by Katharina Fritsch, Roman Thurn, Philipp Knopp – WG Social Movements and Police, Vienna 29.11.2024
On November 29, 2024, the working group “Social Movements and Police” organized a workshop in Vienna on “Protest Policing in Hybrid Publics. Third Parties in Relation to Protest and Policing”. International researchers gathered to examine this relationship in more detail. The dimension of third parties points to the embedding of protest policing in a hybrid public sphere, mediated through technology and media and influencing the protests that take place within it. The concept of the hybrid public sphere also refers to the continuing relevance of physically present third parties such as bystanders, security services, or parliamentary observers, which reveals the complexity of the protest policing public sphere. Six contributions discussed the relationship between third parties and the hybrid public sphere. The contributions addressed the variety of current phenomena of physical and virtual third parties and their embedding in geo-political contexts, ranging from the justice system (Germany) via bystanders (Belgium), vigilantes (Turkey) and armed groups (Iraq) to spatial dimensions (Germany) and visual technologies (Germany, France, Canada, UK) in the context of protest policing.