Civil Resistance 2.0 (Commons)
https://commonslibrary.org/198-nonviolent-methods-upgraded/
Body
Civil Resistance 2.0 is a Commons Library research project by Mary Joyce and Patrick Meier, undertaken in 2012, that translates Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action into digital forms [source: civil-resistance-2-0]. The project’s premise is that Sharp’s three-category taxonomy (nonviolent protest and persuasion; noncooperation - social, economic, and political; and nonviolent intervention) remains the scaffolding for nonviolent-action classification, and that each of Sharp’s original tactics can be reimagined with digital tools while several wholly new tactics now belong in the catalogue [source: civil-resistance-2-0]. The project uses a crowdsourced spreadsheet to surface digital remixes of the original tactics and to add new digital-native ones [source: civil-resistance-2-0].
Coverage - new tactics added include Maps and Maptivism (using geographic information to organise geographically dispersed actions), QR Codes (linking paper leaflets to digital content), Digital File-Sharing, Nonviolent Media Hijacking, Trending a Hashtag, Influence Search Engine Results, Livestreaming (both as documentation and as spectacle), Check-ins (the same self-surveillant gesture as Foursquare but in a protest context), Self-Surveillance (turning the gaze back), and Flash Mobs (rapid in-person assembly) [source: civil-resistance-2-0]. The Commons Library site (see commons-library) hosts the spreadsheet and continues to add entries [source: civil-resistance-2-0]. The project is published under Creative Commons Attribution, which makes it one of the more reuse-friendly references in the digital-tactics space [source: civil-resistance-2-0].
A campaigner reaches for it when designing a digital-tactic workshop in the Sharp tradition, or when needing a taxonomy that mixes pre-digital and digital tactics in one framework [source: civil-resistance-2-0]. The Commons Library’s CC licence means short passages and the spreadsheet itself can be quoted and re-tabulated with attribution. [source: civil-resistance-2-0]
Use it for
Finding a digital counterpart to a classic nonviolent method; sourcing contemporary case studies.
Related
- boycotts-and-strikes
- civic-tech
- digital-security
- dilemma-actions
- distributed-organizing
- escalation
- framing-and-narrative
- methods-of-nonviolent-action
- noncooperation
- nonviolent-direct-action
- petitions-and-e-campaigning
- pillars-of-support
- structure-tests
- the-tactic-star
Open Questions
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