Sunday, May 31, 2020

From Watts to Wall Street: A situationist analysis of political violence

Chapter · April 2020 with 10 Reads 
DOI: 10.4324/9780429460357-2
In book: Cultures of Violence, Edition: 1st, Chapter: 1, Publisher: Routledge, pp.16-39
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340726696_From_Watts_to_Wall_Street_A_situationist_analysis_of_political_violence
This chapter applies ‘The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy’ – the Situationist account of the Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles, 1965) – to the August riots (England, 2011) and the global Occupy movement that followed. It draws two conclusions: that both May ‘68 and Occupy were formed by the political violence that preceded them; and that, although the Situationist essay makes problematic claims about race, its assessment of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy remains valuable. In fact, if combined with intersectional theory, it can provide a useful counterbalance to identity politics that can prevent what Alain Badiou calls an ‘immediate riot’ from becoming a ‘historical riot’ by fragmenting mass social movements and undermining unity.

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