Is this civil? Transnationalism, migration and feminism in civil disobedience

The aim of this thesis is to critically rethink civil disobedience against the backdrop of political and economic globalization. In the vein of what is often referred to as the democratic approach to civil disobedience, the analysis is grounded in empirical cases. The analysis focuses on four underlying assumptions that appear to be inherent in the predominant theories of civil disobedience: 1) That it is synonymous with non-violent action, 2) That it implies remedial as opposed to revolutionary aims, 3) That it means citizens are the only agents that can engage in the disobedience and 4) That it demands a certain mode of behaving that is akin to civility. In examining these four assumptions, it is argued that predominant understandings of the “civil” in civil disobedience do not fully consider the experiences of certain marginalized groups and thereby inflict a type of what Miranda Fricker (2007) calls hermeneutical injustice on what civil disobedience is and what it can be. In order to identify specific hermeneutical gaps in the concept of civil disobedience, it is reviewed through a conceptual lens that combines feminist, migration, critical race and postcolonial theories. Some of the cases examined include: the civil disobedience campaigns of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, citizen-smuggling in the case of unauthorized migration, and cases of feminist disobedience such as Pussy Riot in Russia, Seed/Water Satyagraha in India and the women only Umoja Village in Kenya.