INtroduction
The impetus for this project emerged from the realization that the information/ understanding that we receive about different socio-political events is partially a function of who/what we consult. This common-sensical proposition is widely held but not well comprehended. Exactly how do sources vary? What do different sources reveal about the same and/or different conflicts? Does variation across accounts influence our understanding and how? What sources should be used and in what manner? Each of the research efforts provided here addresses these questions in a different way.
Below, you will find three areas. First, you will find a brief description of the research connected with RIP as well as links to the specific projects. On the relevant webpages, you will find a more detailed description of the research, the databases that were created, a codebook that explains what was done and some examples of the raw information that was used to generate databases. Second, as I move through the RIP archive and receive materials from donors, I will make available items that I find particularly interesting. These are identified under the special topics section. Third, I provide links directly related to social science data, repression/human rights/policing, protest/dissent and the media.
Oh, it's here! The Mobile Archive Recovery Unit
Below, you will find three areas. First, you will find a brief description of the research connected with RIP as well as links to the specific projects. On the relevant webpages, you will find a more detailed description of the research, the databases that were created, a codebook that explains what was done and some examples of the raw information that was used to generate databases. Second, as I move through the RIP archive and receive materials from donors, I will make available items that I find particularly interesting. These are identified under the special topics section. Third, I provide links directly related to social science data, repression/human rights/policing, protest/dissent and the media.
Oh, it's here! The Mobile Archive Recovery Unit
This was the original schematic:
Acknowledging that many people have material relevant to political conflict, violence and peace but they are not easily able to get somewhere where it could be archived, stored, shared and studied, in conjunction with the Literature, Science and Arts College at the University of Michigan, I have created what I am calling the Mobile Archive Recovery Unit or MARU. This vehicle, which will be available to all at the University of Michigan, can be outfitted with different equipment as deemed necessary - copiers, scanners, video cameras and audio recording machines to allow researchers to go into the field/street and assist people with sharing their material for subsequent evaluation at the University of Michigan as well as online. The big dream is to have regionally stationed MARU's throughout the United States so that we can go into the community to collect as well as to share what amazing history we have created together.
Research Projects (All Links on Webpages page) and the Radical Information Project
Uprisings/Disturbances/Riots
In an effort to improve our understanding of spontaneous, disorganized and occasionally violent collective gatherings, the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence embarked on what was then and still remains the largest evaluation of related activity - in the end totaling approximately 4000 events. The coding effort involved an extensive newspaper gathering effort as well as the detailed evaluation of different characteristics including the location/date of the event, the actions of the protestors and the actions of the police.
The US Government vs. the Black Panther Party, 1967-1973
The battles between the U.S. government and the Black Power movement (the Black Panther Party in particular) were some of the most contentious state-societal interactions in American history. Exactly what happened, however? Who started the conflict and precisely who did what to whom? This is very much contested.
Within this project, numerous event-catalogs (i.e., listings of discrete events) were created from a variety of newspapers in an effort to see what they commonly observe as well as where they differ. This research attempts to identify if and how alternative accounts of contention vary, how they influence what we know as well as how such information can be used to gain a better understanding of why things take place. The project itself concerns contentious interactions between the Black Panther Party and different authorities (from 1967-1973) from 5 different newspapers - varying across ethnic, political and geographic orientation: the New York Times, the Oakland Tribune, the Berkeley Barb, the Sun Reporter, and the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service.
The U.S. Government vs. the Republic of New Afrika, 1968-1973
While the interactions between political authorities and the Black Panther Party were largely fought in the streets, the conflict between the U.S. government and the Republic of New Afrika (a black, nationalist, and secessionist movement based in Detroit, Michigan) was largely fought within the dissident organization itself. Specifically, this group was subject to an extensive amount of surveillance and was the subject of extensive infiltration by informants. Exactly what insights does one garner about social movements as well as state repression by peering inside a social movement? How do these insights differ from the more public record generated by others like news organizations? This is the topic of this research.
For this project, I compiled data from arrest, surveillance, and informant reports regarding the Republic of New Afrika from 1968-1973 (by the day and, frequently, the hour). Fourteen different police organizations at Federal, State and Local levels were employed.
Rwanda, 1994
GenoDynamics: Understanding Rwandan Political Violence (with Allan Stam)
The political violence in Rwanda during 1994 took place over roughly one hundred days (from April through July). During this period, between 500,000 and 1,000,000+ people were murdered with untold numbers suffering from other offenses (e.g., rape, torture, intimidation); this rate exceeds that of the Holocaust and it makes this the "most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (Gourevitch 1998).
Conventional wisdom holds numerous opinions about the patterns, structure and reasons that lay behind these events. Unfortunately, most efforts rely upon the investigation of a limited number of locations, over a specific period of time and from a limited number of sources, but this provides us with only a partial view of what occurred; in short, we have ended up with a fragmented and contestable understanding.
The GenoDynamics project (run by Professors Christian Davenport and Allan Stam), attempts to address this limitation. Housed at the University of Maryland, GenoDynamics aims to collect all available information on discrete actions undertaken during the Rwandan genocide (e.g., instances of rape, torture, beating, abduction and killing). This information is being compiled from a broad array of human rights NGOs within and outside of Rwanda as well as government ministries. Additionally, GenoDynamics will engage in systematic analyses of these data to understand causal explanations of participation, relative degrees of violence, "oases of humanity" (when individuals saved others) as well as patterns of temporal and spatial diffusion.
India, 2005-2008
Everyday Oppression: Untouchability in Gujarat, 2005-2008 (with Martin Macwan, Allan Stam, Manjula Pradeep and Navsarjan Trust)
For approximately 3000 years, Indian states and societal members have been discriminating against those historically designated as “untouchables” (i.e., those why, by birth, have been identified as polluted). Although deemed illegal by the Indian government, one of the reasons that this behavior (and mindset) has been able to continue is that it is not well documented and/or understood. Indeed, many within the society continue to deny that it exists - to this day; this is countered by not only government investigations but also from extensive documentation provided by untouchables or “Dalit” as they prefer to be called (i.e., those who are oppressed).
This project employs a census of 1655 villages in rural Gujarat to identify what takes place in the most remote locales of Indian society. One of the most thorough investigations of its kind, this census was conducted at both the level of communities and households, randomly stratifying across age, gender and subcaste.
Northern Ireland, 1969-1990s
Everyday Repression: Raids, Arrests and Countering Everything in Northern Ireland (with Cyanne Loyle and Chris Sullivan)
When most think about “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland between republican and loyalist paramilitary organizations, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British Army and the security forces of the Republic of Ireland, they tend to think of the violent deaths - almost exclusively. The number of casualties is normally put around 3500 - not an absolute large number compared to the Rwandan case which yielded in excess of 800,000 but proportionate to the size of the population this figure is quite significant. While important, the focus on violent deaths ignores the wide variety of other forms of conflict that took place more or less on a daily basis. Indeed, it is safe to say that most have no idea exactly what members of the various communities were subject to while the conflict was underway.
Focused on Belfast (a center-point of the conflict), within this research, I have relied upon a wide variety of source material (legal cases, eye-witness testimony, newspaper articles, human rights reports and government records) to identify what took place during the “Troubles” before, during and after violent activities occurred. This provides a deeper understanding of how conflict manifests itself and provides the basis for understanding how it resonates throughout the communities as well as political system that it takes place within.
Repression All the Way Down (Repression Dyads)
Repression Spells
NAACP
Strange Fruit, Stranger Tree
Links
(Please report links that do not work)
Other Human Rights and Repression Data
Social Science Data Links
Africa Confidential
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime & Justice Electronic Data Abstracts
COLLECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF COMPARATIVE LABOR HISTORY
Columbia Electronic Data Service Home Page
Digitial Library Research
DPLS -- Online Data Archive
FBI
Federal Government Resources [Frame Enhanced]
Fedstats: One Stop Shopping for Federal Statistics
FindLaw: Supreme Court Opinions
Harvard-MIT Data Center Home Page
Historical Atlas of the 20th Century
Holt Labor Library
IASSIST Web Server
ICPSR Homepage
International Data Base (IDB)
Intranational Political Interactions (IPI) Project
IPUMS
Library of Congress Home Page
National Archives and Records Administration
National Science Foundation - Home Page
The National Security Archive Homepage
The National Security Archive/FOIA
The Oral History Project
PCS: Project Civil Strive
Population Index
princeton - Data and Statistical Services
PSC: Data Archive
Real History Archives Home Page
Repositories of Primary Sources
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
Search White House News
Social Science Data Archives - Europe
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center
SSDC, Data on the Net
United States Department of Justice Home Page
World History Archives
WWW\DUVAL\Events\eventstoc
State Repression & Human Rights Violations
ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International On-line: human rights website
Amnesty International USA Home Page
Banned Books Week: Challenged and Banned Books
Center For Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Center for the Study of Human Rights | Home
Supreme Court Search
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)
DIANA
Digital Freedom Network
Documents and Case Reports - Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)
Extraordinary Rendition
Federal Register - List of Executive Orders
Freedom House
U.S. Rules of Evidence
Freedom, Democide, War: Home Page
Human Rights - UN geneva
Human Rights in Guatemala
Human Rights Internet (HRI)
Human Rights Server
I-Witness Video
International Coalition for Religious Freedom
Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
League for Human Rights Page
LII: Supreme Court Collection
PEN American Center - Home Page
People For the American Way
Police Executive Research Forum Home Page
Statewatch Home Page (Civil Liberties Watch)
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Human Rights Web Home Page
The National Coalition Against Censorship
The National Security Archive/FOIA
The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls
un high commissioner for human rights
United States Commission on Civil Rights
Virtual Research Associates
WELCOME TO POLICE FOUNDATION
Yahoo! Arts:Censorship
Protest, Dissent & Contentious Politics
HateWatch.org
INCORE: Ethnic Conflict Research Digest
Ingram Library -- Political Government: Parties, Watchdogs, Media, and Activists
People Power and Protest since 1945: a bibliography on nonviolent action
protest net
Rainforest Action Network
southern poverty law center
Terrorism Research Center
Terrorism Research Center: Documents & Essays
THE NONVIOLENCE WEB: A Guide to the Contemporary Peace Movement
The Ruckus Society Website Homepage
Time to Cry, Sixties Gallery, Michigan Historical Museum
Program on Nonviolent Sanctions & Cultural Survival
Virtual Research Associates
Z-net: a community of people committed to social change
Information by and about the Media
Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism
Ethnic Media in America
Journalism.org
New American Media: Expanding the News Lens Through Ethnic Media
ABCNEWS.com
News Link
AlterNet
Atlantic Unbound | The Atlantic Monthly
California Newspaper Project Home Page
CNN.com
CNSNews.com
Communication Initiative links
free! The Freedom Forum online. News about free press, free speech and free spirit.
Gebbie Press: USA Television Stations on the Web
In These Times
Institute for Public Accuracy - IPA
International Newspapers
IPS - Inter Press Service The Global News Agency
JournalismNet Home Page
Media History Monographs
Microform Collections - The Claude A. Barnett Papers - Associated Negro Press
MIM's Black Panther Newspaper Collection
MSU Libraries - Electronic Resources - Newspaper Research Journal
News Now (National Public Radio)
newspapers *** Groups and Events Indexed Thereunder
share newspaper - share, caribbean, black, african, toronto, newspaper, magazine, racism, caribana, carnival, community newspaper, entertainment, west indian, jamaican, ethnic history
The Christian Science Monitor Electronic Edition
The Global African Presence
The New York Times on the Web
The United States Newspaper Project
UMI® Research Collections: Underground Press Collections, 1963-1985
Welcome to Newspapers Online!
WWW NEWS RESOURCE PAGE
In Memoriam: Charles Tilly
The Ultimate Data Collector
