Rethinking Resistance and the Cultural Politics of Occupy

Abstract

This article examines the cultural politics of organizing in the Occupy LA movement. Utilizing ethnographic methods and the analysis of digital media sources produced by a variety of Occupy activists, this study focuses on how members of Occupy LA, in the post camp eviction period, made efforts to infuse a new kind of class politics among members of the newly and structurally dispossessed in the Los Angeles area.

Green Harms and Crimes

“…However, the majority of the literature regarding Occupy makes ambiguous reference to 'the police', and the intricacies of its state-corporate manifestation are unclear. The recognition of composite 'grey policing' (Hoogenboom, 1991;Zedner, 2009) is recognized in only some of the literature (see Wolf, 2012;Bratich, 2014;Dellacioppa et al, 2013). For example, Bratich (2014: 68) makes reference to Bloomberg's "private army" who played a large role in the physical eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York, and Dellacioppa et al (2013: 413) make reference to Occupy action on Skid Row in LA and reflect on how the area was 'also policed by private security, hired by the local business community'.…”

Crisis de la vivienda, movimientos sociales y empoderamiento: una revisión sistemática de la literatura

“…En otro estudio se recalca que después del movimiento no se abandonó la crítica política, ya que muchos de los activistas del Occupy Wall Street siguieron con actividad en otros movimientos sociales (Crane y Ashutosh, 2013). En la misma línea, los estudios tratan la ocupación como un hecho que ha creado: 1) formas alternativas de espacio político y social y una nueva democracia para recuperar el espacio público (Gautney, 2012) y 2) una forma diferente de imaginar la convivencia, compartir la vivienda y ganar visibilidad si la economía empeora y aumentan los desahucios (Dee, 2014;Dellacioppa et al, 2013). En el caso de España, la literatura analizada apunta a que los movimientos ocupas se integraron en el 15M y abrieron la población a participar en coaliciones más amplias de lucha por la vivienda, lo que generó movimientos únicos por su magnitud pero similares en cuanto al tipo de movimiento (LoisGonzález y Piñeira-Mantiñán 2015; Martínez y García, 2015).…”

Rancière, Politics, and the Occupy Movement

“…The occupation of symbolically important space, which was a central aspect of the whole movement, also left the movement open to rapid disintegration once the authorities made more determined efforts to regain control of such spaces and push occupations into more peripheral and less visible zones. After the dissolution of the mass occupations, attempts were made in some cities to diffuse the movement's activities more widely, for example to neighbourhoods where families were threatened by house repossession, and by building alliances with local antipoverty groups (eg, Dellacioppia et al, 2013). Such activities achieved some success, but the rapidity of the dissolution points to some deeper problems inherent in the distinctive nature of the movement, and in particular with those Rancieran elements it represented.…”