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The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Eduardo Georjão Fernandes – Controlling dissent: new surveillance technologies and the policing of social movements in Brazil

At 5pm, Eduardo Georjão Fernandes will speak about his research on how police forces employ new surveillance technologies to control grassroots dissent in Brazil

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In his research, Eduardo Georjão Fernandes seeks to study mechanisms of control and surveillance in interaction with social mobilization. Specifically, his research project focuses on the analysis of how new surveillance technologies have been incorporated into the policing of social movements in recent Brazilian context. In that country, the occurrence of a huge mobilization process, the cycle of protests of 2013 (also known as “Jornadas de junho”), has brought to the fore several questions about the ways in which police institutions control social movements. On the other hand, Brazil has recently hosted important mega events, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. For the security of such mega events, a technological apparatus was created, with the construction of control centers that congregate different institutions and develop monitoring activities using technological devices. Based on this context, this study seeks to investigate the following question: how does the interaction between these parallel processes (huge mobilizations and technological investment) transform the policing strategies to control social movements? The theoretical framework is primarily based on contentious politics literature, specifically in what refers to the concepts of policing strategies and policing styles, combined with contributions from surveillance studies. Methodologically, the research is based on a qualitative approach to study a specific case – the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2013. The analysis is divided in 3 steps: (1) identifying policing tactics and strategies; (2) describing the dimensions that interact in the construction of these strategies; (3) explaining, by causal mechanisms, the specific role of surveillance technologies in this context. The results indicate that tactics derived from distinct policing styles were adopted (sometimes, simultaneously) during the events, characterizing a moment of experimentation and the configuration of hybrid strategies. The production of these policing strategies resulted from interactions with protesters, the media, the local government and a civil rights coalition. The role of technologies in these interactions was explained by two main mechanisms: anticipation, which means the emphasis on a preventive logic of policing to avoid surprises or unexpected situations and to retain the control of public sphere; invisibilization, which means that technologies make repression less visible and thus less exposed to criticism.

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Publications

Journal Article - 2023

Resisting right-wing populism in power: a comparative analysis of the Facebook activities of social movements in Italy and the UK

Niccolò Pennucci
This paper aims to present a comparative study of the civil society reaction to right-wing populism in power through social media, by looking at cases in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Journal Article - 2023

Emotions in Action: the Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism

Chiara Milan
This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances.

Journal Article - 2023

‘Love is over, this is going to be Turkey!’: cathartic resonance between the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil

Batuhan Eren
This study addresses the question of why and how a protest can inspire individuals in distant countries. Taking the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil as cases, it investigates the reasons why the Turkish protests were framed as one of the inspirational benchmarks by some Brazilian protesters.

Journal Article - 2023

Mutual aid and solidarity politics in times of emergency: direct social action and temporality in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lorenzo Zamponi
From the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures introduced created a series of social problems and needs that were partially addressed in Italy as well as in other countries by grassroots mutual aid initiatives. While many of these initiatives were strongly rooted in the Italian social movement and civil society landscape and the choice to engage in mutual aid activities was the result of long years of reflection and planning, the article shows how strongly the temporality of emergency affected the nature of these initiatives, their development and their outcomes, in particular with regard to the extraordinary number of people who volunteered and their relationship with politicisation processes.

Monograph - 2023

Populism and (Pop) Music

Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan
The book provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism and contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy, using a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

Monograph - 2022

Labour conflicts in the digital age

Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini
From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires.

Monograph - 2022

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy

Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos & Lorenzo Zamponi
Drawing interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political "regression" and a growing right-wing backlash.

Journal Article - 2021

Learning from Democratic Practices: New Perspectives in Institutional Design

Andrea Felicetti
Drawing from literature on democratic practices in social movements and democratic innovations, the article illustrates three ways to advance institutional design in the wake of the systemic turn.

Monograph - 2021

Migrant Protest. Interactive Dynamics in Precarious Mobilizations

Elias Steinhilper
This book explores the interactions and spaces shaping the emergence, trajectory, and fragmentation of migrant protest in unfavorable contexts of marginalization.

Journal Article - 2021

Populism between voting and non-electoral participation

Andrea Pirro & Martín Portos
The article focuses on a neglected aspect of populist mobilisation, i.e. non-electoral participation (NEP), and elaborates on the extent to which populist party voters engage politically outside the polling station. While challenging common understandings of populism as inherently distrustful and apathetic, and protest as an exclusive practice of the left, the study critically places NEP at the heart of populism in general, and populist right politics in particular.