Following a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach, this book highlights changes in the concept and action of disobedience, presenting a theoretical framework and applied case studies.
Disobedience has traditionally been played out through collective actions and protests which configure and propose alternative social scenarios to the status quo. Today, in a changing socio-historical context, disobedience represents a mode of political participation and a form of an active citizenship attempt to correct authoritarian drifts. Furthermore, it often highlights social problems and morally controversial issues. Disobedience is not only a right granted to the individual within democratic systems and/or duty imposed in the interest of society in a pro-social sense, i.e. defense of human rights and a tendency towards equalization, but it also became an alternative process, often symbolic, of construction of reality.
The book focuses on a) reconstructing the concept of socialdisobedience and the field's state of the art from an innovative, contemporary, theoretical, and conceptual perspective and b) analyzing its phenomenology within a specific territorial horizon, with the objective of uncovering social and pro-social aspects related to today's forms of disobedience. The book therefore will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of contemporary political theory, political science, democratization studies, social movement studies, criminology, legal theory, and moral philosophy.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Disobedience, Old and New Definitions. An Introduction.- Part I: Definitions - Disobedience as a Form of Dissent and Resistance in Contemporary Times.- Chapter 2. The Puzzle of Civil Disobedience.- Chapter 3. From Civil to Social: Disobedience as a Need for Transition From Representative Democracy to the Democracy of the Future.- Chapter 4. The “standard” Definition of Civil Disobedience Between the Fidelity-to-law Requirement and the Rule-of-law Ideal.- Chapter 5. Judicial Civil Disobedience, the Limitations of Portia, the Futile Radicalism of Antigone and the Wisdom of Cato.- Chapter 6. Disobedience. Theoretical Framework and Case Studies.- Chapter 7. The Philosophy of Disobedience. The Detachment From the Rule as a Theoretical Act.- Part II: Democracy and Solidarity - Civil, Social and Prosocial Disobedience: Challenging Issues All Over the World.- Chapter 8. Breaching Acts That Challenge Deep Structures of Society.- Chapter 9. Understanding Victims’ Narratives as Actions of Social Disobedience in Transitional Justice Times: the Case of the Never Again Museum in Colombia.- Chapter 10. Children of Homosexual Couples: Between Legislative Limits and the Disobedience of Would-be Parents. Reflections on a Problem Awaiting a Solution.- Chapter 11. Guilty Without Crime: the Policing of Solidarity With Refugees and Other Migrants.- Chapter 12. Prosocial Activism: First Evidence From the Protests for Migrants’ Rights in Sicily.- Chapter 13. Civil Disobedience as a Current Form of Resistance: the Tax Rebellion of the Agricultural Sector in Argentina.- Chapter 14. Why Do People Disobey the Law? Emotions and Reasons in the Protest Against the Trans-adriatic Pipeline.- Chapter 15. Students and Dissent. Rethinking Kenneth Keniston’s Contribution to Youth Studies.- Chapter 16. The 21st Century Economy Between Global Law and National Legal Systems: the Strength of the Market and the Weakness of the State.- Part III: Contemporary Changes - Disobedience in Pandemic Times.- Chapter 17. The Handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Regional or Local “disobedience”.- Chapter 18. Social Movements and Social Disobedience During the Covid-19 Crisis: the Case of the Italian University.- Chapter 19. Cosmopolitan Educational Disobedience. A Proposal for Changing Times?.- Chapter 20. Disobedience in Pandemic Times: Protests for and Against Distance Learning in Italy.
About the Author :
Liana M. Daher is a Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Catania (Italy), and Chair of the PhD program "Educational Processes, Theoretical-Transformational Models and Research Methods Applied to the Territory". Her main research fields are social movements and collective behaviour, migration, and multicultural citizenship. She has taken part, both as principal investigator and member, in several national and European research projects. Currently, she serves as a scientific coordinator for the Horizon 2020 Project PARTICIPATION. Daher is past-president of the research committee RC48 (Social Movements, Collective Action and Social Change) of the International Sociological Association and Editor-in-chief of two book series ("Disembedding", by Aracne, and "Sociological Challenges", by Mimesis International). She has authored books, book chapters, and articles in Italian and international academic outlets.
