Stellan Vinthagen

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Stellan Vinthagen
Born (1964-10-13) October 13, 1964 (age 58)
Academic background
Alma mater University of Gothenburg

Stellan Vinthagen (born October 13, 1964) is a professor of sociology, a scholar-activist, and the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the Resistance Studies Initiative. [1] He is also Co-Leader of the Resistance Studies Group at University of Gothenburg [2] and co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network, [3] as well as Editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies, and a Council Member of War Resisters International (WRI), [4] and academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). [5] [6] His research is focused on resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action, conflict transformation and social change. He has since 1980 been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison.

Contents

Biography

Vinthagen holds a PhD (2005) in Peace and Development Research from University of Gothenburg. In his dissertation the religious framing of nonviolent action by the strategist of the Indian anti-colonial movement, Mohandas K. Gandhi, is reinterpreted with the help of modern social science and given a secular conceptualisation. He has written or edited eight books and numerous articles, among the most recent: Nonviolent Resistance and Culture, 2012 (with M. Sørensen) in Peace & Change, and Tackling Trident (by Irene Publishing).

Vinthagen has been active in many different social movements since 1980 (environmental, migrant rights, anti-arms trade, peace, Palestine solidarity, animal rights, etc.). He has been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions. [7]

He was between 1986-2000 one of the key organizers of the European Plowshares Movement, a movement that carries out nonviolent direct disarmament actions at military bases or arms factories. 1986 he took part in a disarmament action - Pershing to Plowshares - in which he together with three others used hammers and bolt-cutters to destroy a Pershing II launcher at the US nuclear base Mutlangen, in former West Germany. 1998 he again acted in a group - Bread Not Bombs - that tried to use hammers to 'disarm' a nuclear Trident submarine at a shipyard in the UK. Since 2000 he has been an active participant in the global justice movement and the World Social Forum, and since 2010 a member of the Council of War Resisters’ International (WRI). He was one of the initiators of the Academic Conference Blockades 2007 at the Trident nuclear submarine base in Faslane, Scotland. [8] as part of the 'Faslane 365' civil disobedience campaign (see Faslane Peace Camp). During two blockades more than 50 academics from different countries and very different scientific disciplines, blockaded the entrance of the nuclear base, while conducting a normal academic conference, reading out their research papers, and discussing with students. Both conferences ended with police arrests. Vinthagen is also one of the initiators of the Swedish Ship to Gaza, [9] a coalition member of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which in May 2010 tried to break the siege of Gaza with several ships bringing hundreds of humanitarian workers and desperately needed aid to the politically created humanitarian crisis in Gaza. When the Israeli military killed nine of the participants and shot-wounded more than 30 others, the action became world news for long time after. Vinthagen was the coordinator of nonviolent action trainings for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2011 and 2012. 2011 he was on the boat Juliano and blocked by the Greek Coast Guard, and in 2012, he was, together with others on board the ship Estelle while sailing on international water outside of Gaza, shot repeatedly by an electric gun and arrested by the Israeli navy. Since then he is deported and banned from Israel for ten years. The Freedom Flotilla is described by the UN special rapporteur Richard A. Falk as the single most important liberation action since the start of the occupation of Palestine[ citation needed ]. According to the Hamas West Bank lawmaker Aziz Dweik “The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets.” [10]

Stellan Vinthagen also publish a regular blog on resistance studies at UMass, Amherst.

Selected publications

Peer-reviewed articles: [11]

Monographs:

See also

Related Research Articles

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government. By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Berrigan</span> American anti-war activist (1923–2002)

Philip Francis Berrigan, SSJ was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.

Anarcho-pacifism, also referred to as anarchist pacifism and pacifist anarchism, is an anarchist school of thought that advocates for the use of peaceful, non-violent forms of resistance in the struggle for social change. Anarcho-pacifism rejects the principle of violence which is seen as a form of power and therefore as contradictory to key anarchist ideals such as the rejection of hierarchy and dominance. Many anarcho-pacifists are also Christian anarchists, who reject war and the use of violence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social movement</span> Loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular set of goals

A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protest</span> Public expression of objection, typically political

A protest is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate by attending, and share the potential costs and risks of doing so. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Protesters may organize a protest as a way of publicly making their opinions heard in an attempt to influence public opinion or government policy, or they may undertake direct action in an attempt to enact desired changes themselves. Where protests are part of a systematic and peaceful nonviolent campaign to achieve a particular objective, and involve the use of pressure as well as persuasion, they go beyond mere protest and may be better described as a type of protest called civil resistance or nonviolent resistance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plowshares movement</span> Christian pacifist movement

The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dear</span>

John Dear is an American Catholic priest, peace activist, lecturer, and author of 35 books on peace and nonviolence. He has spoken on peace around the world, organized hundreds of demonstrations against war, injustice and nuclear weapons and been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, poverty, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonviolence International</span>

Nonviolence International (NI) acts as a network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance. They have maintained relationships with activists in a number of countries, with their most recent projects taking place in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine. They partnered with International Center for Nonviolent Conflict to update Gene Sharp's seminal work on 198 methods of nonviolent action through a book publication. NI has also produced a comprehensive database of nonviolence tactics, which stands as the largest collection of nonviolent tactics in the world. They partner with Rutgers University to provide the largest collection of nonviolence training materials in the world.

Civil resistance is a form of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine or expose the adversary's sources of power. Forms of action have included demonstrations, vigils and petitions; strikes, go-slows, boycotts and emigration movements; and sit-ins, occupations, constructive program, and the creation of parallel institutions of government.

April Carter was a British peace activist. She was a political lecturer at the universities of Lancaster, Somerville College, Oxford and Queensland, and was a Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from 1985 to 1987. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Coventry University, and a 'senior editor' on the international editorial board for the International Encyclopedia of Peace to be published by Oxford University Press.

Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonviolent resistance</span> Act of protest through nonviolent means

Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, constructive program, or other methods, while refraining from violence and the threat of violence. This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group.

Different Muslim movements through history had linked pacifism with Muslim theology. However, warfare has been an integral part of Islamic history both for the defense and the spread of the faith since the time of Muhammad.

A dilemma action is a type of non-violent civil disobedience designed to create a "response dilemma" or "lose-lose" situation for public authorities "by forcing them to either concede some public space to protesters or make themselves look absurd or heavy-handed by acting against the protest." The Serbian-based NGO Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies has extensively used the technique in its trainings to nonviolent civil resistors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diversity of tactics</span> Social phenomenon

Diversity of tactics is a phenomenon wherein a social movement makes periodic use of force for disruptive or defensive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of nonviolent resistance, but also stopping short of total militarization. It also refers to the theory which asserts this to be the most effective strategy of civil disobedience for social change. Diversity of tactics may promote nonviolent tactics, or armed resistance, or a range of methods in between, depending on the level of repression the political movement is facing. It sometimes claims to advocate for "forms of resistance that maximize respect for life".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chan Kin-man</span>

Chan Kin-man is a former associate professor of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is one of the founders of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign that strove for universal suffrage for the Hong Kong Chief Executive Election in 2017.

George Russell Lakey is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.

Sister Anne Montgomery, RSCJ was an American non-violent activist and educator of young children who was part of the Plowshares movements and campaigned against the US government for peace. Aside from teaching, she worked with the poor, advocated for peace and the Catholic Worker Movement. Anne Montgomery House in Washington, DC, run by the Society of the Sacred Heart, is named for her.

Stephen Michael Kelly is an American Jesuit priest and peace activist. He spent six years in prison for hammering on D-5 Trident missiles and other Plowshares movement actions. He has spent at least a decade behind bars, with six of those years in solitary confinement.

Everyday resistance is a form of resistance based on the actions of people in their everyday lives. Everyday resistance is perceived to be the most common form of resistance to oppression. This particular form of resistance is a way of undermining power in a matter that is typically disguised or hidden. Everyday resistance is a dispersed, quiet, seemingly invisible and disguised form of resistance seemingly aiming at redistribution of control over property. The acts of everyday resistance are considered to be relatively safe and they require either little or no formal coordination.

References

[12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

  1. ↑ "Sociology | UMass Amherst". Umass.edu. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  2. ↑ www.globalstudies.gu.se
  3. ↑ www.resistancestudies.org
  4. ↑ "News from WRI | War Resisters' International". Wri-irg.org. 2016-01-04. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  5. ↑ "Sociology | UMass Amherst". Umass.edu. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  6. ↑ "Barker’s Bizarre Attacks against Progressive Scholars and Proponents of Nonviolent Resistance ". The Reel News
  7. ↑ :Exporting war is a perverse form of profit-making: Stellan Vinthagen". Times of India.
  8. ↑ See the book 'Tackling Trident' in the list of publications above.
  9. ↑ "Start | Ship to Gaza" (in Swedish). Shiptogaza.se. 2015-11-01. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  10. ↑ Levinson, Charles (2010-07-02). "Foes of Israel Adopt New Protest Measures". WSJ. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  11. ↑ "Stellan Vinthagen Publications". UMass, Amherst. Retrieved December 6, 2015.
  12. ↑ Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement. By Sharon Erickson Nepstad
  13. ↑ "Our nationalism, their nationalism". Dailypioneer.com. 2014-01-05. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  14. ↑ Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement. By Sharon Erickson Nepstad
  15. ↑ Prison on Trial By Thomas Mathiesen
  16. ↑ Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations By Ananta Kumar Giri
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