Call for papers: The Criminalization of Protest

Dear Colleagues,

We have received some excellent abstracts in response to the call for papers below, but we are still looking for contributions on Global South.

Please get in touch with us if you would like to contribute to this volume on the following regions/countries (or if you have a suggestion as to who might be able to contribute):

1. Latin American countries
2. African countries
3. South/South-East Asian countries


Here is the original Call for Papers:
Edited volume The Criminalization of Protest: Using ‘Terrorism’ to Eliminate Dissent

We (a collective of anti-authoritarian academics) are compiling an edited volume on how (anti-) terrorism discourse, legislation and practices are used to criminalize social movements and eliminate protest. The aim of this book is to challenge these processes. However, we aim to do so without re-labelling ‘terrorism’ as something state-based or state-led and without appealing to the values of liberal democracy. Instead the approach is to defy the contemporary discourses of (anti-) terrorism as such and to expose the mechanisms of repression which exploit images, political myths and labels of terrorism and extremism. We are looking for articles that provide strong empirical analysis of the consequences of the use of (anti-)terrorism/(anti-)extremism discourse, legislation and practices specifically in terms of their effects on social struggles, protest, and resistance.

We would like to explore the methods of ideological and practical elimination of ‘the politically unwanted’ used by the state and corporations. We would like to raise the following questions: How is a new security paradigm used for the ‘neutralization’ of protest groups and movements? How does protest become a ‘security threat’? What are the techniques of the production of the protester as the ‘dangerous other’ – a criminal, an extremist, a terrorist? Our interest is in a range of issues such as the use of pre-emptive measures, introduction of new ‘crimes’ such as ‘aiding and abetting’, ‘conspiracy’, ‘support’, ‘inducement’, ‘incitement’, ‘justification’, ‘propaganda’ of terrorism, ‘terrorist intentions’; creation of ‘extremists databases’, introduction of the state of emergency, as well as legitimization of these laws and measures. On the practical level, our focus is on activities of various ‘domestic anti-extremist / anti-terrorist units’ and tactics of policing protest.
Preferably, articles examining how contemporary struggles are being labelled as ‘terrorism’ or ‘extremism’ will do so in historical perspective. We especially welcome articles that analyse the situation in the Global South but articles focussed on Europe and northern America are very welcome.

Abstracts (1 page, 1.5 spacing, ~350 words) to be submitted to radicalbook(at)riseup.net