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Workshop: Understanding the new wave of social cooperation: Triangulation of Arab revolutions, European mobilizations and American occupy movement. From 9 am to 6 pm March 21st, 2012 - #21M Cambridge (Boston)

Introduction

This one-day workshop brings together several groups of researchers: members of the Council for European Studies (CES) European Social Movements research network who will be in Boston for the Council for European Studies conference (March 22 - 24); scholars researching the Arab Spring, recent mobilizations in European countries (such as 15 of May mobilizations in the Spanish State), and the Occupy movement in United States at the Berkman Center, as well as researchers of other Boston – based institutions including Harvard Kennedy School, MIT's Comparative Media Center; Northwest University and Boston College's Social Movements seminar.

The workshop will be hosted in the Berkman Center, Harvard, and organized in cooperation with the Council for European Studies (CES) European Social Movements research network and other Boston-based groups working in the area.

Goals and Key Objectives

We would like a historically grounded comparative approach that attempts a certain amount of historical contextualization and analytical and theoretical grounding of these protests and forms of social cooperation and the relations between them.

The workshop aims to analyses the specificity of each country/region case, at the time of approaching the commonalities between them based on a "triangulation" of the current research and understanding on Arab revolutions, European mobilizations and American occupy movement.

What are the relations between these forms of social cooperation? How similar/different are they from each other? What do they tell us concerning collective action? How important are national or global factors in shaping them? How important and which has been the role of new technologies for each case? In what way are they new and in what way are we witnessing a reconfiguration of elements we are very familiar with? What theoretical and analytical frameworks are people finding useful/not so useful as they think about these movements? Etc

The specific angle of each of each of the three planned session will be defined around clusters of participants' interests.

Objectives:

  • Analyses the specificity of each country/region case, at the time of approaching the commonalities and differences between them based on a "triangulation" of the current research and understanding on Arab revolutions, European mobilizations and American occupy movement.
  • Contribute to contextualize (historically and from a socio-political perspective) the impact of digital in collective action by connecting social movements studies tradition with Internet-based phenomenons analysis. Connect European, Nord – American and Arabic traditions of thinking and researching.
  • Contribute to map and systematize expertise on the current wave of social cooperation/mobilization.
  • Exchange, share and discuss current work and facilitate further synergy among researchers on the topic (most of them also practitioners).

Format and methodology

The workshop is intended as an exchange between researchers (many of whom are also participants) rather than a dissemination event for other researchers or the general public. Rather than conference presentations this event will create an intimate exchange between people already working in the field. It will be mainly discussion-based around a series of questions, with the possibility to circulate papers in advance (including those already presented elsewhere or under preparation).

Discussion is organized in three sessions around clusters of participants' interest.

A moderator will introduce the theme for each session, there will be around two very short (5 minutes) warm up presentations, and then all participants will be invited to discuss any and all issues pertaining to the theme. Per each session there will be a person creating a drafting/scheming/mental map of the issues emerging.

A maximum of 30 participants are expected.

Workshop discussion will be audio-recording and make availeble afterword on the web.

Logistical Information

  • Location: The workshop is taking place in two places

From 9 to 1 - Room 105 in Hauser Hall, Harvard Law School

After lunch break - From 1 to 8 pm Berkman center 23 Everett Street - second flour

Link to map of directions from Harvard T station (underground station)

Getting there:

  • Wireless Internet access will be available at the workshop
  • Participation Tools: Twitter / Identica hashtag: #21M
  • Other questions? Contact Amar Ashar at ashar(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu

Schedule

20 March (Optional) Informal dinner among the participants in town (particularly those coming from abroad @ 8 pm in http://acetarium.com/ (265 Elm Street, Somerville T Station: Davis Square)


21 March

9 - 10h Welcoming coffee. Introduction to the agenda, a map of expertise and brief round of presentations.

Room 105 in Hauser Hall

10 – 12h First discussion: EMERGING ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES. Which organizational forms were adopted by the movements in each case? What is the role of social media in shaping these emerging forms? Are there similarities among the cases? What do these cases tell us about the conditions and organizational principles of collective action?

Room 105 in Hauser Hall

12h Lunch Room 105 in Hauser Hall

1 - 3h Second discussion: EXPLANATORY FACTORS AND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE CASES. Why did social mobilization happen in so many countries at once? Are there similar explanatory factors and historical trajectories that explain why mobilization took place? Is it legitimate to talk about a global wave of mobilization? If so, how are these different cases connected and how might we confirm and document the connections between movements? What are the mechanisms of diffusion and translation among the cases?

Conference room, 23 Everett Street - 2nd Floor, Berkman center

3 - 3:30h Coffee break

3:30 - 5:30 Third Discussion: WHO MOBILIZED AND WITH WHICH GOALS AND STRATEGIES. What is the movement composition (i.e, who were the actors and what social bases were involved)? What were/are the visions and strategies of change in each of the cases? Is there a common political view or strategy among all the cases? What are the significant divisions between actors within each individual case? Are there similar divisions across different cases, and to what extent are the local and national dynamics important in shaping movement configuration?

Conference room, 23 Everett Street - 2nd Floor, Berkman center

5:30 - 6:00 Sum up conclusions

Conference room, 23 Everett Street - 2nd Floor, Berkman center

7pm 21M Dinner (Optional)" List of people attending the dinner Please add your name if you plan to attend.


Post – workshop: Optional activities

22 March and 23 March (Optional)

Seminars and workshop Council of European Studies Conference

23 March and 24 March (Optional)

OccupyData Hackathon 2: Data Visualization for the 99%!

What: OccupyData Hackathon 1 brought you visualizations of 13 million occupy tweets (see summaries by OccupyResearch, R-Shief, Fast Company, and Utrecht University). People participated from Utrech, LA, Boston, NY, and Spain.OccupyData Hackathon 2 builds on the demos and tools from the first round, and turns our collaborative energy on visualizing the 5000+ responses to the OccupyResearch General Demographics and Participation Survey (ORGS), R-Shief Twitter #occupy tags aggregated since September 2011, and Occupy Oakland Serves the People survey, as well as other datasets people might want to explore. This event is not only for hackers or coders, but for anyone who’s interested. Bring your ideas, skills, creativity, questions and critical perspectives as we explore occupy datasets using free and open source tools and software. We’ll make connections from one place to another – open to all participants! The model is for people to arrange local venues for f2f meetups, work locally, and share/collaborate real time via skype/chat/twitter/google docs and etherpads, etc. If you can’t make it to one of the physical locations, you can still join in remotely.

How: Sign up here

Where in Cambridge: MIT Media Lab E15-432, 20 Ames Street Cambridge, MA 02139 USA (http://www.media.mit.edu/about/building) Contacts for clarification on location and others: Sasha Costanza-Chock (schock(at)MIT.EDU) & Pablo Rey (Pablo(at)basurama.org) or irc.lc.freenode/occupydata

Participants

Participants target: A gender balanced and topic/place diverse gathering of currently researchers (not only interested) in the Arab Spring, European wave or Occupy movements that combine action and research perspectives. Room maximum: 30 people (already full).

Workshop "ecosystem": The workshop puts together very diverse profile and trajectories. Combination of European, Arabic and United States profiles; English- native and non-English native; social movements scholars and - not social movements (meaning not familiar with social movement studies); digital and non-digitals. This great diversity requires to take distance from each position and be still even more open minding and not - giving things for granted details on the cases or on each (language and) perspective.

List of participants

Map of case/participant

USA Occupy movement (general): Mike Ananny, Beth Coleman, Maite Tapia, E. Colin Ruggero, Marcos Ancelovici, William A. (Bill) Gamson, Ofer Sharone, Pablo Rey

  • Boston : Sasha Costanza-Chock, Pablo Rey, Nicole Doerr, Jeffrey Juris, Charlotte Ryan, Jason Pramas
  • Pittburg : Alice Mattoni
  • Philadelphia: E. Colin Ruggero

Canada: Montreal: Marcos Ancelovici

Arab Spring (general) Rob Faris, Bruce Etling, Alicia Solow-Niederman (how to understand the Occupy movement in the global context), William A. (Bill) Gamson

  • Tunisia : Ethan Zuckerman, Zack Brisson
  • Egypt : Lina Attalah, Zeynep Tufekci, Nagla Rizk, Alicia Solow-Niederman, Zack Brisson

Israeli Summer: William A. (Bill) Gamson

European dimension: Christian Scholl, Cristina María Flesher Fominaya, Francesca Vassallo and Nicole Doerr

  • Spain : Mayo Fuster Morell, Pablo Rey, Cristina María Flesher Fominaya, Marcos Ancelovici
  • Germany : Nicole Doerr, Maite Tapia
  • Greece: Maria Kousis
  • Italy : Alice Mattoni
  • UK: Maite Tapia
  • Ireland : Laurence Cox France : Marcos Ancelovici, Francesca Vassallo
  • Amsterdam : Christian Scholl
  • Poland : Elzbieta Cizewska
  • France: Marcos Ancelovici

Distribution of participants per topics

Bibliographic resources

Please add any relevant resource.

Arab Spring

Brisson, Zack, & Krontiris, Kate (March, 2012). 'Tunisia: From Revolutions to Institutions' <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53226669/Tunisia%201-2012-Publication-Web-%C6%92.pdf> World Bank Group

Brisson, Zack, & Lee, Panthea (March, 2011). 'Egypt: From Revolutions to Institutions'<http://thereboot.org/wp-content/Egypt/Reboot-Egypt-From-Revolutions-To-Institutions.pdf>

Nepstad, Sharon Erickson (2012) Nonviolent Resistance in the Arab Spring: The Critical Role of Military-Opposition Alliances. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue:http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Goodwin, Jeff. (2012) Why We Were Surprised (Again) by the Arab Spring. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Schneider, Cathy Lisa (2012) Violence and State Repression.Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Alimi, Eitan Y. and David S. Meyer (2012) Seasons of Change: Arab Spring and Political Opportunities. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Diani, Mario (2012) Networks and Internet into Perspective. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Gamson, William A. (2012) Arab Spring, Israeli Summer, and the Process of Cognitive Liberation. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Goldstone, Jack A. (2012) Cross-class Coalitions and the Making of the Arab Revolts of 2011. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

Aouragh, Miriyam and Anne Alexander. 2011. “The Egyptian experience.” International Journal of Communication (5): 1344-1358. International Journal of Communication (Vol. 5), http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc

Lotan, Gilad et al. 2011. “The revolutions were tweeted.” International Journal of Communications 5: 1375-1405. Malcolm Gladwell’s blog post on The New Yorker website, “Does Egypt Need Twitter?” www.newyorker.com (accessed November 11, 2011).

Tufekci, Zaynep. 2011. “Too many messages and only one Facebook page.” Technosociology. Blog posted on September 19, 2011. http://technosociology.org, accessed November 11, 2011.

Tufekci, Zaynep. 2011. “New media and the people-powered uprisings.” Technology Review. Blog posted on August 30, 2011. www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/27122/, accessed November 11, 2011.

Tufekci, Zeynep (2011) Video presentation http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/zeynep & http://technosociology.org/ Keywords/themes: Collective action and technology Focus cases: Arab Spring (Egypt) Related work: Video presentation: From Tehran to Tahrir: Social Media and Dynamics of Collective Action under Authoritarian Regimes http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2011/09/tufekci

Wilson, Christopher and Alexandra Dunn. 2011a. “Digital media in the Egyptian revolution.” International Journal of Communication 5: 1248-1272.

Spanish Indignated/15M

Fuster Morell, M (2011) Video presentation: The Spanish Revolution & the Internet: From free culture to meta-politics http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2011/11/morell

Fuster Morell, M. & Subirats, J. (2012). Més enllà d'Internet com a eina "martell” - eina de la vella política: Cap un nou Policy Making?. Els casos del Moviment de Cultura Lliure i pel Procomú Digital i el 15M a Catalunya (Beyond the Internet as a tool "hammer" - tool of the old politics: Towards a New Policy Making?. Cases the Free Culture Movement and the digital commons and 15M in Catalonia). Research report. Institute de Govern i Politiques Publiques (UAB) per l'Escola d'Administracio Publica de Catalunya. (139 pages)

Postill, John. n.d. “Democracy in an age of viral reality,” unpublished manuscript submitted to special edition of Ethnography “Media Ethnography and Public Sphere Engagement,” edited by Debra Vidali and Thomas Tufte.

Taibo, Carlos. 2011. El 15-M en sesenta preguntas. Madrid: Los libros de la Catarata.

Occupy Wall Street

Adbusters call to occupy wall street: www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html (accessed October 24, 2011).

Collins, Joan. 2012. "Theorizing Wisconsin's 2011 Protests." American Ethnologist 39(1): 1-15.

Collins, Randall. 2001. “Social movements and the focus of emotional attention.” In Passionate Politics, edited by Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper and Francesca Polletta, 27–44. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Hector R. Cordero-Guzman, "Main Stream Support for a Mainstream Movement, The 99% Movement Comes From and Looks Like the 99%, Profile of web traffic taken from occupywallstreet.org," October 19, 2011, http://occupywallst.org (accessed January 4, 2011).

Graeber, David. 2011. "On Playing By the Rules—The Strange Success of #OccupyWallStreet,"http://www.nakedcapitalism.com (accessed January 4, 2012).

Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negro. 2011. "The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street." - (October 11), www.foreignaffairs.com (accessed January 5, 2012).

Milan, Stefania. 2011. “Cloud protesting.” Blog posted on October 18, 2011. http://stefi.engagetv.com/node/103, accessed November 11, 2011.

Rinke, Einke M. and Maria Röder. 2011. “Media ecologies, communication culture, and temporal-spatial unfolding.” International Journal of Communication 5: 1273-1285.

Schradie, Jen. 2011. "Why Tents (Still) Matter for the Occupy Movement," www.commondreams.org (January 4, 2012).

Suresh, Fernando Occupy Vancouver Organizer on Dec 27, 2011Occupy My Soul by http://thenextedge.org/2011/12/occupy-my-soul/

Ruggero, E, Colin (2011). "Spirit of ’76: Occupy Philadelphia, Voicelessness, and the Challenge of Growing the Occupy Wall Street Movement" Deliberately Considered, November 2011. Blog post: [1]

Gamson, Bill. (2012) Boston College Cultural Outcomes of the Occupy Movement. December 30, 2011 [with changes added: January 2, 2012]

Blogs on OWS:

Meyer David's Blog: http://politicsoutdoors.com/tag/occupy/ and http://politicsoutdoors.com/tag/occupy-wall-street/;

The Center for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Notre Dame <http://cssm.nd.edu/>: http://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/tag/occupy-movement/;

Foreign Affairs articles on OWS: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/node/133733.

Comparison of several cases

Rey, Pablo (2011) Gallery of different twitter-newspaper visualizations. http://numeroteca.org/cat/frontpage-newspaper/

Rey, Pablo (2011) Post: Analyzing newspapers’ front pages to interpret the Mainstream Media ecology. Researching the #15M, #Occupy movement and the Arab Spring. Interested in the relationship between Mainstream Media and social Media(Twitter): http://civic.mit.edu/blog/pablo/analyzing-newspapers-front-pages

Gamson, William A. (2012) Arab Spring, Israeli Summer, and the Process of Cognitive Liberation. Swiss Political Science Review. Special issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=0jcva5g0090vlet42smd&u=19087420&f=h

USA - SPAIN

Fuster Morell, M (2012) Blog post Report on OWS Forum on the commons: http://www.onlinecreation.info/?p=492

Others

Observatorio Metropolitano (Octubre 2011). Crisis y revolucion en Europa. Traficantes de suenyos: Madrid. (Spanish) http://traficantes.net/index.php/editorial/catalogo/otras/Crisis-y-revolucion-en-Europa This analysis by Observatorio Metropolitano (October 2011) links the social mobilizaions from northern Africa and Europe.

Occupy research resources:

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