240034 VS Counter-power: Revolutions, struggles, and protests (3.3.2) (2020S)

Over the last years, it seems that protests have become the new normal, from yellow vests struggling for a decent life in France, to Fridays for Future demonstrating in name of the environment in Vienna (and elsewhere), students in Hong Kong hoping to maintain their freedom, and so forth. Notwithstanding that there may be a global wave of protests, indeed, power struggles have long been essential parts of human history. The French Revolution, decolonisation movements, but also long forgotten peasant wars have shaped the development of our societies – for better and for worse. To better understand the logics, (internal) dynamics, grievances, actors, symbolism, etc. involved, we will, in this course, deconstruct various forms or counter-power, such as revolutions, resistance, and protest. More particularly, we will explore what an anthropological perspective has to contribute to the understanding of a large variety of struggles and their impacts around the world.

Course aims:
1. To gain a historical and contemporary understanding of various forms of counter-power.
2. To obtain relevant theoretical insights about revolutions, struggles, protests, and other forms of resistance.
3. To be able to apply the theoretical insights.
4. To better understand the particular qualities an anthropological perspective has to offer to the understanding of a variety of (historical and contemporary) struggles.

Content:
After discussing what power (and related structural violence) is, we will look into various struggles (revolutions, protests, etc.). We will explore what concerns mobilise groups of people to resist, i.e. what are their grievances? We will study why some movements use violence and others not and analyse the extent to which this explains their success – or lack thereof. We will discuss the variety of actors involved, the (internal) dynamics between them, and the relevance of lived experiences. We will equally address the position of women in protests movements, the symbolism and ideologies involved, as well as how struggles feature in popular memory. Moreover, we will explore the positionality of anthropologists in studying all kinds of struggles and protests, such as in the case of activist ethnography. Together, this will help to get a better understanding of the contribution anthropology can make to explaining and interpreting counter-power.

Methods:
Reading literature, presentations, discussions, and individual papers.