IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

JS-85

Understanding the Criminalization of Struggles for Rights in Comparative Perspective

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC47 Social Classes and Social Movements (host committee)
RC12 Sociology of Law

Language: French, English and Spanish

Session Type: Oral

The criminalization of struggles for rights –or simply political dissent- is increasingly becoming a powerful tool used by governments in so-called democracies to restrict civil and political rights and legitimize use of State violence against rights defenders, under the cover of anti-terrorists or war on drugs operations. There are common elements in these situations where States criminalize throughout new laws and measures that render illegal democratic behaviors such as public demonstrations, and by using discourses that target activists –sometimes with morality-based accusations- and thus expose them to further violence. Yet, criminalization also implies specific forms of violence and intimidation imposed to women who are targeted by “systematic practices of sexual violence as a means to deter protest” (IHRC, 2017). Young people, Indigenous and Afro-descendants –among others- are also criminalized in specific ways that deepen structural violence. In response, criminalized groups respond by dynamic and diversified resistances: in Latin America for example, many Indigenous and Afro-descendant rights defenders recur to judicial contestations, protest, artistic performances but also form large alliances with other sectors of society in order to overcome criminalization practices by exposing their contradictions to democracy. In doing so, these alliances choose to fight over the meaning of democracy itself and propose new innovative meanings and practices that expose authoritarian elements of current democracies and challenge them. This panel aims at constructing a comparative analysis of both the impacts of criminalization as a global phenomenon and the resistance strategies of current struggles for rights against criminalization over the world.