LINGUIST List 29.688
Mon Feb 12 2018
Review: Discourse Analysis; Sociolinguistics: Rojo (2016)
Editor for this issue: Clare Harshey <clarelinguistlist.org>
Date: 22-Aug-2016
From: Sibo Chen <siboc
sfu.ca>
Subject: Occupy
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EDITOR: Luisa Martín Rojo
TITLE: Occupy
SUBTITLE: The spatial dynamics
of discourse in global protest movements
SERIES TITLE: Benjamins Current Topics
83
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2016
REVIEWER: Sibo Chen, Simon
Fraser University
REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry
SUMMARY
Previously
published as a special issue of Journal of Language and Politics (Volume 13, Issue
4), Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements explores
the complex interplay between spatial and communicative practices within recent
global social movements. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement, the
unprecedented wave of large-scale protests has captured public attention across the
globe. The growing momentum of these protests invites us to re-conceptualize
democracy and political practices in contemporary politics. A distinctive feature of
these protests is the occupation of notable public spaces (e.g. Tahrir Square in
Cairo and Zuccotti Park in New York) by protesters, who have transformed these
spaces from centers of the capitalist system into influential counter-spaces.
Focusing on how oppositional discourses powerfully reconfigure the political
dynamics of physical spaces, this volume examines communicative practices (e.g.
signs, banners, and placards) within occupied urban spaces. A recurring theoretical
framework throughout the volume is Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) “social production of
space”. Lefebvre considers capitalism as an economic system constantly demanding the
transformation of public spaces into private, commercial spaces. Yet, spaces are
complex social constructions emerging from social practices. It is possible to
transform a capitalist space into a counter-space by reclaiming its public
character. In short, Lefebvre’s perspective highlights the semiotic dimension of
urban spaces and their vital role in the reproduction of the capitalist system.
Following Lefebvre’s insight, the overarching proposition of the volume is that the
production and circulation of semiotic resources within recent global social
movements have effectively appropriated and transformed urban spaces for radical
democratic practices. These transformed spaces contribute to the formation of
protester identity and community and the direct democratic practices within them sow
the seed of future resistance.
The volume consists of seven chapters.
Chapter One “Occupy” sets the volume’s overarching theoretical and methodological
frameworks. The chapter argues that “signage in the square is not only an indicator
of larger language ideological and political processes, but a form of appropriation
or reterritorialization of core spaces in the city in order to reclaim an agora, a
meeting point, a place for discussion and decision-making, for increasing
participation and intervention in the governance of the community” (p. 7). In other
words, the fact that semiotic practices shape and are shaped by urban spaces calls
for the development of a communicative-spatial perspective in discourse research.
Following this theoretical insight, the chapter then reviews traditional and new
research tools for studying communicative-spatial practices, such as multi-sited
ethnography, virtual ethnography, and multimodal analysis. The chapter proposes that
the study of communicative-spatial practices should involve both physical and
virtual dimensions since both online and offline communications influence the ways
we perceive and interact with urban spaces.
The rest of the volume
elaborates the complex dynamics underlying communicative-spatial practices through
six case studies. Chapter Two “The Geosemiotics of Tahrir Square” focuses on Tahrir
Square, the symbolic heart of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. By explicating how
Tahrir Square was turned into a site with complex symbolic connotations, the chapter
demonstrates its multifaceted meanings for Egyptian protesters: it functioned as
symbolic space, central space, spiritual space, playful counter-space, “Arab” space,
and global-local space. Protest messages and Tahrir Square were reinforcing each
other’s symbolic power. While the protests, the protesters, and the protest messages
lent new meanings to Tahrir Square, the space’s symbolic representations in news
coverage and social media brought Egyptian people’s voices and their historical and
cultural knowledge to the world.
Chapter Three “Taking over the Square”
analyzes the linguistic practices during the Spanish Indignados movement. The
chapter calls for a serious academic treatment of the discursive and semiotic
strategies employed by protesters. Strategies such as customization and embodiment
of signs, dialogism, and polyphony were not only expressions of anger and
frustration, they were also communicative practices that “contribute to the
‘de-territorialization’ and ‘re-territorialization’ of urban space” (p. 49).
According to the chapter’s analysis, the production and circulation of linguistic
practices during the Spanish Indignados movement served two purposes. First, they
collectively problematized the established political norms in Spain. Through
occupation, protesters rejected the designed institutional roles of significant
sites and reclaimed them for promoting people’s democracy. For instance, In Madrid
the occupation took place in the Puerta del Sol, a city symbol embedded with police
brutality during the Francoism era. Second, the occupied squares in turn created new
room for bottom-up political participation and public conversation. At the Puerta
del Sol, a “parallel city hall” emerged from protesters’ democratic discussions.
Chapter Four “Mobilities of a Linguistic Landscape” explores the linguistic
landscape of the 2011 Occupy Movement in Los Angeles. The primary focus here is the
mobility of protest signs during the movement. Through tracking the physical and
virtual displays of two popular signs (“Class Warfare” and “Monopoly Guy”), the
chapter shows how their presence in multiple protests facilitated democratic
contestations. Accordingly, the linguistic landscape built by the mobilization of
such signs turned the LA city square into a representational space for popular
democracy. Both “Class Warfare” and “Monopoly Guy” were further disseminated through
social media, which strengthened their symbolic power. To this end, the chapter
emphasizes the significance of mobilization in communicative-spatial practices.
Chapter Five “Identity as Space” analyzes the discursive and social practices
during the Greek Indignados movement. Echoing the themes discussed in Chapter Three,
this chapter analyzes the co-articulation of political identity and public space.
The occupation of Syntagma Square in front of Greek Parliament not only connected
the Greek protesters with the global wave of resistance, but also generated a new
context in Greek politics by introducing a radical notion of political
participation. A corpus analysis of the General Assembly proceedings and resolutions
further identifies new political genres produced among Syntagma Square protesters.
Chapter Six “the Occupy Assembly” discusses the mechanism of the General
Assembly during the Occupy movement, an experiment of direct participatory democracy
adopted by protesters for decision-making. Compared with previous chapters, this
chapter emphasizes the innovative nature of embodied semiotic strategies during
general assemblies. Strategies such as hand signals and the human mic “facilitate a
discursive praxis of egalitarianism within the context of a speech exchange system
suited to a large outdoor deliberative body” (p. 127). The bottom-up and autonomous
emergence of these strategies presents a sharp contrast to the traditional political
system.
Finally, Chapter Seven “Spatial Practices and Narratives” turns to
flexible forms of political mobilization (e.g. flash mobs) and their implication for
the construction of new political spaces. Through studying the “GenkiDama for
education” by Chilean student activists, the chapter vividly demonstrates how
narratives inspired by Japanese manga “Dragon Ball Z” reframed the conflict between
the students and the government in Chile. Through an emotive discursive
polarization, “GenkiDama for education” effectively mobilized a less politically
defined community (manga fans) for political participation.
EVALUATION
By attending to the less studied spatial dimension of semiotic practices, this
volume presents an impressive attempt to capture the semiotic complexity underlying
recent global protest movements. It also offers many insightful discussions on the
complex interplay between discourse and space. Another strength of the volume lies
in its theoretical integrity: the various aspects of Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) “social
production of space” are well elaborated throughout the chapters.
For
readers without sufficient background in political science and critical theory, some
chapters in this book may be difficult to follow. Although to some extent this issue
has been alleviated by the comprehensive overview in Chapter One, a brief appendix
explaining key theories could still be helpful, especially for a volume targeting a
broad range of readers. Meanwhile, the volume could also benefit from the addition
of a concluding chapter that synthesizes the different theoretical threads in the
case studies. Another minor issue is the organization of some chapters. Chapter
Three and Chapter Five are thematically connected since both are based on the
Indignados movement across Europe. The same applies to Chapter Four and Chapter Six.
It seems that a reverse of Chapter Three and Four would make the volume’s
argumentative flow more coherent.
Overall, the volume makes a valuable
contribution to the field of discourse analysis and it would undoubtedly serve as an
ideal reference and inspiration for researchers working on related topics.
REFERENCES
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Sibo Chen is a PHD candidate and SSHRC Vanier
Scholar in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University. His major research
interests are language and communication, critical discourse analysis, and genre
theories.
Page Updated: 12-Feb-2018