Political Voice: Protest, Democracy, and Marginalized Groups

Speaker: Aidan McGarry, Loughborough University

Tuesday 4 February, 10:30-11:30 am

Room 650, Social Sciences Building (A02) and Online (Zoom link will be available closer to the date)

This talk will outline the theoretical foundations of my new book Political Voice: Protest, Democracy, and Marginalized Groups (OUP, 2024). It advances an important argument, namely, that some sections of society are routinely ignored or actively excluded from mainstream politics. In order to be visible and present in public life, marginalized groups must speak up and speak out, often through protest. As marginalized groups articulate their collective voice through protest, they simultaneously lay claim to belonging to political community, and paradoxically, constitute democracy, an institution which frequently excludes them. The talk outlines the original concept of political voice which is based on three core elements: autonomy, representation, and constitution.

Aidan McGarry is Professor of International Politics at Loughborough University, London where he is the Dean. He is the author of six books including Romaphobia: The Last Acceptable Form of Racism (Zed, 2017), The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication (Amsterdam University Press, 2019, open access) and Political Voice: Protest, Democracy and Marginalized Groups (Oxford University Press, 2024). Previously, he led an AHRC-funded international project looking at protest aesthetics, communication and visual culture. Aidan has held a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam (2018-19). In 2022-23, he was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award based at University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he conducted research on environmental activism.