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

基于研究项目“莫斯科：抗议的城市伦理和伦理的暴力”，这个新项目以目前纽约市反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人种学研究，以更好地了解一方面是旨在与特定政治代表和人物斗争的抗议者和团体，另一方面是其要求主要涉及自身利益的人之间的动态。按照在莫斯科广泛使用的术语，我们暂时将前者称为“政治抗议”，后者称为“社会抗议”。这些抗议活动发生的背景下，越来越多的批评（和自我批评）的“无政府主义”的城市道德行为者和他们的项目，连接到专制的民粹主义，这与严重的社会不平等，也与新自由主义的治理形式相吻合。为了探讨这些问题，我们选择了接触和冲突的领域，在这些领域中，可以以浓缩的形式观察到这种抗议的矛盾。这些是：（a）反对特朗普总统任期的抗议联盟。在这方面，自由左翼的政治代表模式和更激进、注重赋权的做法在执行上结合在一起，特别是在提到一个“良好”、包容性的城市时;（B）一个社区中心，它试图在争取边缘化群体的权利（以“公正城市”的名义）和管理社会福利政策之间取得平衡。在这里，以不同方式被边缘化和不稳定的城市群体的“共同利益”以及他们之间的联盟不断进行谈判和竞争;（c）劳工斗争，部分与反特朗普抗议活动形成共同事业，但有时也与他们存在冲突关系。从分析上讲，该项目关注的是：（1）在抗议活动中和抗议活动之间实现和维护共同利益和共识的战略;（2）随之而来的矛盾、异议和紧张局势;（3）这些问题与一个良好和公正城市的理想之间的联系;（4）抗议运动中的人们如何接近和质疑媒体关于抗议的话语中流传的公共“比喻”，即特权，该项目的目标是更好地了解当前城市抗议活动的形式、功能和影响，并将其纳入城市研究以及与特定历史时刻的关系。为了进一步发展城市和抗议研究的概念，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，道德城市主体的建设和权力和暴力的形式之间的联系，他们嵌入。

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.