Protests as Events Politics, Activism and Leisure [Paperback]

This Protest as Events book comes at a timely juncture in the evolution of the event management field. Until now this field has been dominated by a concern with the operational and logisitical but this book marks a shift in emphasis towards shaping a distinctly critical event studies where the very notion of what an event represents is open to critique. Formal political protests, everyday opposition to issues of social importance and online dissent are all covered in the this text. Furthermore its call to researchers to be explicit about their political and ethical commitments lays the foundation for a radical new way of seeing and understanding events.This volume is a much needed and timely addition to the emerging literature on critical events studies. The book responds to fundamental epistemological questions around what constitutes an event and how, as researchers and students, we must challenge neoliberal-centric narratives of them. From raves to Occupy movements this book presents a diverse collection which will kick-start those debates. The volume highlights the trans-disciplinary nature of events studies and has the potential to develop thought-provoking and radical avenues for events management education and research.Protests as Events: Politics, Activism and Leisure is an edited collection that explores activism as a leisure activity and protests as events.Can activism be considered a leisure activity? Can the Occupy movement, local campaigns for change and lone acts of personal resistance be understood as events?Within the field of Events Management the content of events is generally analyzed within three categoriesculture, sport or business. Such a typology can be helpful as a heuristic for interpretation and analysis within a commercial paradigm. However, this framework overlooks and depoliticizes a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest.Protests as Events is the first book to explore activism as a leisure activity anl³e