Website by Justin Helepololei
Journal for the Study of Radicalism , 2022
n the years following the Great Recession of 2008 and Spain's 15M plaza occupations in 2011, prot... more n the years following the Great Recession of 2008 and Spain's 15M plaza occupations in 2011, protesters in Spain engaged in increasingly agitational and illegal forms of dissent, challenging the legitimacy of the government itself while working to build popular support among the millions impacted by ongoing economic and political crises. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted in Barcelona and Sevilla, Spain, during 2012 and 2013 to analyze a range of campaigns in which protesters, influenced by local histories of anarchism and autonomous squatting, engaged in coordinated theft and property occupations as modes of direct action or "social banditry" to protest continuing economic crisis, government corruption, and police impunity. I examine some of the efforts of the police, the Spanish state, and mainstream Spanish media to marginalize protesters who engaged in illegal activities, and ways protesters fought to present counternarratives to justify their actions. In the examples I describe, I find that protesters have been largely successful in building support across diverse demographics, to the extent of defending illegal squats for years, and even holding political office as mayors in several cities. I argue that the use and promotion of illegality within protests has been critical to protesters' ability to redefine those in power as the true criminals and to leverage a critique against the larger political and economic system.
Politics of Dissent, 2015
When protesters leave the public view does that mean the protest is over? As the excitement of 20... more When protesters leave the public view does that mean the protest is over? As the excitement of 2011's global wave of protest encampments subsided, participants in the one-year anniversary demonstrations of both Occupy Wall Street and the 15M addressed earlier critiques of centralization through the production of "do-it-yourself" manuals, calling for modes of sustained resistance in the form of economic disobedience. The rejection of "politics as normal" had been transformed into the positive content of building a new normal, outlined through collectively-written manuals for living-in-resistance. While activists have produced manuals before and for various ends, the intention and the timing of these manuals are unique. Rather than supplements to a mobilization, manuals (and the collective-yet-dispersed actions they outline) became the mobilization. This paper argues that a reorientation towards less visible forms of contestation requires re-evaluating how we study these and other protest mobilizations in terms of their scale, stability and success. As a window into how participants hope to go about creating the worlds they wish to live in, and how these approaches differ between mobilizations, we can look at how these post-plaza modes of discussion engage with the movements' values and visions of social change.
Pandemic and the Crisis of Capitalism: Conjuncture of Insurrection, a RETHINKING MARXISM Dossier , 2020
Pandemic and the Crisis of Capitalism
Anxious Ethnography, Abject Resistance
Papers by Justin Helepololei
Journal for the Study of Radicalism
Politics of Dissent
When protesters leave the public view does that mean the protest is over? As the excitement of 20... more When protesters leave the public view does that mean the protest is over? As the excitement of 2011's global wave of protest encampments subsided, participants in the one-year anniversary demonstrations of both Occupy Wall Street and the 15M addressed earlier critiques of centralization through the production of "do-it-yourself" manuals, calling for modes of sustained resistance in the form of economic disobedience. The rejection of "politics as normal" had been transformed into the positive content of building a new normal, outlined through collectively-written manuals for living-in-resistance. While activists have produced manuals before and for various ends, the intention and the timing of these manuals are unique. Rather than supplements to a mobilization, manuals (and the collective-yet-dispersed actions they outline) became the mobilization. This paper argues that a reorientation towards less visible forms of contestation requires re-evaluating how we study these and other protest mobilizations in terms of their scale, stability and success. As a window into how participants hope to go about creating the worlds they wish to live in, and how these approaches differ between mobilizations, we can look at how these post-plaza modes of discussion engage with the movements' values and visions of social change.
Rethinking Marxism, 2015
The unending crisis in southern Europe has brought a new urgency to thinking and living in differ... more The unending crisis in southern Europe has brought a new urgency to thinking and living in different ways. Responding to the exchange between Jodi Dean and Stephen Healy at the 2013 Rethinking Marxism International Conference, this article draws on recent examples in Spain of direct action at the local, regional, and national levels in order to question the perennial call to scale up. Is expansion inherently desirable? Is it a priority? What are the tradeoffs? Where does this urge come from? Are there visions of mass mobilization that don't replace one universalizing tendency with another?
Studies in Social Justice, 2024
This article uses the concept of a progressive jail assemblage to think about the focus on jails ... more This article uses the concept of a progressive jail assemblage to think about the focus on jails as both a target of social justice organizing and a tool for advancing social justice goals. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among formerly incarcerated organizers and their allies in Western Massachusetts (New England), I explore how the sheriffs who operate jails in this region, along with their collaborators, have increasingly sought to redefine the figure of the criminal as not just a danger to others but also a danger to themselves, someone in need of rehabilitative treatment and even care. In doing so, these sheriffs have attempted to reinvent their role, from the quintessentially American crime fighting figure, to one who is also a provider of care. Social justice activism has helped to expand the "caring" role of the jail, through increased addiction treatment, re-entry support, and community outreach-even to the extent of incarcerating individuals dealing with addiction who have not been charged with a crime. As progressive jails have been reconfigured as providers of care, abolitionists are confronted with the ongoing dilemma of how to remain a figure opposed to the use of prisons and jails without being seen as against care.
History and Anthropology, 2014
caplter.asu.edu, 1981
The Fort McDowell were among the first Arizona tribes to secure a gaming compact and have operate... more The Fort McDowell were among the first Arizona tribes to secure a gaming compact and have operated a casino, their largest source of revenue, since 1988. In contrast, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa were among the last to gain gaming rights, relying on a more diversified portfolio of tribal ventures including a landfill, rock quarry, shooting range, and office park construction.
Affinities, Nov 2013
Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Barcelona between February and August of 2012, t... more Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Barcelona between February and August of 2012, this article discusses changes in policing strategies leading up to the one year anniversary of the May 15th indignado mobilizations. It describes activist responses towards attempts at targeted repression and surveillance of specific populations. By highlighting transversal and especially inter-generational moments of resistance, the article describes ways in which non-state actors have collectively sought to reject dominant frameworks of violence. As liberatory struggles face increasing levels of repression, these emerging solidarities present an argument for the necessity of connecting direct action to more widely-accessible discourses, in order to build more sustainable forms of resistance.
Presented at the 2012 Conference for the American Anthropological Association
As ongoing, financial crisis has kept millions in precarity - and over 50% of Spain's youth unemp... more As ongoing, financial crisis has kept millions in precarity - and over 50% of Spain's youth unemployed - mass mobilizations of the country's indignados have continued to fill the country's streets and plazas. Nearly one year after the original 15M demonstrations, city-wide occupations have triggered a profusion of more localized and issue-based assemblies. Beyond the plazas, squatter-activists of Barcelona's decades-old “okupa movement” have helped to facilitate the continuation of these dialogues by offering space within dozens of pre-existing squats and even opening new sites to host such interactions. Leveraging decades of experience and skill in re-appropriating spaces, squatters create room for diverse publics to meet on a regular basis. An “expropriated” former bank which hosts weekly, neighborhood assemblies; an apartment building which houses families displaced by home foreclosure; a network of “free universities” and infoshops; these are only some examples of the array of projects currently being undertaken. In addition, physical squats and their social networks are used to broadcast, amplify, and document developments within various, larger activist communities – from labor and education strikes to free markets, workshops, and debates. Drawing on current fieldwork being conducted with okupa and indignado activists, this paper will explore the ways in which diverse actors with diverse interests utilize contentious spaces to facilitate emergent forms of convivencia. The paper concludes by examining whether direct democracy is the most useful framework from which to begin an analysis of these practices, engaging alternative concepts for considering these still-ambiguous forms of autonomous, collective action
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Website by Justin Helepololei
Papers by Justin Helepololei
Talks by Justin Helepololei