Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100205
Benjamin Abrams, G. Travaglino, P. Gardner, B. Callan
Contention is everywhere nowadays, permeating the fabric of society and constituting an important element of many different social relationships. It is also a central topic across a wide range of social scientific disciplines. Following the most contentious decade in over a century, scholarship on the topic of “contention” is booming. Nonetheless, we still lack a conceptual approach to “contention” as a general academic term beyond the bounds of the study of “contentious politics.” What is the meaning of contention? Drawing on a decade of editorial and research work on contention, this article surveys the profound breadth and variety of academic research on the topic, ranging from politics, psychology, and sociology to material culture, criminology, and beyond. We outline the common conceptual thread across these various areas, where “contention” generally indicates conflictual collective contests concerning competing claims.
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Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100105
Floor van der Hout
In this article, I explore what a more ethical and decolonial approach to North-South research could look like, reflecting on my experiences of accompanying women territory defenders in Bolivia. I argue that the same colonial extractivist logic that threatens the lives and territories of indigenous and rural women in Abya Yala is also being reproduced in processes of knowledge production in neoliberal academia. Drawing on the critical work of feminist and indigenous scholars from Abya Yala, I propose a relational and embodied methodological approach that I call ‘acompañar’ that has the potential to resist these extractivist tendencies. I conclude that decolonization requires a radical exploration of the researcher’s positionings in ongoing colonial processes and resistance to the temporalities of neoliberal academia.
{"title":"From Colonial Extractivism to Hearting and Feelthinking","authors":"Floor van der Hout","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100105","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I explore what a more ethical and decolonial approach to North-South research could look like, reflecting on my experiences of accompanying women territory defenders in Bolivia. I argue that the same colonial extractivist logic that threatens the lives and territories of indigenous and rural women in Abya Yala is also being reproduced in processes of knowledge production in neoliberal academia. Drawing on the critical work of feminist and indigenous scholars from Abya Yala, I propose a relational and embodied methodological approach that I call ‘acompañar’ that has the potential to resist these extractivist tendencies. I conclude that decolonization requires a radical exploration of the researcher’s positionings in ongoing colonial processes and resistance to the temporalities of neoliberal academia.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"66 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74148899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100106
E. Rasch
In this paper, I explore how teaching can be an act of activism; a way of hacking the neoliberal university. In doing so, I draw on our experiences with the course “Resistance, Power and Movements.” I argue that activist teaching not only involves teaching about issues related to social justice and resistance, but also engaged, horizontal teaching methods, as well as self-reflection. This implies a process of double contention. On the one hand, the course resists the outcome-oriented university that we work in by focusing on learning as a process and a form of reflection. On the other hand, the lecturers of the course seek to equip students with tools and knowledge to not only understand social change, but also become part of it.
{"title":"Hacking the System","authors":"E. Rasch","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100106","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I explore how teaching can be an act of activism; a way of hacking the neoliberal university. In doing so, I draw on our experiences with the course “Resistance, Power and Movements.” I argue that activist teaching not only involves teaching about issues related to social justice and resistance, but also engaged, horizontal teaching methods, as well as self-reflection. This implies a process of double contention. On the one hand, the course resists the outcome-oriented university that we work in by focusing on learning as a process and a form of reflection. On the other hand, the lecturers of the course seek to equip students with tools and knowledge to not only understand social change, but also become part of it.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77044513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100108
D. Olivieri
The article addresses some of the challenges and possibilities of taking slowness as a tool to theorize and practice a way of being an activist anthropologist in the contemporary (neoliberal) university. The activism discussed here intervenes in the university itself. To articulate slowing down as mode of resistance to the unbearably fast and exclusionary rhythms of academic life, the article puts into dialogue documentary cinema and critiques of contemporary academia. Turning to the film Inland Sea as an instance of a mode of attention/attending to the world otherwise, the article concludes on the political potential of slowness to become a collective strategy of resistance to the increased culture of quantification, competition, and financialization in the university, and a tactic for an engaged anthropology to come.
{"title":"Slowness as a Mode of Attention and Resistance","authors":"D. Olivieri","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100108","url":null,"abstract":"The article addresses some of the challenges and possibilities of taking slowness as a tool to theorize and practice a way of being an activist anthropologist in the contemporary (neoliberal) university. The activism discussed here intervenes in the university itself. To articulate slowing down as mode of resistance to the unbearably fast and exclusionary rhythms of academic life, the article puts into dialogue documentary cinema and critiques of contemporary academia. Turning to the film Inland Sea as an instance of a mode of attention/attending to the world otherwise, the article concludes on the political potential of slowness to become a collective strategy of resistance to the increased culture of quantification, competition, and financialization in the university, and a tactic for an engaged anthropology to come.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78453801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100107
Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg, Lina Katan
Employing subjective experiences in academia obviously questions central academic concepts such as objectivity and value-neutrality. The article challenges these taken for granted values by reflecting on the experience of producing and disseminating scientific knowledge with personal engagement. In a dialogical style, the article argues for the relevance of “academic activism” which draws on subjective experiences as incorporated in the process of knowledge-making. Regarding both writing this article and teaching the course “Researching Social Change” the authors exemplify how scholars can practice “academic activism” to gain knowledge and become part of social change themselves.
{"title":"Teaching and Writing (as) Academic Activism","authors":"Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg, Lina Katan","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100107","url":null,"abstract":"Employing subjective experiences in academia obviously questions central academic concepts such as objectivity and value-neutrality. The article challenges these taken for granted values by reflecting on the experience of producing and disseminating scientific knowledge with personal engagement. In a dialogical style, the article argues for the relevance of “academic activism” which draws on subjective experiences as incorporated in the process of knowledge-making. Regarding both writing this article and teaching the course “Researching Social Change” the authors exemplify how scholars can practice “academic activism” to gain knowledge and become part of social change themselves.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73618242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100103
Júnia Marúsia Trigueiro de Lima
In Brazil, many anthropologists are encouraged to act for the benefit of minority groups, assuming an activist role in conducting research on and with them. Yet efforts to integrate these dual roles are undermined by the continued separation of scientific knowledge production processes from other scholar activist activities. In this article, I seek to contend this separation by reflecting on my work as a volunteer in medios libres (the “free media”). With this form of activism, I sought to support the Mexican Indigenous social movement Modevite alongside my doctoral research, in a process of double contention. I reflect on the possibilities of rethinking the activism–academia dichotomy in knowledge production and on how we can produce knowledge that is more strategic for the people we engage with.
{"title":"From a “Double Task” to a “Double Contention” Perspective","authors":"Júnia Marúsia Trigueiro de Lima","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100103","url":null,"abstract":"In Brazil, many anthropologists are encouraged to act for the benefit of minority groups, assuming an activist role in conducting research on and with them. Yet efforts to integrate these dual roles are undermined by the continued separation of scientific knowledge production processes from other scholar activist activities. In this article, I seek to contend this separation by reflecting on my work as a volunteer in medios libres (the “free media”). With this form of activism, I sought to support the Mexican Indigenous social movement Modevite alongside my doctoral research, in a process of double contention. I reflect on the possibilities of rethinking the activism–academia dichotomy in knowledge production and on how we can produce knowledge that is more strategic for the people we engage with.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89454940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100102
E. Rasch, Floor van der Hout, M. Köhne
This special issue explores theoretical and methodological issues related to activist and engaged scholarship. Combining scholarship and activism involves the (collaborative) production of knowledge that contributes not only to understanding the issues research participants face, but also to the social change they envision (Kirsch 2018; Hale 2006; Rasch and Van Drunen 2017; Rasch and Köhne 2016). Often, this entails a process of double contention. Activist scholars might be involved in social struggles against inequality and exclusion beyond the production of knowledge, engaging in solidarity work, supporting court cases, and co-strategizing for actions (see for example Bringa 2016; Grasseni 2014; Hale 2006). At the same time, they are often involved in processes of contention related to the metrics-oriented neoliberal university, as well as to its underlying positivist, eurocentrist, and colonialist structures (see for example Datta 2018; Mountz et al 2015).
本期特刊探讨了与积极分子和从事学术相关的理论和方法问题。将学术研究与行动主义相结合，涉及知识的(协作)生产，不仅有助于理解研究参与者面临的问题，而且有助于他们设想的社会变革(Kirsch 2018;黑尔2006;Rasch and Van Drunen 2017;Rasch and Köhne 2016)。通常，这需要一个双重争论的过程。活动家学者可能会参与知识生产之外的反对不平等和排斥的社会斗争，参与团结工作，支持法庭案件，并共同制定行动战略(例如参见Bringa 2016;Grasseni 2014;黑尔2006)。与此同时，他们经常参与与以指标为导向的新自由主义大学相关的争论过程，以及其潜在的实证主义、欧洲中心主义和殖民主义结构(参见例如Datta 2018;Mountz et al . 2015)。
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Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.1002of1
Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval
Most social movement scholars assume that the African American Civil Rights and Chicana/o/x Movements lasted no more than ten years. Framing these movements as “short,” rather than “long,” minimizes their complex, radical roots, reinforcing popular misconceptions that they had narrow goals, such as color-blindness. In this article, I utilize a case study approach to examine the long Chicana/o/x Movement on one specific campus—the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The movement on that campus began with the historic El Plan de Santa Barbara Conference in April 1969, and it continued into the 1990s with a ten-day hunger strike. It persisted into the late 2010s when Chicanx/Latinx students mobilized to preserve their beloved “home away from home,” El Centro Arnulfo Casillas.
{"title":"The Long UC Santa Barbara Chicana/o/x Movement","authors":"Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.1002of1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.1002of1","url":null,"abstract":"Most social movement scholars assume that the African American Civil Rights and Chicana/o/x Movements lasted no more than ten years. Framing these movements as “short,” rather than “long,” minimizes their complex, radical roots, reinforcing popular misconceptions that they had narrow goals, such as color-blindness. In this article, I utilize a case study approach to examine the long Chicana/o/x Movement on one specific campus—the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The movement on that campus began with the historic El Plan de Santa Barbara Conference in April 1969, and it continued into the 1990s with a ten-day hunger strike. It persisted into the late 2010s when Chicanx/Latinx students mobilized to preserve their beloved “home away from home,” El Centro Arnulfo Casillas.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"108 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80035282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2022.100104
M. Köhne
This paper reflects on knowledge activism as a form, of activism that strives to make scientific research politically effective. It analyses the contradictions of scholar-activism aiming to overcome the dichotomy between scholarly and activist work while at the same time experiencing the dual commitments to these two different fields. It does so through an auto-ethnography of writing a “scientific letter” signed by academics to the Dutch government, urging them to stop the use of palm oil as biofuel in the EU. I argue that when knowledge activism builds on the authority of science to pursue political change, the boundary work to produce the needed credibility at the same time reproduces the dichotomy between activism and science.
{"title":"Using the Authority of Science in Activism","authors":"M. Köhne","doi":"10.3167/cont.2022.100104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2022.100104","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reflects on knowledge activism as a form, of activism that strives to make scientific research politically effective. It analyses the contradictions of scholar-activism aiming to overcome the dichotomy between scholarly and activist work while at the same time experiencing the dual commitments to these two different fields. It does so through an auto-ethnography of writing a “scientific letter” signed by academics to the Dutch government, urging them to stop the use of palm oil as biofuel in the EU. I argue that when knowledge activism builds on the authority of science to pursue political change, the boundary work to produce the needed credibility at the same time reproduces the dichotomy between activism and science.","PeriodicalId":36466,"journal":{"name":"Contention","volume":"212 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88061203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/cont.2021.090204
M. Abdel-Samad, Michael Boyle, S. Flanigan, C. Garland, T. Jefferson, Bob Jeffery, Callie Maidhof, G. Sotiropoulos
Ten years ago, a seemingly titanic wave of contention swept the globe. This article reflects on how the impact of a wave of contentious political action that is now a full decade old manifests today. These “legacies of contention”—the historically contingent impact of contentious episodes—can variably re-enforce, undermine, or depart substantially from the original focus of a given contentious episode, a sign of how difficult it can be to extrapolate from the causal impact of contentious politics in the near-run. Herein we discuss the fates of some of the 2011 contentious episodes, including Syria, Greece, Israel, England, and the United States.
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