Riots as Civil Resistance: Rethinking the Dynamics of "Nonviolent' Struggle

Author(s): Benjamin Case

In: Journal of Resistance Studies, Vol 4, No 1, 2018, pp. 9-44

Scholarly article challenging the dichotomy between violence and nonviolence, and arguing that civil resistance literature tends to focus on violence as warfare.  The author suggests 'unarmed collective political violence' such as destruction of property and fights with police or opponents are frequently part of civilian resistance movements and that this reality should be examined. The article focuses in particular on unarmed violence in the January 2011 revolution  against Mubarak in Egypt, and argues that it qualifies as civil resistance because of  its civil character and that riots 'reacted dynamically' with more specifically nonviolent mobilization.

See also: Craig S. Brown, ‘‘’Riots’’ during the 2010/2011 Tunisian Revolution:  A Response to Case’s Article in JRS, Vol. 4 Number 1' in Journal of Resistance Studies, Vol. 4. No. 2, pp. 112-31.

Direct Action in British Environmentalism

Editor(s): Brian Doherty, Benjamin Seel, and Matthew Patterson

Routledge, London, 2000, pp. 223

Essays include a survey of British environmentalism 1988-97 in the changing political context, assessments of different types of environmental activity and role of the media. Brian Doherty, ‘Manufacturing Vulnerability: Protest Camp Tactics’ looks at evolution of nonviolent direct action tactics and transnational influences. There is some discussion of the incidence of violence and media (mis)perceptions.

Understanding the imaginary war. Culture, thought and nuclear conflict, 1945–90

Editor(s): Matthew Grant, and Benjamin Ziemann

Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017, pp. 316

The authors reinterpret the Cold War as an ‘imaginary war’, a conflict that had visions of nuclear devastation as one of its main battlegrounds, and provide and cultural representations of nuclear war. There are chapters and case studies on Western Europe, the USSR, Japan and the USA. Drawing on various strands of intellectual debate and from different media, such as documentary film and debates among physicians, the contributors demonstrate the difficulties in making the unthinkable and unimaginable - nuclear apocalypse - imaginable. The aim is to make nuclear culture relevant to an understanding of the period from 1945 to 1990.

Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo

Author(s): Linda Greene, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Bridget J. Crawford, Mehrsa Baradaran, Noa Ben-Asher, Bennett Capers, Osamudia R. James, and Keisha Lindsay

In: Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society, Vol 34, No 2, 2019, pp. 1-69

This article, which explores both differences and similarities between the two movements, begins by comparing both internal and external definitions of success within Black Lives Matter and MeToo. It also considers both movements from the standpoint of ‘intersectionality’. The authors then assess how both movements have influenced scholars, teachers, lawyers and community activists, their impacts on law and popular culture and how these external factors influence the movements. Finally they ask what the next steps should be for each movement.

The Price of My Soul

Author(s): Bernadette Devlin

Pan, London, 1969, pp. 206

Autobiography of one of the most dynamic student leaders of the civil rights movement. Recounts the emergence of People’s Democracy (PD) at Queen’s University Belfast, and includes vivid first-hand accounts of the August 1968 March in Derry, and the Belfast to Derry march by PD in January 1969 which was ambushed by a loyalist mob at Burntollet. Also recounts Devlin’s election to the Westminster Parliament in April1969, her frustration at the limits to her power as an MP, and her participation in the Battle of the Bogside in August of that year.

Protesting for Peace

Author(s): Bernadette Meaden

Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow, 1999, pp. 151

Sympathetic coverage of a wide range of campaigns in Britain – Greenham Common, Trident Ploughshares, the arms trade, British troops in Northern Ireland, US bases, the ‘peace tax’, and opposition to the (first) Gulf War.

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