The interplay of public space and protest
Protest is a means for citizens to advocate their own social and political values and ideas within a public space. How and why people choose a certain mode of protest and the ways the urban space of dissent acts as a mediator is worth examining. An EU-funded project, 'Dissent and urban spaces' (DUS), took an interdisciplinary look at how groups protest by using innovative means and thus generating new grounds of opposition. The focus of the study was on the late 20th and early 21st centuries and spanned 12 cities worldwide. Researchers examined group strategies on both a national and local level as well as main codes of action. The aim was to gain a new perspective on the different and fluctuating ways of citizenship as it relates to multicultural societies. Understanding contemporary forms of dissent can be beneficial to national agencies and authorities as they examine ways to respond to violent protests.
Keywords
Public space, protest, urban spaces, dissent, multicultural societies