565
Homogeneous, Homologous, or Interconnected? What Constitutes Global Waves of Contention?

Thursday, 14 July 2016: 14:15-15:45
Location: Hörsaal 21 (Main Building)
RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)

Language: English

The protests that took place around the world in the years since 2011 were quickly summed up as a new, transnational wave of contention. This wave
supposedly followed after the ebbing of the last wave, which is associated with the global justice movement. 
The stark differences between these two “waves” but also between the different protests of each respective “wave” bring to the forefront
a number of questions concerning the identification of such a transnational wave of contention: Is a wave to be defined by a shared similarity of protests that set them apart from earlier waves of protests? Or is it defined by mutual interconnections, maybe even a shared goal or opponent? And how are these protests to be located in the changing trans- and inter-national landscapes of power? This session welcomes submissions addressing, for example, the following fields of inquiry:

  • Inter-temporal comparison: differentiating waves of contention. 
  • Inter-local comparison: trans- and inter-national articulation of the
    unity of waves of contention. 
  • The eye of the beholder: identification of waves of contention by the
    interested observer. 
  • Historical comparison: the changing “transnationality” of waves of
    contention.
Session Organizers:
Nils C. KUMKAR, University of Bremen, Germany and Micha FIEDLSCHUSTER, Universitat Leipzig, Germany
Chair:
Nils C. KUMKAR, University of Bremen, Germany
Posters:
Theorising ‘Movement Waves' and the Making of Collective Subjects
Colin BARKER, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom; John KRINSKY, City College New York, USA