Too Big, Will Fail. Megaevents and Protest Participation


Abstract


The paper examines the relationship between “social democratic megaevents” (Olympic Games and World Expos) and political protests. It tries to analyze the reasons that led these popular ceremonies to act in our societies as catalysts of social conflict and activators of an “agonistic citizenship”. Today some structural characteristics of the network society – growth of urban populations; increase in migration flows; widening of socioeconomic disparities – determined a renewed “political” interest for these great public rituals, which in a previous season of the modernity had shown themselves capable to patch up the lacerations of the social fabric. But in recent years something is broken in the relationship between megaevents and urban populations and we are witnessing a growing antagonism against events histori-cally conceived with a function of social “glue”. The aim is therefore to reflect on the meaning of this “an-tagonistic drift” of “social democratic mega-events” through the analysis of a specific case study: the Atti-tudine NoExpo Network (Milan 2015). We identified four crucial dimensions to trace the NoExpo move-ment’s physiognomy and define the reasons for its opposition to the world fair: the historical relation be-tween Milan and a cultural form of antagonism; the crucial role of the territorial factor in the formation and evolution of the movement; the centrality of the practices in the structuring of the movement’s iden-tity; the adoption of an instrumental and tactical approach in the choice and use of media

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v9i3p949

Keywords: Expos; Megaevents; NoExpo Network; Protest Practices; Urban Conflict

References


Abruzzese A. (1973), Forme estetiche e società di massa. Arte e pubblico nell'età del capitalismo, Venezia: Marsilio.

Allegri G., R. Ciccarelli (2011), La furia dei cervelli, Roma: ManifestoLibri.

Atton C. (2002), Alternative Media, London: SAGE.

Atton C. (2004), An alternative Internet. Radical Media, Politics and Creativity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Bachtin M. (1968) [1965], Rabelais and His World, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Berardi F. “Bifo” (2004) Il sapiente, il mercante, il guerriero. Dal rifiuto del lavoro all'emergere del cognitariato, Roma: DeriveApprodi.

Berardi F. “Bifo” (2009) [2007], The soul at work. From Alienation to Autonomy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Borja J., M. Castells (1997), Local and Global. The management of cities in the Information Age, London: Earthscan Publications.

Boykoff J. (2014), Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London, London: Rutgers University Press.

Boykoff J., P. Fussey, (2014), “London's shadow legacies: security and activism at the 2012 Olympics”, Contemporary Social Science, 9(2): 253-270.

Carpentier N. (2011), Media and Participation A site of ideological-democratic struggle, Bristol: Intellect.

Castells M. (1996), The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells M. (2009), Communication Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ceri P. (2001), Movimenti Globali. La protesta nel XIX secolo, Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Ceri P. (2003), La democrazia dei movimenti. Come decidono i noglobal, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino

Cornelissen S. (2012), “‘Our struggles are bigger than the World Cup’: civic activism, state‐society relations and the socio‐political legacies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup”, The British journal of sociology, 63(2): 328-348.

Couldry N., J. Curran (2003) (eds.), Contesting media power, Lanham, MD: Rowman&Littlefield Publishers.

Dean J. (2010), Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

della Porta D. (2003), I new global. Chi sono e cosa vogliono i critici della globalizzazione, Bologna: Il Mulino.

della Porta D. (2004), “Multiple Belongings, Tolerant Identities, and the Construction of ‘AnotherPolitics’: Between the European Social Forum and the Local Social Fora”, in D. della Porta and S. Tarrow (Eds.), Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

della Porta D. (2008), “Eventful protest, Global Conflicts”, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 9(2): 27-56.

della Porta D. (2015), Social movements in times of austerity: bringing capitalism back into protest analysis, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

della Porta D., Diani M. (2004), “No to the war with no ifs or buts“. Protest against the War in Iraq, in V. Della Sala and S. Fabbrini (eds.), Italian Politics, Oxford: Berghahn Books

Downing J.D.H (2001), Radical Media. Rebellious Communication and Social Movements, London: SAGE.

Downing J.D.H. (2002), “Independent media centers: A multi-local, multi-media challenge to global neo-liberalism”, in M. Raboy (eds.), Global media policy in the new millennium, Luton, UK: Luton University Press, pp. 215-232.

Downing, J.D.H. (2003), “The Indymedia phenomenon: Space-place-democracy and the new independent media centers”, in J.G. Lacroix, G. Tremblay (eds.), BOGUES: globalisme et pluralisme, Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, pp. 57–67.

Downing J.D.H. (2008), “Social Movement Theories and Alternative Media: An Evaluation and Critique”, Communication, Culture & Critique, 1(1): 40-50.

Fay C.R. (1951), Palace of Industry, 1851: A Study of the Great Exhibition and its Fruits, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fuchs C. (2008), Internet and Society. Social Theory in the Information Age, New York: Routledge.

Fuchs C. (2015), Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media, New York: Routledge.

Fumagalli A. (2016), L’inconfondibile leggerezza del bilancio di

Expo SpA. Revised may 3, 2016 (http://effimera.org/l-inconfondibile-leggerezza-del-bilancio-expo-spa-di-andrea-fumagalli).

Fussey P. (2014), “Command, control and contestation: negotiating security at the London 2012 Olympics”, The Geographical Journal, 181(3): 212-223.

Garcia D., G. Lovink (1997), The ABC of tactical media. Revised may 10 2016 (http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9705/msg00096.html).

Graham S. (2012), “Olympics 2012 security: welcome to lockdown London”, City, 16(4): 446-451.

Guala C. (2015), Mega eventi. Immagini e legacy dalle Olimpiadi alle Expo, Roma: Carocci.

Habermas J. (1987), The Theory of Communicative Action, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Harvey D. (2012), Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, New York: Verso.

Houlihan B., R. Giulianotti (2012), “Politics and the London 2012 Olympics: the (in)security Games”, International Affairs, 88(4): 701-717.

Ivester S. (2015), “Culture, resistance and policies of exclusion at World Cup 2014: the case of the ‘Baianas do Acarajé’”, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 7(3): 314-324.

Lazzarato M. (1997), Lavoro immateriale. Forme di vita e produzione di soggettività, Verona: Ombre Corte.

Lazzarato M. (2004), La politica dell’evento, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.

Lazzarato M. (2013), Il governo dell’uomo indebitato. Saggio sulla condizione neoliberi¬sta, Roma: DeriveApprodi.

Lefebvre H. (1968), Le Droit à la ville, Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Leonardi E., M. Secchi (2016), “EXPO 2015 as a Laboratory for Neoliberalization. Great Exhibitions, Urban Value Dispossession and New Labor Relations”, PArtecipazione e COnflitto, 9(2): 567-595.

Lovink G. (2002), Dark fiber: Tracking critical internet culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Lovink G. (2013), Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture, New York: Routledge.

Massidda L. (2011) Atlante delle grandi esposizioni universali. Storia e geografia del medium espositivo. Storia e geografia del medium espositivo, Roma: FrancoAngeli.

Massidda L. (2015), “The great Exhibition: storia di un'evasione di massa”, Ricerche storiche, 45(1-2): 181-192.

Mayhew H. (1851), 1851 or, The adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and Family who Came up to London to “Enjoy Themselves”, and to See the Great Exhibition, London: David Bogue.

Melucci A. (eds. 1984), Altri codici. Aree di movimento nella metropoli, Bologna: II Mulino

Melucci A. (1989), Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs, in J. Keane, P. Mier (eds.), Contemporary Society, Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Melucci A. (1996), Challenging Codes. Collective Action in the Information Age, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mouffe C. (2000), The Democratic Paradox, London: Verso.

Mouffe C. (2005), The Return of the Political, London: Verso.

Müller M. (2015), “What makes an event a mega-event? Definitions and sizes”, Leisure Studies, 34(6): 627-642.

Negri A. (2008), Dalla fabbrica alla metropoli. Saggi politici, Roma: Datanews.

Off Topic (2016), SBLOCCAITALIA. Dalle trivelle agli stoccaggi di gas, Lu:ce edizioni: Milano.

Off Topic and R. Maggioni (2013), Expopolis. Il grande gioco di Milano 2015, Milano: Agenzia X.

Parisi S. (2004), “Firenze, Europa, Pianeta Terra. La città glocale", in F. Sedda (ed), Glocal. Sul presente a venire, Roma: Luca Sossella Editore

Pasquinelli M. (eds. 2002), Media Activism. Strategie e pratiche della comunicazione indipendente, Roma: DeriveApprodi.

Pellegrino A. (2011), Macchine come fate. Gli operai italiani alle Esposizioni Universali 1851-1911, Milano: Guerini e Associati.

Piketty T. (2014), Le Capital au XXIe siècle, Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Putnam R.D. (2000), Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster

Roche M. (1994), “Mega-events and urban policy”, Annals of Tourism research, 21(1): 1-19.

Roche M. (2000), Mega Events and Modernity, Abingdon: Routledge.

Roche M. (2003), “Mega-events, Time and Modernity: On Time Structures in Global Society”, Time & Society, 12(1): 99-126.

Rodrıguez C. (2001), Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Sassen S. (2007), A Sociology of Globalization, New York: W.W. Norton.

Simmel G. (1997) [1911], “The Adventure”, in D. Frisby and M. Featherstone (eds.), Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, London: Sage, pp. 221-232.

Tarrow S. (1989), Democrazia e disordine. Movimenti di protesta e politica in Italia 1965-75, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1990

Tarrow S. (1994), Power in Movement: Collective Action, Social Movements and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Terranova T. (2012), “Attention, Economy and the Brain”, Culture Machine, 13(1).

Touraine A. (1977), The Self-Production of Society, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Touraine A. (1981) The Voice and the Eye. An Analysis of Social Movements, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wu Ming 2 (2016), Il sentiero luminoso, Portogruaro VE: Ediciclo Editore.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.