From the squares of Spain to indigenous land in Canada, protest camps are a tactic used around the world. Since 2011 they have gained prominence in recent waves of contentious politics, deployed by movements with 
wide-ranging demands for social change. Through a series of international and interdisciplinary case studies from five continents, this topical collection is the first to focus on protest camps as unique organisational forms that transcend particular social movements’ contexts. Whether erected in a park in Istanbul or a street in Mexico City, the significance of political encampments rests in their position as distinctive spaces where people come together to imagine alternative worlds and articulate contentious politics, often in confrontation with the state. Written by a wide range of experts in the field the book offers a critical understanding of current protest events and will help better understanding of new global forms of democracy in action.
“Since the proliferation of peace camps inspired by Greenham Common in the 1980s, the occupation of sites of political contestation has become a globally significant form of protest. This collection offers exciting and perceptive analyses of long-term site-specific political interventions around the world, and is a must-read for all those interested in social movements and contemporary politics.”
-Sasha Roseneil, University of Essex
Book Contents
Introduction: Past tents, present tents: On the importance of studying protest camps ~ Gavin Brown, Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Frenzel and Patrick McCurdy
Part 1: Assembling and Materializing;
Section Introduction: Assembling & materializing ~ Patrick McCurdy, Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Frenzel, and Gavin Brown;
Textile geographies, plasticity as protest ~ Anders Rubing;
Emergent infrastructures: Solidarity, spontaneity and encounter at Istanbul’s Gezi Park uprising ~ Özge Yaka and Serhat Karakayali;
Protest spaces online and offline: The Indignant Movement in Syntagma Square ~ Anastasia Kavada and Orsalia Dimitriou;
Feeds from the square: Live streaming, live tweeting and the self-representation of protest camps ~ Paulo Gerbaudo;
Touching a nerve: A discussion on Hong Kong’s umbrella movement ~ Wang Jieying (Klavier), Hope Reidun St. John, and Wong Miu Yin (Eliz);
Part 2: Occupying and Colonizing;
Section Introduction: Occupying and colonizing ~ Gavin Brown, Fabian Frenzel, Patrick McCurdy and Anna Feigenbaum;
Carry on camping? The British Camp for Climate Action as a political refrain ~ Bertie Russell, Raph Schlembach and Ben Lear;
Losing space in Occupy London: Fetishising the protest camp ~ Sam Halvorsen;
Occupation, decolonization, and reciprocal violence, or history responds to Occupy’s anti-colonial critics ~ A K Thompson;
Reoccupation and resurgence: Indigenous protest camps in Canada ~ Adam J. Barker and Russell Ross;
Democratic deficit in the Israeli tent protests: Chronicle of a failed intervention ~ Uri Gordon;
Euromaidan and the echoes of the Orange Revolution: Comparing social infrastructures and resistance practices of protest camps in Kiev (Ukraine) ~ Maryna Shevtsova;
Civil/political society, protest and fasting: The case of Anna Hazare and the 2011 anti-corruption campaign in India ~ Andrew Davies
Part 3: Reproducing and Re-creating
Section Introduction: Reproducing and re-creating ~ Fabian Frenzel, Anna Feigenbaum, Patrick McCurdy and Gavin Brown
From ‘refugee population’ to political community: The Mustapha Mahmoud refugee protest camp ~ Elisa Pascucci;
The Marconi Occupation in São Paulo, Brazil: A social laboratory of common life ~ Marcella Arruda;
From protest camp to tent city: The ‘Free Cuvry’ Camp in Berlin-Kreuzberg ~ Niko Rollmann and Fabian Frenzel;
Security is no accident: Considering safe(r) spaces in the transnational Migrant Solidarity camps of Calais ~ Claire English;
Political education in protest camps: Spatializing dissensus and reconfiguring places of youth activist ritual in Mexico City ~ Nicholas Jon Crane
Part 4: Conclusion
Future tents: Protest camps and social movement organisation ~ Fabian Frenzel, Gavin Brown, Anna Feigenbaum and Patrick McCurdy.