Temporal blindspots in Occupy Philadelphia

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the disjunctive temporalities of Occupy Philadelphia’s political constituencies. Drawing on both an ethnographic participant observation study of the Occupy Philadelphia movement and Philadelphia’s neoanarchist political communities, and on recent social scientific theorization of events, the paper argues that contradictory ideas about temporal timescales, momentum, duration, sequences, and rhythms of tactical and strategic action problematized interaction and coordination among movement participants. These points of coordinative disjuncture can be traced back to differences in participants’ ideas about prefigurative politics and strategic temporalities. Limning the temporal expectations and experiences of social movement participants, this paper contributes to the examination of both linkages and disjunctures between eventful temporalities experienced in moments of protest and in social movements with diverse timescales.

KEYWORDS:

• Temporality
• social movements
• Occupy movement
• events
• prefiguration
• neoanarchism

Notes

1. ‘Radical-DIY culture’ exists in the overlap between conceptual categories like ‘counterculture’ and ‘movement,’ representing the intersected social worlds of prefigurative neoanarchist activism and the Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Punk ‘scene’ in Philadelphia (Ruggero, 2017, p. 3).

2. Participant observation was anchored around Occupy Philadelphia, in settings such as General Assemblies, working group meetings, demonstrations, protests, marches, jail support following arrests, and during the informal socializing during the ‘downtimes’ between meetings or other events. Fieldwork also involved taking on organizational roles in Occupy Philadelphia, including central planning roles in two working groups, serving as part of the ‘facilitation team’ for six General Assemblies, as well as administrative duties for Occupy Philadelphia’s social media accounts. Ethnographic observations and interviews were analyzed alongside one another as they were gathered in an iterative process of ‘coding-and-observing;’ fieldnotes and transcripts were coded for emergent patterns and themes, which informed sampling choices and observational foci in subsequent field sessions and interviews, following a ‘constant-comparative’ method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Lichterman, 2002; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

3. Standoffs, we know, have their own complex temporalities (cf. Wagner-Pacifici, 2000).

4. Broadly, ‘direct action’ represents a prefigurative approach to social change ‘in which the form of the action – or at least, the organization of the action – is itself a model for the change one wishes to bring about’ (Graeber, 2009, p. 210). At Occupy Philadelphia, the Direct Action Working Group was tasked with the planning demonstrations, marches and other forms of civil disobedience (sit-ins, banner drops, etc.), as well as handling logistics (route choice, preparation, safety/marshalling marches, etc.) and providing trainings on passive arrest resistance tactics (e.g. going limp, locking arms, etc.).

5. One temporal feature the ethnographic research highlighted, but which we were unable to address given the limited space, was the significance of seasonality. Ruggero’s (2017) ethnography of Occupy Philadelphia suggests that temporal factors such as seasonal shifts in weather and changes to personal calendars related to holidays and academic schedules may be consequential for temporal coordination among movement actors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robin Wagner-Pacifici

Robin Wagner-Pacifici is University in Exile Professor of Sociology at the New School. She is the author of The Art of Surrender: Decomposing Sovereignty at Conflict’s End, Theorizing the Standoff: Contingency in Action, Discourse and Destruction: The City of Philadelphia vs MOVE, The Moro Morality Play: Terrorism as Social Drama, and most recently, What is an Event?.

E. Colin Ruggero

E. Colin Ruggero is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Community College of Philadelphia. He received his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in 2017 and is currently working on a book manuscript based on his Occupy Philadelphia research.