Reoccupying the Political Transforming and Transgressing Political Science

Focusing on the increasing refusal and transgression of politics as normal across the globe, this book examines new forms of democratisation, democratic life and political subjectivity, as people seek to gain control over the decisions and processes affecting their lives. The contributors to this volume challenge the hegemonic truth regimes of political science by bringing to our attention practices and discussions on the margins of political theorisation and conceptualisation. They offer a pluridiveristy of theorisations and engagements that mirror the very practises of democratic life of which they speak. They demonstrate how research on the margins enables us to develop and deepen our conceptualisation and engagement with these new forms of democratic thought and practice, and hence our understanding of the political and the transformation of political science. These new forms of politics call into question the epistemological authority of political science, and this book will be of interest to those seeking to understand the increasing trend towards prefigurative epistemologies, decolonising methodologies and participatory forms of becoming political. This book was originally published as a special issue of Social Identities.

Introduction – Reoccupying the political: transforming political science Jim Jose and Sara C. Motta 1. Mining, social contestation and the reclaiming of voice in Australia’s democracy Zuleika Arashiro 2. The transformation of the Occusphere Tod Moore 3. Monitoring social media and protest movements: ensuring political order through surveillance and surveillance discourse Stephen Owen 4. Latin America as political science’s other Sara C. Motta 5. ‘A brutal blow against the democratic normality’: unlearning the epistemology of the political Jim Jose 6. The gift of the political Michael Dutton 7. On ‘outsourcing’ the political in political science Tiina Seppälä

Sara C. Motta is a mestiza single mother, critical theorist, poet, popular educator and Associate Professor in Politics, based in the Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She has published numerous articles, eight journal special issues, two edited book collections and is the author of Constructing Twenty-First Century Socialism in Latin America: The Role of Radical Education(2014), and Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberation (2018). Jim Jose is Professor of Politics, based in the Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has published numerous articles in leading international journals on political theory, feminist theory, and Australian politics and public policy.