A Typology of Oppositional Knowledge: Democracy and the U.S. Peace Movement

Abstract

Institutionally privileged political discourses not only legitimate the policy agendas of power-holders, but also de-legitimate dissent. Oppositional discourses are social movement responses to these cultural obstacles to mass mobilisation. Integrating discourse analysis and framing theory, we argue that the production of oppositional knowledge constitutes a long-term, counter-hegemonic project that connects macro-level discourses with meso and micro-level efforts at political persuasion, mobilisation, and change. Drawing examples from statements issued by U.S. peace movement organisations (PMOs) over fifteen years, we map the production of oppositional discourses across five conflict periods. Using qualitative data analysis and both inductive and deductive theorising, we develop a typology of the U.S. peace movement's discourses on democracy. We show that four forms of oppositional knowledge were generated by PMOs to facilitate policy dialogue and accountability. Through their statements, peace movement organisations crafted a shared conception of democracy that is antithetical to military intervention abroad and political repression at home.

Embedding Post-Capitalist Alternatives: The Global Network of Alternative Knowledge Production

“…These 16 groups are diverse in organizational form and political priorities , including the extent to which they focus their efforts on prefigurative KPM that is relevant to the construction of alternative futures, as distinct from the critique of existing reality ( cf. Coy et al 2008). Groups such as the Third World Network (TWN), the Tricontinental Centre (CETRI) and Third World Institute / Social Watch (ITeM) focus on critique of current political-economic conditions; CACIM and the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD) emphasize the construction of "open spaces" for political dialogue; groups like Focus on the Global South (Focus), the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) consciously strive to construct counter-hegemonic projects that prefigure actual alternatives to neoliberal capitalism, as in Focus ' "deglobalization" paradigm, IFG's post-capitalism project and TNI's New Politics initiative.…”

Looking backward to the future: Counter-memory as oppositional knowledge-production in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

“…Similar to the ideal type of counter-informative knowledge, this information is offered in Israel ‘to widen the discussion and possibly change the political assessment people make or the outcomes they desire’ (Coy et al, 2008: 5.1). However, the pre-1948 Palestinian life and their collective experience during the 1948 war are not new information to Jewish-Israelis, but more of a contested ‘public secret’ (Stoler, 2009).…”

“…Critical-interpretive knowledge – Memory activists in Israel wish to counter the hegemonic Zionist narrative and question ‘the moral or social basis for how that information is presented, interpreted, and used’ (Coy et al, 2008: 5.2). They are most critical regarding the state and society’s decades-long silencing and exclusion of Palestinian citizens and non-citizens from Israel’s national history and collective memory, as well as erasure from the national landscape.…”

“…As part of the production of critical-interpretive knowledge, memory activists in Israel offer ‘an alternative interpretation of what the picture painted by the power-holders means’ (Coy et al, 2008: 5.2). For example, in a gallery talk at Zochrot’s Tel Aviv headquarters for the exhibit ‘Constituent Violence’ in 2009, Israeli curator and scholar Ariella Azoulay argued that the articulation of the Palestinian loss in the 1948 war by both Israeli and Palestinian national narratives as a solely Palestinian disaster that is unrelated to Jewish-Israelis has worked to create a separation between Jewish-Israelis and Arab-Palestinians.…”

“…Peace activists and social movements have been analyzed as struggling over framing and reframing public debates and discourses (Benford and Snow, 2000; Snow et al, 1980; Steinberg, 1999). One of the strategies for this intervention according to Coy at al. (2008), is producing oppositional knowledge and claims against the dominant knowledge and claims.…”