Please apply online at
www.protest-research.eu and send
your proposal to teune@???. The extended deadline is
August 31. More information regarding the conference can
be found below (and in the attached CfP).
Best, Simon
Shaping Europe in a Globalized World? Protest Movements
and the Rise of a Transnational Civil Society? Zürich,
June 23-26, 2009
Panel: Transnational protest communities - transnational
public spheres
Chair: Simon Teune, Freie Universität Berlin
As a political collective action protest necessarily takes
place in a public mode. It is staged publicly to attract
attention, to raise the awareness for a problem, to
discuss causes and solutions, and possibly to
influence political and economic decision-makers. On the
one hand, public and commercial mass media are an
important target of protesters, but they are not the only
arena for public claims-making. Citizens are also
addressed in direct communication in assemblies and (more
or less random) encounters. On the other hand, the
organization of protest and the impact on a wider public
does not go without discussion on a smaller scale:
Processes of mobilization are intrinsically linked to
public spheres within the protest community. Meetings,
insurgent media, mailing-lists, and other forms of
exchange are arenas to build a community, define common
aims and deliberate about strategies. Hence, the analysis
of the public sphere may relate to an external or an
internal level.
Obviously, the link between protest and public spheres
does not stop at the borders of nation states.
Transnational protest rests in transnational public
spheres and it contributes to the shape of these, no
matter if we deal with public spheres that build on mass
media, assemblies or encounters. In a transnational
environment, however, opportunities and constraints for
the development of a public debate are different, due to
linguistic, cultural and structural heterogeneity.
Translation and re-contextualization are indispensable
techniques for new commonalities to emerge on the
transnational level. Notwithstanding such attempts to
construct commonalities transnational public spheres are
likely to reproduce material and symbolic inequalities.
The access to an arena of exchange and the perspectives
that are brought in shape the discussions both among
protesters and on a larger scale. As far as public and
commercial mass media are concerned, the bulk of the
discussions continues to be bound to a national framework
which is more or less permeable for influences from other
countries. To stir public discussion in other countries
under these conditions can be a major goal of mobilization
but it is also dependent on a number of factors such as
resonant frames and images, geographical or imagined
proximity, etc.
Papers proposed for this panel might address one or more
of the following questions:
- Under which conditions do transnational insurgent public
spheres develop? When do attempts to transnational
exchange fail?
- Which factors in the establishment of a transnational
public sphere (e.g. images, lingua francas, frame
building, physical meetings, etc.) bridge differences
between communities that are nationally bound?
- How do material and symbolic resources translate in
protesters transnational public spheres? Are they more
than an elite exchange? Do they overcome or continue
paternalism or colonialism? - When and how do commercial
and public mass media cover transnational protest?
- What are the differences between mass media in national
contexts and how do protesters deal with these (e.g. using
the boomerang effect)?
- Which differences can be found in public spheres on
different levels (e.g. commercial vs. alternative mass
media; protesters physical vs. virtual meetings)?
