Boundaries of dissent : protest and state power in the media age

206 Pages·2006·3.4 MB·English

by  D'Arcus, Bruce

Bruce D'Arcus
Boundaries
of Dissent
Protest and State Power
in the Media Age
B o u n d a r i e s
of D i s s e n t
This page intentionally left blank
B o u n d a r i e s
of Dissent
Protest and State Power
in the Media Age
Bruce D'Arcus
|J Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup
New York London
Published in 2006 by Published in Great Britain by
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square
New York. NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
Oxon 0X14 4RN
© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group. LLC
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-94872-X (Hardcover) 0-415-94873-8 (Softcover)
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-94872-2 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-94873-9 (Softcover)
Library of Congress Card Number 2005013429
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
D'Arcus, Bruce.
Boundaries of dissent : protest and state power in the media age / Bruce D'Arcus.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-94872-X (hb : alk. paper) - ISBN 0-415-94873-8 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Protest movements—United States—History—20th century. 2. Protest movements in mass
media--History—20th century. 3. Protest movements—United States—Case studies. 4. Mass
media—Political aspects—United States—History—20th century. 5. Public spaces—Political
aspects—United States—History—20th century. 6. State, The—History—20th century. 7. United
States—Politics and government--1945-1989. 8. United States—Politics and government-1989- . 9.
United Stales—Social conditions—1960-1980. 10. United States—Social conditions—1980- . I. Title.
HN59.D38 2005
303.48*4—cd22 2005013429
informa
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
Taylor & Francis Group and the Routledge Web site at
is the Acadcmic Division of Informa pic. http://www.routledge-ny.com
Acknowledgments
The work condensed into this book stretches back to graduate
school. A lot has happened in the years since, and I’ve accumu­
lated a lot of debts.
The kernel of this project began life as a dissertation. Don
Mitchell was a great advisor: both challenging and supportive.
I learned a lot from him and can only hope this work follows his
example of politically committed scholarship. My dissertation
committee—John Mercer, Mark Monmonier, Beverley Mullings,
and Gerôid Ô Thauthail—also offered useful feedback that has
informed this book.
During the dissertation research, I benefited from funding
from both the National Science Foundation and the Syracuse
University Geography Department. More recently, Miami Univer­
sity of Ohio has generously supported me with both research and
writing grants. The actual research process has been smoothed by
the help of archivists and librarians in various places, most nota­
bly at the Minnesota State Historical Society in Saint Paul and at
the Harvey G. Mudd Library at Princeton.
vi • Acknowledgments
Nick Blomley has kindly helped me in a few ways, among
them his tracking down a copy of the Tremblay v. Québec ruling
that figures prominently in Chapter 6. Alas, that document is
written in French, a language in which I am completely incompe­
tent. I thus consider it good fortune to have run across George
Fowler, who helped me out on short notice with an excellent
translation of the document.
Colleagues and friends at Syracuse and Miami have provided
rewarding diversions as well as productive intellectual exchange;
among them are Patricia Ehrkamp, Jim Glassman, Euan Hague,
Paul Kingsbury, Nicky Mousset-Jones, Heather Muldoon, Tom
Perreault, and Scott Salmon.
My mother and father have always supported my efforts,
no matter how odd they may have seemed at the time. More
recently, 1 have spent a lot of time with family in Peru. The list
of those I’d like to thank is long, but I would particularly like to
thank Emperatriz Velarde, as well as her sisters, Yony and Nina,
for their support and good humor as well as their fantastic
cooking.
Finally, thanks most of all to Jacqueline, for her love, patience,
and companionship.
Portions of this book are revised versions of essays that
appeared elsewhere. Parts of Chapter 3, “1968: Drawing the
Boundaries of Dissent,” appeared as “Dissent, Public Space, and
the Politics of Citizenship” in 2004 in Space & Polity, 8 (http://
www.tandf.co.uk) and as “Protest, Scale and Publicity: The FBI
and the H. Rap Brown Act” in 2003 in Antipode, 35(4); parts of
Chapter 4, “Wounded Knee: Native Sovereignty and Media Spec­
tacle,” appeared as “Protest, Scale and Publicity: The FBI and the
H. Rap Brown Act” in 2003 in Antipode, 35(4) and as “Contested
Boundaries” in 2003 in Political Geography, 22(4).
Contents
1 Introduction: Power and Protest in a Media Age 1
2 Spaces of Dissent: Public Space and the Politics of Boundaries 11
3 1968: Drawing the Boundaries of Dissent 37
4 Wounded Knee: Native Sovereignty and Media Spectacle 67
5 Elián González and the Geopolitics of Home 105
6 Free Trade and Fences: Globalization and the Politics of
Mobility in Québec City, 2001 135
7 Quarantining Dissent 163
References 177
Notes 189
Index 193
vii
This page intentionally left blank
1
Introduction: Power and Protest in a
Media Age
Protest, State Power, and Media Spectacle
In a whole series of events in the past few decades, political pro­
tests have placed national identity and state authority in radical
question.
Consider three examples separated by time and place. In the
1960s, the Civil Rights movement changed the racial geography of
the American South. The legal apartheid of the Jim Crow South
tightly regulated who had access to which spaces. Where one
could work, where one could eat or drink, and where one could sit
on a bus were all structured by the cold logics of what W.E.B. Du
Bois metaphorically called the “color line.” Yet the color line was
more than metaphor and, as much as anything, was about the con­
crete boundaries that separated people and space. To dismantle
this system, activists needed to undo its very logic. To wit, the Civil
Rights movement creatively transformed everyday spaces—lunch
counters, bus seats, jail cells—into contested political sites.
1