TY - JOUR
T1 - Affectivity and Liminality in Ritualized Protest
T2 - Politics of Transformation in the Kiev Uprising
AU - Thomassen, Bjørn
AU - Scott Georgsen, Mie
PY - 2017/5/17
Y1 - 2017/5/17
N2 - This article takes departure from recent events in Kiev, Ukraine. The empirical material builds on interviews and informal talks with young protesters, made online or on location during spring 2014. We argue that the uprisings – some call it a revolution – involve all essential features of liminality: suspension of ordinary rules, a fundamental questioning of power structures and political legitimacy, an order turned upside-down, a situation marked by volatility, ambivalence and potentiality, and the embryonic formation of a communitas as protestors met and mobilized on the Independence Square in ritualized action, unified by confronting the same essential dangers. Engaging this social drama we further wish to discuss how affectivity plays a central role in the ritualization of protest – and that subjectivity and affectivity, as relatively unformed potentials, bring qualities of heightened suggestibility to this particular hotspot.
AB - This article takes departure from recent events in Kiev, Ukraine. The empirical material builds on interviews and informal talks with young protesters, made online or on location during spring 2014. We argue that the uprisings – some call it a revolution – involve all essential features of liminality: suspension of ordinary rules, a fundamental questioning of power structures and political legitimacy, an order turned upside-down, a situation marked by volatility, ambivalence and potentiality, and the embryonic formation of a communitas as protestors met and mobilized on the Independence Square in ritualized action, unified by confronting the same essential dangers. Engaging this social drama we further wish to discuss how affectivity plays a central role in the ritualization of protest – and that subjectivity and affectivity, as relatively unformed potentials, bring qualities of heightened suggestibility to this particular hotspot.
U2 - 10.1177/0959354317700288
DO - 10.1177/0959354317700288
M3 - Journal article
VL - 27
SP - 198
EP - 214
JO - Theory & Psychology
JF - Theory & Psychology
SN - 0959-3543
IS - 2
ER -