Suchergebnisse

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Social Movement Studies on 1 August 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14742837.2012.708832 ; The Israeli 'Tent Protest' movement enjoyed wide popular support, but displayed a distinct lack of political radicalism. Not only did calls for discrete welfare policies replace explicit anti-capitalism, but there was a widespread insistence on the movement's 'apolitical' nature and an avoidance of any direct confrontation with the neoliberal Netanyahu government or calls for new elections. The article argues that these anomalies can be explained by the chilling effect of the patriotic, state-loyalist discourses which reached unprecedented prominence in Israeli society in the past year. This led movement participants to avoid at all costs being perceived as left-wing and disloyal, and created an atmosphere of deliberate self-censorship which silenced any engagement with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during the mobilization. The movement is understood here as an all-too-brief interlude in Israel's ongoing move away from democracy.

This is the accepted version of the following article: GORDON, U., 2012. Anarchist geographies and revolutionary strategies. Antipode, 44 (5), pp. 1742 - 1751, which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.01036.x ; These are certainly fruitful times for anarchist intellectual publishing. Reading through the articles in this special issue of Antipode, I was impressed by the diversity and creativity of efforts to apply anti-authoritarian perspectives to the geographical discipline, whose notorious breadth of application ("everything is spatial") seems to offer unlimited possibilities for new avenues of research. I also began thinking about two related issues that seem to run across much of what appears in the preceding pages. The first concerns the anarchademic enterprise itself, and its possible contribution to the development of anarchist politics. The second concerns a more specific problematic, which accompanies the integration of poststructuralist insights into our understanding of anarchism, and the concomitant celebration of prefigurative politics in the present tense. What connects the two is the question of revolutionary strategies. Does the postanarchist shift of perspective require us to abandon strategy as a valid category for our struggles? If not, how are strategies supposed to emerge as a conscious artefact of such a decentralized and swarming movement? What is the role of anarchist intellectual labour in such an emergence? Finally, what considerations—however preliminary and open to debate—can be presented as its starting point, and what might a geographical perspective contribute to their elaboration? In what follows, I begin with some thoughts on the pitfalls of anarchist intellectual labour becoming institutionalized in the academy. I then turn to look at the question of revolutionary strategies, a concept that I fear may have fallen victim to a careless misunderstanding of postanarchist insights. Finally, I reiterate a few basic coordinates, which I believe should at least be considered when projecting ourselves into the future of social struggles.

Anarchists Against the Wall is an Israeli action group supporting the popular Palestinian struggle against segregation and land confiscation in the West Bank. Incorporating participant observation and recent theories of social movements and anarchism, this article offers a thick cultural account of the group's mobilization dynamics, and assesses the achievements and limitations of the joint struggle. Three dimensions—direct action, bi‐nationalism, and leadership—highlight the significance of anarchist practices and discourses to an informed assessment of the group's politics of nonviolent resistance. The effectiveness of the campaign is then examined, calling attention to the distinction among immediate, medium‐term, and revolutionary goals.

This is the accepted version of the following article: GORDON, U., 2010. Against the wall: anarchist mobilization in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peace and Change, 35 (3), pp. 412 - 433, which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0130.2010.00641.x ; Anarchists Against the Wall is an Israeli action group supporting the popular Palestinian struggle against segregation and land confiscation in the West Bank. Incorporating participant observation and recent theories of social movements and anarchism, this article offers a thick cultural account of the group's mobilization dynamics, and assesses the achievements and limitations of the joint struggle. Three dimensions—direct action, bi-nationalism, and leadership—highlight the significance of anarchist practices and discourses to an informed assessment of the group's politics of nonviolent resistance. The effectiveness of the campaign is then examined, calling attention to the distinction among immediate, mediumterm, and revolutionary goals.