Revolt and Revolution: The Protester in the 21st Century
ISBN: 9781848884564
Platform/Publisher: BRILL / BRILL
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Universities and colleges; Higher education and state; Comparative education;

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016.



It is significant that Time Magazine, in the wake of the Arab Spring, named The Protester the person of the year of 2011. Since then revolts, social unrest and demands for systemic change have continued to spread, from the anti-austerity street marches in Europe and the progressive 'No Borders' global movement, to protests against neoconservative and xenophobic populist movements. The histories that are currently being (re)written, not only in the West but also in North Africa and the Middle East, and more recently in places like Ukraine and Thailand, show us that the immanence and promise of large scale political revolutions is as present as ever across the world. The solidity and stability that nations and economic systems strive for is continuously being challenged by different forces, with shifting means, for various reasons.

As the goals and aspirations of protesters across the world are becoming more heterogonous and less programmatic it becomes increasingly hard to say what 'the protester' wants and where 'the revolution' will take us. This book makes no attempts to answer that question. On the contrary it embraces the ambiguity and heterogeneity of contemporary protest movements, pointing to how the potentials of revolutionary acts reside behind seemingly irrelevant, disorganized outbursts of apparently aimless acts. Giving meaning to the sign carried by one of the protesters at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in Zucotti Park, saying: 'We're here; we're unclear; get used to it'


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