dared to mention us at some length in the document it has published on the www.nyc.gov website[5] to defend itself against various allegations made by, among others, the New York Civil Liberties Union, that such surveillance was in fact unnecessary and in violation of the law. Under “Republican National Convention Open Source Threat” — which claims to document “excerpts from and descriptions of the various websites, chat-rooms, and other forums in which the planning for various violent or illegal civil disobedience activity was undertaken” [emphasis added] — the NYPD spin-control team repeats the following information about us:

“Surveillance Camera Players” (SCP), an anarchist group founded in 1996, operated a website (www.notbored.com) with a map detailing the locations of all identified surveillance equipment in the general vicinity of the RNC, including: private surveillance cameras: 217, Government surveillance cameras: 12, New York City or NYPD cameras: 5, Traffic surveillance cameras: 3, Elevated surveillance cameras: 2, Total number of cameras: 239.

In one such tour, it was suggested by a group member that the wires necessary to operate a particular surveillance device were easily accessible and therefore vulnerable.[6]

The very fact that we — who have no connection to nor involvement in any part whatsoever of what the NYPD calls the “three-part co-mingled threat” of “terrorism, anarchist violence and unlawful civil disobedience” — are mentioned in this spin-control document proves that the NYPD is dead wrong (mistaken or deliberately lying) when they say that their “information gathering . . . was not political surveillance.” Our presence in this list of “threat-related activity” in fact proves that the NYPD were not “indifferent to the political views of any attendees at any activity — protest or otherwise — in New York City,” and that the NYPD’s information gathering did in fact address “political opinions.” As a result, the department’s “Intelligence Division” should be held accountable for their criminal activity, that is, their illegal surveillance of Constitutionally protected free speech.

Surveillance Camera Players
19 May 2007

[1] See http://iwitnessvideo.info/documents/index.html.

[2] The NYPD made extensive use of video surveillance cameras at the RNC. See http://iwitnessvideo.info/blog/15.html.

[3] See http://www.notbored.org/21dec01.html.

[4] See http://www.notbored.org/army.html.

[5] See http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/dcpi/nypd_rnc_overview.html.

[6] Let’s get this matter cleared up: the camera in question is an NYPD camera installed directly in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. It has long been our contention that, there being no crime at this location (that is, not counting the crimes committed inside the church by the representatives of the Vatican), this camera is there simply purely and simply to spy on the political activists who have used this precise location to protest against the Church’s positions on contraceptives, abortion, homosexuality, etc. Furthermore, we are not to blame for calling attention to the obvious fact that this precise camera (this “security” device) is in fact almost comically insecure. No: the people who are to blame for 1) dangling an ISDN box from this camera, 2) writing the letters “ISDN” on it, and 3) writing part of the phone number that can be used to access this ISDN box, and thus the camera itself, are in fact the camera’s installers and operators: the NYPD itself.

• Anonymity , Civil Disobedience , Conferences , Democracy , Nonviolent Action , Police , Protest , Surveillance , Technology , Terrorism
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jj May 16th, 2007

Empowering Peacemakers