Designing Protest

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Introduction

Hannah Arendt - Protest gives us the public sphere, the space for conversations

Cynthia Weber - 6 Elements of Protest

  1. Discontent - what bugs you? what motivates you to protest? what are your core values and how does it differ from the current reality?
  2. Problem Articulation - how do you signify whats bugging you? how should things be so they won't bug you? there are two approaches -either link it to the bigger systems at work, the cultural, political, socio processes of the world that are the cause of the problem. or imagine what the "better world" could be like. how would your life be lived if everything was the way you wanted it to be? what would "the good life" be like?
  3. Action Plan - devise a goal and match it with strategies to achieve them. [NOTE: A PROTEST IS NOT A PROBLEM SOLVING PLAN, don't mix up the two]
  4. Implementation - do it
  5. Deal with resistance - is it from within or without? how will you deal with counter resistance or coopresistance? where does it come from and why?
  6. Declare Victory - think of how or why your protest is succcessful. write it down, make a postmortem, ensure that the legacy of your protest will persist after by condensing its message into something short, like a history. make it a legend, so that it can be retold and revied in the future as the seed of a story or a dream....
  • occupy movement - started with Adbusters, by people living economically precarious lives, articulated as "we are the 99%", prefiguring the world we want to live in by practicing Everyday Communism, and participatory democracy. implemented by occupying Zuccotti Park (close enough). good way of dealing with resistance. police brutality generated sympathy. created general assembly structure and working groups with rules to privilege the disadvantaged.

James Bridle - drones, freedom of information act

  • Reenactment of protest 10 years after the iraq protest.
  • Historiography to current events
  • Dronestagram
  • "Dark Matter"
  • FOI Requests
  • 'Disposition Matrix" - decides who gets droned
  • Stripping people of citizenship - Story of Mhd Sakr, killed by drones in Egypt.
  • Laser light from Drones
  • Legibility, invisibility of technology - rendering it visible makes it concrete. You have to write technology down, in a way it make policy concrete. It makes it more accessible in a way if you have the technical know-how to decode it.

David Benque - The New Weathermen

  • The New Weathermen
  • Synthetic biology, applying engineering techniques to bio - blue prints for the unknown
  • GMO debate, frankenfood, "right to know" - james delingpole watermelons, red on inside green on outside - polarised by left/right.
  • Beautiful trouble
  • Stephen Duncombe's Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy -- PDF
  • Center for Story-based strategy
  • Techno progressives vs Bio conservatives
  • biopunk: kitchencounter scientists hack the software of life
  • the new weathermen manifestor
    • biooccupy diesel
    • pirate pollen club
    • palmops
    • biolulz
    • overton window
    • open access, diy bio, comtelpro
    • "The answer to "No to Monsanto" is not "No to GMO" but rather "Open GMO".

How to make a Freedom of Information Act Request

From https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request/the-freedom-of-information-act

  • Anyone can make a request for information – there are no restrictions on your age, nationality or where you live.
  • Your request will be handled under the Data Protection Act if you ask for information about yourself.

You can request information from publicly funded organisations that work for the welfare of the whole population, eg:

  • government departments
  • local councils
  • schools, colleges and universities
  • health trusts, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries
  • publicly funded museums
  • the police
  • non-departmental public bodies, committees and advisory bodies
  • http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents

Research and Various Thoughts

  • How are charities run?
  • Singapore Public Order Act vs Britain Public Order Act?
  • The history of speakers corner in singapore and britain
  • Why does the framework of art diminish the impact of a protest action? Is it because art gives one the freedom to be critical whereas normal life requires one to be fully responsible instead of saying "Oh its just an artwork" (art as WORK)
  • It seems people mainly protest about fundamental needs like money and environment - is it because it cannot be achieved in any other way when its a systemic problem?
  • Recordings of protests - guardian's tutorials on how to improve it VS what if it could be conviscated because of the recording? what is the role of the recording?
  • Prefiguration vs ANTI-prefiguration - what if you did a dystopian performance?
  • Revolution as a business?
  • Working Assets - http://www.workingassets.com/About.aspx
  • Ruckus Society - "Actions speak louder than words" - The Ruckus Society is a nonprofit organization that sponsors skill-sharing and non-violent direct action training, strategy & consultation for activists and organizers from frontline and impacted communities working on social justice, human rights, migrant rights, workers rights and environmental justice. The Ruckus Society's mission is to provide training in classic nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience tactics in the context of community-driven campaigns, including creative resistance, urban rappelling, media & communications, and blockades with and without gear. - http://www.ruckus.org/
  • The Spatiality of Control: ICT and Physical Space in Social Protest by Christoph Craviolini [From Special Issue on Online and Offline Social Movements: Interdisciplinary Perspectives of the Journal of Critical Studies in Business and Society (2011, Vol.2, Nrs. 1/2]:
    However, internationalization goes beyond a growing importance of relational space and intensified interconnection between claims and claimants at multiple spatial and institutional levels (Tilly andWood, 2009). It has led to a multiplication of lateral connections among different groups of activists who share a similar objective in their respective spatial territories and has strengthened the importance of specialized intermediaries who coordinate claims and convey tools as well as techniques at the international level rather than making claims on their own (Tilly, 2003: 18; De Armond, 2001). A prominent case of such a strategic player on the SMO side is The Ruckus Society (2011). This semi-professional group of activists provides instruction on the application of tactical and strategic tools through skill sharing and training camps. Tools range from the implementation of strategic nonviolent direct action against institutions and policies through the establishment of broad coalitions with common objectives to methods of media outreach and Internet activism (Ruckus Society, 2011; De Armond, 2001; Smith, 2001). In the case of the protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle, sometimes referred to as the “Battle of Seattle”, Ruckus-trained activists hung a huge banner from a crane or occupied strategic places where they were chained onto one another by having their arms locked together deep inside steel pipes to prevent police from pulling them apart (Ruckus, 2011; Baum, 2001; Smith, 2001). Strictly speaking, actors such as the Ruckus Society are mediators in a Latourian sense (cf. Latour, 2005) rather than simple intermediaries as they – intentionally or not – translate, modify and transform content, techniques and practices. On the side of so-called authorities, we can observe a similar development. We might cite as examples crowd control and suicide bomber specialists from places such as Ireland or Israel, training police forces in the run-up to major events that leads to an integration of military tactics and logistics into protest policing tactics (Golan, 2005; see also Graham, 2010). The resultis an increasing circulation of concepts, techniques and tactics and their continuous modification and transformation because there is no such thing as simple transport (Graham, 2010; see also Latour, 2005).Moreover, the circulation between the military, police and security sectors depicts another transversality with a distinct spatiality. Graham (2010) and Golan (2005) have identified an increasing militarization of protest policy that expresses itself in the adaptation of military tactics, strategies and technology originally used and developed for modern urban warfare, rather than in the actual physical presence of military forces. These tactics heavily rely on digital technology for intelligence gathering, surveillance or reconnaissance enhancement. Their main goal, with regard to protest control, however, remains the domination and control of urban space.

Singapore Issues

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance
  • Josef Ng's protest of homosexuality > His arrest > Performance art ban > Loo Zihan's reenactment
  • Book as protest
  • Rock as protest
  • Tree as protest > Toa Payoh Tree?
  • The Haze - From Bloomberg: There are 17 timber firms and 15 palm oil firms, including Singapore-listed Wilmar International Ltd. (WIL), Kuala Lumpur-based Sime Darby Bhd. (SIME) and Singapore-based Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd., with land in areas affected by fires, T. Nirarta Samadhi, an Indonesian government spokesman, said June 21, citing data from the non-government World Resources Institute. Wilmar and Sime Darby have told Bloomberg News they have a zero-burning policy. There had been contradictory statements from Indonesian ministers and officials on whether Singapore-linked companies were engaged in illegal land clearing, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Chee Wee Kiong said in an e-mailed statement sent by Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday. Chee requested the Indonesian government clarify the statements or share evidence relating to any involvement by Singapore-linked companies, the ministry said in the statement. Indonesian government officials should not name companies they suspect of having caused the fires and instead let police investigate the matter, Yudhoyono said yesterday.
  • Hong Lim Park - Created by Hokkien businessman and philanthropist Cheang Hong Lim in 1885, Hong Lim Park was the first public garden in Singapore. It was the venue for many election rallies and political speeches in the 1950s and 1960s. Speakers' Corner is there and it was modelled after the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.

PresenceOrb

Designing Experiences

From http://gigaom.com/2013/10/22/square-airbnb-and-why-experience-really-is-design/

These days, when there is talk of design, most people focus on what they can see: the pretty websites, well designed gadgets and brilliantly colored packaging. And while those are important, what matters most to the customers is the whole experience. That experience is essentially a story, a narrative which ultimately enjoins us to a brand.

Designing this experience is what makes one company different from another.

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia (who is speaking at RoadMap) is a designer who hails from the Rhode Island School of Design. He says designing a strong story and brand comes from paying attention to all those the little details that make up the whole experience for users. He encourages his design-centric team to celebrate and engage with all the little details. He once brought his entire product team to Jiro Dreams of Sushi as a way to point out excellence in detail-orience.

Airbnb has a unique challenge and opportunity when it comes to creating its experience that is different than building gadgets or re-branding airlines or launching payment systems. The relationship between host and user is an entirely new form of interaction — is it a hotel, a sublet, a friend’s couch? It is all of these things and also none of them. Thus the experience can be free of the legacies of the past, but needs more crafting than the legacy systems that it’s disrupting.

Designing the Protest Experience

  • What is the relationship between the website and user?
  • The protest starter and the protester?
  • Predicting things you were angry about but did not know
  • What would be successful?

Airbnb has a unique challenge and opportunity when it comes to creating its experience that is different than building gadgets or re-branding airlines or launching payment systems. The relationship between host and user is an entirely new form of interaction — is it a hotel, a sublet, a friend’s couch? It is all of these things and also none of them. Thus the experience can be free of the legacies of the past, but needs more crafting than the legacy systems that it’s disrupting.

The Protest for No One

  • Problem: the text is in a language which people automatically dismiss (although it was very hard to write)
  • XMARS2003

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/resources/nonviolent/methods.php

The Methods of Nonviolent Action

Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).

Formal Statements:

  1. Public Speeches (Egypt; E; WA-USA)
  2. Letters of opposition or support
  3. Declarations by organizations and institutions (Egypt)
  4. Signed public statements (Egypt; Libya; Bahrain; E)
  5. Declarations of indictment and intention
  6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience

  1. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols (Egypt; E; E; Libya; WI-USA; B; L; L; WI-USA)
  2. Banners, posters, and displayed communications (Egypt; Iraq; UK; WI-USA; WA-USA; ME-USA; Athens-GR; Bologna-IT; Albany, NY-USA)
  1. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books (Egypt; E; PA-USA; PA-USA; Madrid-ES; Barcelona-ES)
  2. Newspapers and journals (Libya; UK; Libya; WI-USA)
  3. Records, radio, and television (Egypt; E)
  4. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations

  1. Deputations
  2. Mock awards
  3. Group lobbying (WI-USA)
  4. Picketing (US airports)
  5. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts

  1. Displays of flags and symbolic colors (Egypt; E)
  2. Wearing of symbols
  3. Prayer and worship (Egypt)
  4. Delivering symbolic objects (Egypt; Bahrein; Afghanistan; Spain)
  5. Protest disrobings
  6. Destruction of own property
  7. Symbolic lights
  8. Displays of portraits (Libya)
  9. Paint as protest (Egypt; E)
  10. New signs and names
  11. Symbolic sounds (UK)
  12. Symbolic reclamations (Egypt)
  13. Rude gestures (Egypt)

Pressures on Individuals

  1. "Haunting" officials GR
  2. Taunting officials (GR; Albany, NY-USA)
  3. Fraternization (Egypt; E; PA-USA; WI-USA)
  4. Vigils

Drama and Music

  1. Humorous skits and pranks (Bangles; E; UK; WI-USA; Spain)
  2. Performances of plays and music (WI-USA)
  3. Singing (Bangles; CA-USA BoA flash mob; DC-USA)

Processions

  1. Marches (Egypt; WI-USA; Yemen; OH-USA; LA-USA)
  2. Parades
  3. Religious processions
  4. Pilgrimages
  5. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead

  1. Political mourning (Bahrain)
  2. Mock funerals (Suez-E)
  3. Demonstrative funerals (Bahrain; B)
  4. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies

  1. Assemblies of protest or support (Egypt; Libya; Iraq; Yemen; UK; UK; WI-USA; WI-USA; Libya; UK; L; L; US airports; Greece; PA-USA; MA-USA)
  2. Protest meetings (#occupywallstreet US).
  3. Camouflaged meetings of protest
  4. Teach-ins (Philadelphia, PA).

Withdrawal and Renunciation

  1. Walk-outs (Stoughton, WI)
  2. Silence
  3. Renouncing honors
  4. Turning one's back (USA)

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons

  1. Social boycott
  2. Selective social boycott (USA)
  3. Lysistratic nonaction (USA VA; Spain)
  4. Excommunication
  5. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions

  1. Suspension of social and sports activities
  2. Boycott of social affairs
  3. Student strike
  4. Social disobedience
  5. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System

  1. Stay-at-home
  2. Total personal noncooperation
  3. "Flight" of workers
  4. Sanctuary
  5. Collective disappearance
  6. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers

  1. Consumers' boycott
  2. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
  3. Policy of austerity (USA)
  4. Rent withholding
  5. Refusal to rent USA
  6. National consumers' boycott
  7. International consumers' boycott

Action by Workers and Producers

  1. Workmen's boycott
  2. Producers' boycott

Action by Middlemen

  1. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by Owners and Management

  1. Traders' boycott
  2. Refusal to let or sell property
  3. Lockout
  4. Refusal of industrial assistance
  5. Merchants' "general strike"

Action by Holders of Financial Resources

  1. Withdrawal of bank deposits (USA; WI-USA)
  2. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments (Greece)
  3. Refusal to pay debts or interest (USA; USA)
  4. Severance of funds and credit
  5. Revenue refusal (USA)
  6. Refusal of a government's money

Action by Governments

  1. Domestic embargo
  2. Blacklisting of traders
  3. International sellers' embargo
  4. International buyers' embargo
  5. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (2) THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes

  1. Protest strike
  2. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes

  1. Peasant strike
  2. Farm Workers' strike

Strikes by Special Groups

  1. Refusal of impressed labor
  2. Prisoners' strike
  3. Craft strike
  4. Professional strike (WI-USA; WI-USA)

Ordinary Industrial Strikes

  1. Establishment strike
  2. Industry strike (Egypt)
  3. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes

  1. Detailed strike
  2. Bumper strike
  3. Slowdown strike
  4. Working-to-rule strike
  5. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
  6. Strike by resignation
  7. Limited strike
  8. Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes

  1. Generalized strike
  2. General strike (Egypt)

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures

  1. Hartal
  2. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority

  1. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
  2. Refusal of public support
  3. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens' Noncooperation with Government

  1. Boycott of legislative bodies
  2. Boycott of elections
  3. Boycott of government employment and positions
  4. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
  5. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
  6. Boycott of government-supported organizations
  7. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
  8. Removal of own signs and placemarks
  9. Refusal to accept appointed officials
  10. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens' Alternatives to Obedience

  1. Reluctant and slow compliance
  2. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
  3. Popular nonobedience
  4. Disguised disobedience
  5. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse (WI-USA)
  6. Sitdown (Egypt)
  7. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
  8. Hiding, escape, and false identities
  9. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws (Egypt; E)

Action by Government Personnel

  1. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
  2. Blocking of lines of command and information
  3. Stalling and obstruction
  4. General administrative noncooperation
  5. Judicial noncooperation
  6. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
  7. Mutiny (Egypt; E)

Domestic Governmental Action

  1. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
  2. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units (IN-USA)

International Governmental Action

  1. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
  2. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
  3. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
  4. Severance of diplomatic relations
  5. Withdrawal from international organizations
  6. Refusal of membership in international bodies
  7. Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention

  1. Self-exposure to the elements (#occupywallstreet US)
  2. The fast
    1. Fast of moral pressure
    2. Hunger strike
    3. Satyagrahic fast
  3. Reverse trial
  4. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention

  1. Sit-in (Yemen; UK; DC-USA (Keystone XL))
  2. Stand-in
  3. Ride-in
  4. Wade-in
  5. Mill-in
  6. Pray-in
  7. Nonviolent raids
  8. Nonviolent air raids
  9. Nonviolent invasion (UK)
  10. Nonviolent interjection
  11. Nonviolent obstruction (Athens-GR; Barcelona-ES; Athens-GR; Albany, NY-USA).
  12. Nonviolent occupation (Bahrain; B; UK; WI-USA; B; B; WI-USA; WI-USA; WA-USA; CA-USA BoA flash mob; PA-USA "play in"; DC-USA; PA-USA (Philly Uncut); Spain; (Athens-GR; Bologna-IT; Athens-GR; Cairo-E).

Social Intervention

  1. Establishing new social patterns (Egypt; E; E; Bahrain; WI-USA; WI-USA; PA-USA; Spain; Madrid-ES; Madrid-ES; Athens-GR; Athens-GR; (#occupywallstreet US))
  2. Overloading of facilities (#occupywallstreet US)
  3. Stall-in
  4. Speak-in
  5. Guerrilla theater
  6. Alternative social institutions (Egypt)
  7. Alternative communication system (Egypt; E; Libya; WI-USA; L; L; OH-USA; Arab world; Madrid-ES; (#occupywallstreet US))

Economic Intervention

  1. Reverse strike
  2. Stay-in strike
  3. Nonviolent land seizure
  4. Defiance of blockades
  5. Politically motivated counterfeiting
  6. Preclusive purchasing
  7. Seizure of assets
  8. Dumping
  9. Selective patronage
  10. Alternative markets
  11. Alternative transportation systems (Uganda)
  12. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention

  1. Overloading of administrative systems
  2. Disclosing identities of secret agents
  3. Seeking imprisonment
  4. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws (Egypt; E; WI-USA; DC-USA)
  5. Work-on without collaboration
  6. Dual sovereignty and parallel government (Egypt; E; E; E)
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