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''. He is also Co-Leader of the Resistance Studies Group at University of Gothenburg and co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network, as well as Editor of the ''Journal of Resistance Studies'', and a Council Member of War Resisters International (WRI), and academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). 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.
Biography
Vinthagen holds a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
(2005) in Peace and Development Research from
University of Gothenburg
The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 st ...
. 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.
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
The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemoni ...
, 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. as part of the 'Faslane 365' civil disobedience campaign (see
Faslane Peace Camp
Faslane Peace Camp is a permanent peace camp sited alongside Faslane Naval base in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It has been occupied continuously, in a few different locations, since 12 June 1982. In 1984, the book ''Faslane:Diary of a 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, a coalition member of the
Gaza Freedom Flotilla
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking ...
, 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
Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author ...
as the single most important liberation action since the start of the occupation of Palestine. According to the Hamas West Bank lawmaker
Aziz Dweik
Aziz Dweik ( ; ar, عزيز دويك ) (born January 12, 1948) is the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) since his election to that post on 18 January 2006. Dweik, as speaker of the PLC, is recognized by many Palestinians inclu ...
“The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets.”
Stellan Vinthagen also publish a regula
blog on resistance studiesat UMass, Amherst.
Selected publications
Peer-reviewed articles:
*with Anna Johansson (2015) “Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: The Case of Palestinian Sumûd”, ''Journal of Political Power'', published online on Feb 20. .
*with Lilja, Mona (2014) “Sovereign Power, Disciplinary Power and Biopower: Resisting What Power With What Resistance?”, ''Journal of Political Power'', 7(1).
*with Anna Johansson (2014) “Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: An Analytical Framework”, ''
Critical Sociology
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
''.
*with Lilja, Mona, and Mikael Baaz (2013) “Exploring ‘irrational’ resistance”, ''Journal of Political Power''.
*(2013) “Legal Mobilization and Resistance Movements as Social Constituents of International Law”, ''Finnish Yearbook of International Law'', 21.
*with Håkan Gustafsson (2013) “Law on the Move - Reflections on Legal Change and Social Movements”, Retfærd: Nordisk Juridisk Tidskrift.
*with Anna Johansson (2013) “‘Everyday Resistance’: Exploration of a Concept & its Theories”, Resistance Studies Magazine.
*with Majken Jul Sørensen (2012) “Nonviolent Resistance and Culture”, Peace & Change.
*(2011) “Framväxten av sociala rörelsers globala politik”, Sociologisk Forskning.
*with Håkan Gustafsson (2010): “Rättens rörelser och rörelsernas rätt”, Tidsskrift for Rettsvitenskap, vol. 123, 4 & 5/2010, pp. 637–693. ISSN 0040-7143.
*with Sharon Erickson Nepstad (2008) “Strategic Changes and Cultural Adaptations: Explaining Differential Outcomes in the International Plowshares Movement”, University of Southern Maine, International Journal of Peace Studies, IPRA, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring/summer, pp. 15–42.
*(2008) “Is the World Social Forum a Democratic Global Civil Society?”, Societies without Borders, (v.3, #1), Brill; and in Blau, Judith and Marina Karides, The World and US Social Forums: A Better World Is Possible and Necessary, Brill, Chapter 8, pp. 131–148.
*(2008) “Political Undergrounds: Raging Riots and Everyday Theft as Politics of Normality?”, online publication with referee process, Museion, University of Gothenburg and Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, (26 pages).
*(2008) “Bortom civilisationens kontroll”
eyond the Control of Civilization Glänta, 4:07, Gothenburg, p. 72-78.
*with Sean Chabot (2007) “Rethinking Nonviolent Action and Contentious Politics: Political Cultures of Nonviolent Opposition in the Indian Independence Movement and Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement”, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Elsevier Sciences/JAI Press, Oxford, Vol. 27, pp. 91–122.
*(2006) “Power as Subordination and Resistance as Disobedience: Nonviolent Movements and the Management of Power”, Asian Journal of Social Science, 34:1, pp. 1–21.
Monographs:
*(2015) ''A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works''. London:
ZED Books
Zed Books is an independent non-fiction publishing company based in London, UK. It was founded in 1977 under the name Zed Press by Roger van Zwanenberg.
Zed publishes books for an international audience of both general and academic readers, co ...
.
*with Håkan Gustafsson and Patrik Oskarsson (2013) ''Law, Resistance and Transformation: Social Movements and Legal Strategies in the Indian Narmada Struggle'', Lund Studies in the Sociology of Law 43. Lund: Department of Sociology of Law, Lund University.
*with Justin Kenrick and Kelvin Mason (eds.) (2012) ''Tackling Trident: Academics in Action through Academic Conference Blockades''. Irene Publishing: Ed (360 pages).
*with Pelle Strindlund (2011) ''Motståndets väg: civil olydnad som teori och praktik'' (''The Way of Resistance: Civil Disobedience as Theory and Practice'') Stockholm: Karneval.
*with Mona Lilja (eds.) 2009 ''Motstånd''
esistance Liber Förlag: Stockholm (347 pages).
*(2005) ''Ickevåldsaktion – En social praktik av motstånd och konstruktion''
onviolent Action – A Social Practice of Resistance and Construction PhD Dissertation, Department of Peace and Development Research (Padrigu), University of Gothenburg, Sweden (). (486 pages).
*(1998) ''Förberedelse för Motstånd – En kritik av plogbillsrörelsens förberedelsemetoder och inre konflikthantering'',
reparation for Resistance – A Critique of the Preparation Methods and Internal Conflict Management of the Plowshares Movement published by Omega Förlag and Stiftelsen för Fredsarbete, Göteborg (107 pages).
See also
*
List of peace activists
This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usually work ...
*
Plowshares Movement
* ''
Resistance Studies Magazine
''Resistance Studies Magazine'' () was an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed open access journal
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of w ...
''
References
''Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations''
By Ananta Kumar Giri
External links
*The Resistance Studies Initiative; UMass, Amhers
website at University of Gothenburg, School of Global Studies
Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg
* UMass, Amherst, Sociology Facult
*The ''Journal of Resistance Studies'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vinthagen, Stellan
Swedish sociologists
Academic staff of the University of Gothenburg
University of Massachusetts faculty
1964 births
Living people