Contesting the Streets: Blockades, Obstruction and ‘Inconvenience’

Last Talk of the SNS Cosmos Talks 2025.

4 December h. 14-15.30
Alison Young | University of Melbourne
Contesting the Streets: Blockades, Obstruction and ‘Inconvenience’

The street has long been the scene of protest, used by many social movements. Streets are highly regulated spaces, governed by laws relating to advertising, consumption of alcohol, noise, commercial activity and more. The interests of different users of streets, such as pedestrians, workers, consumers, and commuters, tend to be weighed in a hierarchy valuing commerce and transport over stasis and dissent. Tactics of dissent such as rallies, marches, die-ins and vigils present challenges to norms of consumption and flow. Focusing on groups such as Just Stop Oil in the UK, Extinction Rebellion in Australia and elsewhere, and various pro-Palestine groups, this presentation will examine the ongoing contestation of the streets as a space for protest through adaptive use of the affordances of a street and the accompanying hyper-regulation of street spaces by city and state authorities through legislative interventions that criminalise obstruction and blockades.