The “Just City” and the Violence of Ethics in (Anti-Trump) Protests (New York City)

这个新项目以研究项目《莫斯科：抗议的城市伦理和伦理的暴力》为基础，以纽约市当前针对特朗普总统政府的抗议活动为出发点。将对这些抗议活动进行民族志研究，以便更好地了解一方面旨在与特定政治代表和人物作战的抗议者和团体之间的动态，另一方面是那些要求主要涉及其自身利益的人之间的动态。按照莫斯科流行的术语，我们暂时将前者称为“政治抗议”，后者称为“社会抗议”。这些抗议活动是在越来越多的批评(和自我批评)的背景下发生的，这些批评(和自我批评)是对与威权民粹主义有关的城市伦理行为者及其项目的批评(和自我批评)，这些民粹主义与严重的社会不平等和新自由主义的治理形式不谋而合。为了处理这些问题，我们选择了接触和冲突的场所，在那里可以浓缩地观察到这种抗议的矛盾。这些是：(A)抗议反对特朗普担任总统的联盟。在这里，具有自由主义左翼特点的政治代表模式和更激进、以赋权为导向的方法在表演上汇聚在一起，特别是在提到一个“好的”、包容的城市方面；(B)一个社区中心，它试图平衡以“公正城市”的名义为边缘群体争取权利的斗争和管理社会福利政策。在这里，被边缘化和以不同方式岌岌可危的城市群体的“共同利益”，以及他们之间的联盟不断被谈判和争夺；(C)劳工斗争，这在一定程度上与反特朗普抗议活动有共同原因，但有时也与他们处于冲突关系。从分析来看，该项目感兴趣的是：(1)在抗议活动中和抗议活动之间实现和维持共同利益和共识的战略；(2)伴随而来的矛盾、异议和紧张关系；(3)这些事项与一个良好和公正的城市的理想之间的联系；(4)抗议运动中的人们如何接近和抗争媒体上关于抗议的话语中流传的公共“人物”，即特权的、“道德的”城市自由主义者、以身份政治为导向的少数群体和怨恨的白人工人阶级。该项目的目标是更好地理解当前城市抗议做法的形式、功能和影响，并将它们置于城市研究中，并与特定的历史背景相联系。为了进一步发展城市和抗议研究的概念，该案例研究将突出城市伦理抗议、治理技术、正义和城市的想象、城市伦理主体的构建以及它们所蕴含的权力和暴力形式之间的联系。

Based on the research project “Moscow: Urban Ethics of Protest and the Violence of Ethics”, this new project takes current protests in New York City against the government of President Trump as its point of departure. These protests will be researched ethnographically in order to better understand the dynamics that develop between, on the one hand, protesters and groups who aim to fight specific political representatives and figures, and, on the other hand, those whose demands primarily concern their own interests. Following a terminology that is widespread in Moscow, we provisionally term the former “political” and the latter “social protests”. These protests take place within a context of increasing critiques (and self-critique) of ‘voluntarist’ urban ethical actors and their projects that are connected to authoritarian populisms, which coincide with stark social inequalities and also with neoliberal forms of governance. In order to approach these matters, we chose arenas of contact and conflict in which the contradictions of such protests can be observed in a condensed form. These are:(a) protest alliances against the Trump presidency. Here, models of political representation that are characteristic of the liberal left and more radical, empowerment-oriented approaches come together performatively, especially in reference to a “good”, inclusive city;(b) a Community Center which tries to balance fighting for the rights of marginalized groups – in the name of a “just city” – and administering social welfare policies. Here, the “common interest” of urban groups who are marginalized and precarious in different ways, and alliances between them are constantly being negotiated and contested;(c) labor struggles that partly make common cause with anti-Trump protests but also at times stand in a conflictual relationship with them. Analytically, the project is interested in: (1) strategies for achieving and maintaining the common interests and consensus in protests and between protests; (2) concomitant contradictions, dissent and tensions; (3) connections between these matters and ideals of a good and just city; (4) the ways in which people in protest movements approach and contest public “figurations” that circulate in media discourses on protests, i.e. privileged, “ethical” urban liberals, minorities oriented to identity-politics and a resentful, white working class.The project’s goal is to better understand the forms, functions and effects of current urban protest practices and to situate them in urban research and also in relationship to a specific historical conjuncture. In order to further develop the concepts of urban and protest research, the case study will highlight the connections between urban-ethical protests, technologies of governance, imaginations of justice and of the city, constructions of ethical urban subjects and the forms of power and violence in which they are embedded.