Global Protest – From Outrage to Hope?
Co-organized by the Ghent Centre for Global Studies, Transnational Institute and the International Institute of Social History
A specialist course of the Doctoral Schools of Arts, Humanities & Law, and of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Ghent University
Over the last 15 years we have witnessed mounting mobilisations worldwide, a global outrage that is only compounded by the devastating and unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – from the Arab Uprisings to the Occupy movement, from Black Lives Matter and Ni Una Menos to the Global Women’s Strike, from the Youth for Climate movement to the Gilet Jaunes, from massive Indian farmer’s protests to urban movements for the right to housing, from the Imider (Morocco) to the Xolobeni (South-Africa) protests against mining projects and extractivist development, as well as different Alt-right movements and recent anti-vax or anti-covid-containment mobilisations. In this seminar, we aim to examine different (local or regional) protest movements and their global connections, in the light of key global studies themes, including capitalist production and social reproduction, post-development and post-extractivism, democracy and citizenship. We explore the divergences and convergences among these various mobilisations, as well as actual or potential solidarities, including urban-rural alliances, and connections across intersections of class, gender and race. Moving from an analysis of resistance to the question of reconstruction, the seminar will also reflect on the transformative counter-power of these different protests, and the place of (academic) research in global social change, including ethical challenges, and co-creative or action-oriented methodologies.