School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemTree-sits, barricades and lock-ons: obstructive direct action and the history of the environmental movement, 1979-1990( 2018)During the 1980s the protection of biodiverse places became a major global issue, one whose importance would grow in the decades to come. In part this resulted from efforts by Indigenous people in a variety of countries to protect and reclaim territories that had come under the ownership and exploitation of others via colonial dispossession. Challenges to dominant practices also came from non-Indigenous conservationists, alternative ‘back-to-the-land’ communities and others who had settled in rural areas and formed deep connections to land. Contention regarding resource extraction and development activities reflected and fed into a widening ecological consciousness, as broader communities turned their attention to the plight of forests, rivers and other places within their own countries as well as overseas. A significant part of what captured and shifted public awareness was a series of environmental blockades that were launched from the 1970s onwards. These events combined the use of Obstructive Direct Action (ODA) with protest camps to disrupt logging, clearing, mining and other activities. In providing a national and comparative history of campaigns in Australia, the US and Canada, this thesis examines how the environmental blockading repertoire was initially developed and embedded in each country. It establishes that through sustained, close and intense levels of protest within biodiverse environments activists created a tactical ‘toolkit’ that was eventually diffused globally to a variety of movements. The thesis draws upon a diverse range of sources and methods associated with social, political and oral history, as well as social movement studies, to contribute understandings and analyses concerning repertoires of contention. Through coverage of numerous campaigns it explores why certain tactics, strategies, forms of organisation and approaches to normative protester behaviour were chosen and adapted from existing repertoires, why some endured, and what shaped the rate and direction of innovation. Broad political, cultural and contextual factors as well as incidents, dynamics and geographies particular to specific events are identified as key drivers of development and differentiation. Such influences are explored alongside evolving and emerging collective identities, emotional responses, and cognitive aspects regarding how campaigners best thought they could achieve their objectives, as well as what those objectives should be. The thesis analyses a variety of odes of national and international diffusion of tactics and strategies and demonstrates that information sharing and translation from one context to another was rarely straightforward or automatic, but rather contingent and enculturated.
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ItemThe AIDEX '91 protest: a case study of obstructive direct action( 2011)In November 1991 the biennial Australian International Defence Exhibition (AIDEX ‘91) was held in Canberra at the National Exhibition Centre (NATEX). Organised in the context of the drive by the Australian Labor Party to double domestic military exports between 1987 and 1992, the event attracted overseas and domestic arms manufacturers and buyers, as well as up to 2000 protesters from across Australia. There had been a similar demonstration at the previous AIDEX exhibition, held in 1989, and this one occurred in the wake of recent disruptive protest activity around issues such as rainforest imports and old-growth logging as well as events such as the first Gulf War. During the eleven-day protest a number of events occurred across Canberra including religious ceremonies, concerts and a series of rallies at Parliament House and in the city centre. The majority of protesters camped across the road from NATEX and picketed its main gates. Tactics as varied as lying passively on the road and setting barricades on fire were employed, causing much debate during and after the event. Media coverage was widespread and often sensational, leading many protesters to complain of misrepresentation. The protest was also marked by allegations of extensive police violence and over 200 arrests were made. In the months leading up to AIDEX ‘91 the government of the Australian Capital Territory had announced that it would not allow another arms fair to be held in the region. The poor publicity generated in the build-up to the 1991 event also saw the number of exhibitors fall from 234 to 138. During the protest, displays, military vehicles and other items were either delayed or prevented from entering the site. Afterwards, attempts by the event organiser, Desiko Pty Ltd, to organise similar events on federally owned property in the ACT and in the adjoining town of Queanbeyan, New South Wales were blocked by local and state authorities wary of the disruption caused during AIDEX ‘91. Although air shows and smaller events have continued to be held in Australia, there has not been an arms exhibition on the scale of AIDEX since 1991. This thesis will provide a history of the AIDEX ‘91 protest. In doing so it will seek to understand why the issue of arms fairs arose at this time as well as how and why a particular repertoire of contention, which I have labelled ‘Obstructive Direct Action’, was employed by activists as part of a strategy of ‘coercion’. The organisation, promotion and unfolding of the protest will be examined and evaluated along with the outcomes it produced. The ways in which protests such as these reflect the tactical, organisational and strategic choices that activists make, consciously or otherwise, will also be considered along with how such choices are shaped by the context in which they occur.