Disturbing binaries in political thought: Silence as political activism

Hatzisavvidou, Sophia (2015) Disturbing binaries in political thought: Silence as political activism. Social Movement Studies, 14 (5). pp. 509-522. ISSN 1474-2837

Preview

PDF (Accepted manuscript) - Accepted Version Download (427kB) | Preview

Abstract

‘Keeping silent’ can be a meaningful political event, a form of political activism that generates new political subjectivities and alters existing realities by reconfiguring power relations. To flesh out this argument, this paper attends to a particular silent protest and affirms it as a tactic employed by an emergent political collectivity to make itself perceptible, declare an injustice and challenge institutional power. As such, the silent event under scrutiny does not merely invite a turning of our attention to a practice that breaks the association of the political subject with the speaking subject; it also invites a reconsideration of what we are accustomed to accept as political activism. ‘Keeping silent’ is a critical practice, indeed, because it manifests an alternative possibility of being and acting; in so doing, it disrupts established patterns of thought and practice, and more specifically the rigid distinction between speech and silence.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	dualism,de certeau,activism,non-violent movements,democracy
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:46
Last Modified:	03 Jul 2023 11:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60213
DOI:	10.1080/14742837.2015.1043989

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item