Our Estonian partner Aet Annist (UTARTU) discussed her PROMISE case study on the Setos ethnic minority in Estonia at the AAS/ASA/ASAANZ Conference “Shifting states” in Adelaide, Australia (11-15 December 2017). The case study looked at the disenfranchised and dispossessed Setos tapping into the remnants of their political capital to achieve change from the present focusing on indigenous Setoness towards a more inclusive municipal leadership (and how they failed). The talk also pointed out the characteristics of such groups, especially how their social dispossession diminish their ability to unify for any cause, and make them invisible to most social research.
The Panel
The panel “Shifting the state: protest and perseverance for change” was conveyed by Aet Annist and Jocelyn Avery and consisted of several other interesting papers.
Jocelyn Avery presented her research on local protests against inclusion of the perceived “other” and how these protests were using the strategies of disjuncture, even leading to acceptance of human right violations.
Anmarie Dabinet presented on the mobilisation of the victims of illegal adoptions, which pointed at several important unifying themes of the panel, from the complicity of the formal state structures to calls for accountability (failed or otherwise).
Skyler Hawkins’s research on progressive protests in the US added the dimension of spontaneity and intensification in the face of recent political changes.
Finally, Timothy Heffernan studied the changing nature of the protests in Iceland, and the effect that formality and informality of protests had on their results and focuses.
PROMISE Case Studies
The PROMISE case studies are currently being analysed and more details will be published on the PROMISE main webpage as well as on the PROMISE partner’s individual webpages as they become available throughout the year.
Watch out for our newsfeed twitter and Instagram for more news to come.