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Performing Resistance: Liminality, Infrapolitics, and Spatial Contestation in Contemporary Russia
Author(s) -
Fröhlich Christian,
Jacobsson Kerstin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12529
Subject(s) - liminality , ambiguity , resistance (ecology) , authoritarianism , context (archaeology) , citizenship , democracy , space (punctuation) , sociology , political economy , political science , law , politics , history , anthropology , linguistics , ecology , philosophy , archaeology , biology
This article explores protest tactics in Russian cities, stressing the liminality of spatial contestation practices. In this authoritarian context, spatial contestation typically has a liminal character, where citizens employ strategic ambiguity of their actions vis‐á‐vis (a) legal regulations, (b) official discourse, and (c) transcripts of legitimate behaviour. Showing how urbanites develop creative and subversive infrapolitical forms of resistance, the article contributes an analysis of the ways in which public space in the city can be appropriated from below, temporary protest communities formed and active citizenship claimed under non‐democratic regime conditions.