P/occupy Milieus. The Human Microphone and the Space between Protesters

Abstract

A political movement trying to find new modes of communication, representation, and decision-making cannot use well-known media,especially when “representation” is contested. Can one voice speak for many people? Is the parliamentary mode of speaking for others to beovercome? In 2011, the protesters of “OccupyWall Street” looked for other medialities and tried new “softtechnologies” like the so-called human microphone. This article connects its use to Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of “being-with” as part of anontology of a non-hierarchical thinking, and asks for the possibility of adopting it — even where the “co-appearing” people have not been equally “co” (given their educational, racialized, and gendered backgrounds) in the first place when they became part of the “mediapolitics of being-with.”