Selected pages from "The Protest and The Recuperation"

We are seeing amarked increase in the globalization of progressive protests, which often arise organically from local political conditions exacerbated by growing gaps in economic opportunities. The people, or what Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt call “themultitudes,” 1 are expressing their deep dissatisfaction through street protests about issues ranging fromcivil rights to citizenship to climate change. Over the past ten years, fromWashington, D.C., and Standing Rock, South Dakota, to Santiago, Chile, and Hong Kong, and to hundreds of villages across India, people from large swaths of demographic sectors literally have been taking to the streets to voice their concern and outrage. The protesters are ideologically diverse, andmany are publicly coming out to support a cause for the first time. The Protest and The Recuperation is a survey of artistic perspectives on, and responses to, this global phenomenon of mass protest and of recuperative strategies of resistance. It is a tribute to those who have gathered in solidarity to voice demands that the status quomust change and to

1. See Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (NewYork: Penguin, 2004).

15 Betti -Sue Hertz

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