Boundaries of Dissent

Boundaries of Dissent looks at the way that political protest, as it is shaped through the space-time collapsing power of media, questions national identity and state authority. Through this lens of protest politics, Bruce D'Arcus examines how public and private space is symbolically mediated—the way that power and dissent are articulated in the contemporary media. Along the way, he addresses broader questions about the relationships between contemporary power and identity, citizenship and marginality, and society and geographic space. Further, he sets forth ways to distinguish legitimate protest from illegitimate dissent. In order to accomplish this task, D'Arcus looks at four case studies: the violent protests at the 1968 Democratic convention; the 1973 occupation of the Wounded Knee reservation; the 1999 rescue and subsequent custody battle over Elián González; and the anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999 and Québec City in 2001. D'Arcus argues for ways in which to usefully study these cases, demonstrating the way that citizenship is socially constructed and how it is tied to concrete space.