7th – 10th November 2012
Facultat de Geografia i Història - Universitat de Barcelona
Wednesday 7/11/2012
Thursday 8/11/2012
Friday 9/11/2012
Saturday 10/11/2012
Parameters of Darkness: Counternarratives from Arrested Activists at Occupy Los Angeles
(arpanroy2@gmail.com)
Abstract
Throughout the course of the spectacular mayhem surrounding the raid of the Occupy Los Angeles encampment by police in late 2011 and in its aftermath, the famously heavy-handed Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was very self-conscious in portraying itself as a reformed organization through an elaborate choreography of the media that showcased its self-proclaimed professionalism while simultaneously extending a message to the activists that their acts of civil disobedience were resolutely not to be repeated. How did the LAPD manage to operate within such a narrow window? This paper uses ethnographic engagement with several of the 292 activists who were arrested on Raid Night to tell their counternarratives about their experiences of humiliation, psychological trauma, and physical punishment that directly contradict the version of events proliferated by the police, and to deconstruct the folk narratives emerging from Occupy camps to understand the radicalization of a generation of American political activists as a result of their clashes with the state in America’s great urban centers.
