The Occupy Movement and the Politics of Vulnerability

Abstract

The Occupy movement has generated a significant amount of scholarly literature, most of which has focused on the movement's tactics or goals, or sought to explain its emergence. Nevertheless, we lack an explanation for the movement's broad appeal and mass support. In this article we present original research on Occupy in New York City, Detroit, and Berlin, which demonstrates that the movement's heterogeneous participants coalesced around the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is an inability to adapt to shocks and stresses, and it inhibits social reproduction and prohibits social mobility. Rather than specifically discussing the wealth of elites per se, Occupy participants consistently expressed the feeling that the current political economic system safeguards elites and increases the vulnerability of everyone else. We argue that the Occupy movement has reworked the relationship among a range of political struggles that were hitherto disconnected (i.e. 'old' and 'new' social movements) and rendered them complementary through the politics of vulnerability.

Therapeutic politics: critique and contestation in the post-political conjuncture

“…The research participants politicized the symbolic violence they saw as prevalent in society: the deep entanglement of the commercial interests of the food and pharmaceutical industries with political governance which is systematically misrecognized, making people complicit in their own subordination and effectively eroding democratic governance. In many ways, their critique echoed that put forward by social justice movements that problematize 'the exclusive, oligarchic, and consensual governance of an alliance of professional economic, political and technocratic elites determined to defend the neoliberal order by any means necessary' (Wilson & Swyngedouw, 2014, p. 3; see also Fadaee & Schindler, 2014). Timo, a member of the Crystal Party in his forties, felt that power resides in the hands of those 'who own the 98% of this world', making 'the leverage of any party and politician really small at the end of the day'.…”

“…I illuminate this by discussing two modalities of politics: collective mobilization through a political party and therapeutic practices as personalized lifestyle politics. I then go on to suggest that these modalities give rise to a subaltern counterpublic (Fraser, 1997), challenging the political economy of health and the erosion of democratic governance and echoing political critique put forward by anti-austerity, leftist and libertarian movements (see Fadaee & Schindler, 2014;Gerbaudo, 2017).…”

The dynamics of power in disaster response networks

“…As FEMA's WCA opened up network programs, it also allowed space for emergent networks to take a role in the response. A salient example, showing how an existing network took on a different role, is the Occupy movements that had been mobilized in 2011 as a worldwide protest movement against the role that established institutions and banks played in the financial crisis (Fadaee & Schindler, 2014). The global Occupy movements were very much locally rooted as part of the radical politics of inclusion.…”

Untitled

“…Хаммонд показывает, что именно последствия «арабской весны» привели к распространению протестного движения Occupy по всему миру (Hammond, 2015), а ведь это протестное движение в 2011-2012 годах фиксировалось исследователями в таких странах, как США, Великобритания, Германия, Норвегия, Канада, Малайзия, Австралия, Новая Зеландия, Непал, Кипр, Гана, Нигерия, Исландия, Южная Африка, Россия (Kerton, 2012;Danjibo, 2013;Currie, 2012;Breau, 2014;Erde, 2014). Кроме того, в данный временной период протестами оказались охвачены Испания, Португалия, Греция, Италия, Албания, Малави, Китай, Индия, Мальдивские острова, Шри-Ланка, Иран, Мексика, Боливия, Чили, Азербайджан и многие другие страны (Charnock, Purcell, Ribera-Fumaz, 2014;Erdogan, 2013;Fadaee, Schindler, 2014;Greene, Kuswa, 2012;Gunter, 2013;Hoesterey, 2013;Iranzo, Farne, 2013;Jensen, Bang, 2013;Kerton, 2012;Musthaq, 2014;Pickerill, Krinsky, 2012). Таким образом, можно предположить, что «арабская весна» стала не только значительным событием в истории стран Ближневосточного региона, но и сыграла роль триггера дестабилизации во многих уголках планеты.…”