Whose Streets? Our Streets! Negotiations of Space and Violence in Protests

• In Event: 2483 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 15. Violence and Authoritarianism

Abstract

Drawing on the spatial turn in social theory and the situational turn in violence research, this paper examines the role of situational space and its relevance for protest violence. A number of studies underline the relevance of space in police operations, protesters’ performances, and the role of the ecology of protests. This paper claims that focusing on situational, interactional space, namely spatial negotiations between protesters and police during a protest, can be a fruitful addition to understanding protest dynamics and the emergence of violence in protests. It suggests connecting insights from protest research and violence research to examine what happens spatially on both sides, and during, a protest. The paper examines how space can be conceptualized situationally as well as the relevance of space and spatial negotiations during a protest for the emergence of violence. It triangulates document and visual data to reconstruct what happened during protest marches in the United States and Germany. It first conducts in depth case analyses of protests and then comparatively analyzes 30 peaceful and violent protests over a 50-year time span. Findings suggest that a clearly defined, transparent concept of situational space during protest marches can be useful in understanding the unfolding of protest events. Further, findings suggest that situational space is of particular relevance for the emergence of protest violence as space is not only a common comfort zone, but in protests, it also constitutes a territory with implicit power relations. Thus, spatial incursions by police officers or protesters into space assigned to the other group drastically changes dynamics during protest marches, leading to tensions and mistrust, and forming a crucial bedrock for violent eruptions.

Author

• Anne Nassauer, Freie Universität Berlin