Conclusions drawn from the discussion with Diletta Bellotti – 1st of December (EAVI Conversations 2021)
“Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.”[1]
Numerous are definitions on the internet, but this is one of the few giving emphases to the concepts of change and the common good; aspects also highlighted by our host Diletta Bellotti, a human rights advocate and activist. After her session, we can probably rephrase the definition of activism in her own words: “Activism consists in acting with the urge to make changes in society fighting against injustice”.
What these explanations lack is demonstrating where this urge to act comes from. In Diletta’s case, this feeling was dictated by a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction whenever witnessing human rights violations, which eventually faded when she took up the fight. She started with an online campaign on Instagram “Bloody Red Tomatoes” to denounce the exploitation of cheap labour force in the tomatoes’ fields in Southern Italy by gangmasters.[2]
If it’s just the sense of injustice that can make us great activists, then why do not the masses mobilise to advocate for human rights? Although there is no simple answer to this question, Diletta believes this is due to the sense of detachment from pain and injustice people develop while growing up. To illustrate this, she recurred to a metaphor: as children, we usually play with animals, we watch cartoons with animal characters and we grow loving them, at the same time we also eat them. This happens because over time we don’t associate our love for animals with the components of our omnivorous diet. We are therefore breaking the connection between these two spheres, as most of us do whenever confronted with discrimination; we rarely associate our discomfort with it.
The media, especially social media are powerful tools in amplifying the message and raising awareness of human rights among a wide variety of audiences, offering an online interface to the activists’ actions and undertakings. There is much debate going on whether an activist is a member of social and political movements, often protesting in the streets and oblivious of technology (which is mainly an old school statement); or rather someone who is mostly or exclusively active online (new school/form of activism). For Diletta, it seems clear that the offline community has failed at being online and, thereby making some issues less accessible to people not able to participate in street protests due to physical or economic conditions, just to name a few. Although the internet has also failed us, by not contributing to better inform or sensitise people (leading to dehumanisation and alienation through information warfare), we cannot deny that the internet and social media have the potential to make topics and fights more accessible to everybody.
Since the core of activism is to occupy public spaces, it is legitimate to raise awareness and advocate online as well, as the internet is a public space. Undoubtedly, it is the place where most people can be found nowadays.
However, we should be careful not to label everyone creating content online for a specific cause as an activist. The meaning of YouTubers, influencers and activists seem to be a bit blurred. Without any intention of giving an exact classification here of all these roles, it can be said that generally, influencers are the ones monetizing based on their online activities; while activists fight against the system and tend to be independent of brands’ advertisement offers. Collaboration is not a negative choice per se, as it might offer even more visibility to one’s cause, but it is important to bring order to the different terms that are more often than not used interchangeably by laypeople.
Another important point addressed in the conversation is the difference between an activist and a rebel. According to Diletta, activists are more open to dialogue, while rebels are usually more critical and less inclined to compromise. They are often associated with anti-systemic tendences because we are not used to what rebels represent, we don’t know the energy with which they drive societal change, we are not educated to listen to them or read books about people in resistance, people who have died for a cause or have been oppressed. If you think about it for a moment, we normally study oppressors’ history in schoolbooks!
We leave you with the final sentence of Charlie Chaplin’s speech in the movie “The Great Dictator”: “Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”.
And, as Diletta said: “Act now!”.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism#Types_of_activism
[2] If you want to know more about the phenomenon of caporalato (in Italian), you can have a look at this research https://jied.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/jied.95/
Are you interested in watching the different sessions of the EAVI Conversations 2021?
Related Posts
Conclusions drawn from the discussion with Diletta Bellotti – 1st of December (EAVI Conversations 2021)
“Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.”[1]
Numerous are definitions on the internet, but this is one of the few giving emphases to the concepts of change and the common good; aspects also highlighted by our host Diletta Bellotti, a human rights advocate and activist. After her session, we can probably rephrase the definition of activism in her own words: “Activism consists in acting with the urge to make changes in society fighting against injustice”.
What these explanations lack is demonstrating where this urge to act comes from. In Diletta’s case, this feeling was dictated by a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction whenever witnessing human rights violations, which eventually faded when she took up the fight. She started with an online campaign on Instagram “Bloody Red Tomatoes” to denounce the exploitation of cheap labour force in the tomatoes’ fields in Southern Italy by gangmasters.[2]
If it’s just the sense of injustice that can make us great activists, then why do not the masses mobilise to advocate for human rights? Although there is no simple answer to this question, Diletta believes this is due to the sense of detachment from pain and injustice people develop while growing up. To illustrate this, she recurred to a metaphor: as children, we usually play with animals, we watch cartoons with animal characters and we grow loving them, at the same time we also eat them. This happens because over time we don’t associate our love for animals with the components of our omnivorous diet. We are therefore breaking the connection between these two spheres, as most of us do whenever confronted with discrimination; we rarely associate our discomfort with it.
The media, especially social media are powerful tools in amplifying the message and raising awareness of human rights among a wide variety of audiences, offering an online interface to the activists’ actions and undertakings. There is much debate going on whether an activist is a member of social and political movements, often protesting in the streets and oblivious of technology (which is mainly an old school statement); or rather someone who is mostly or exclusively active online (new school/form of activism). For Diletta, it seems clear that the offline community has failed at being online and, thereby making some issues less accessible to people not able to participate in street protests due to physical or economic conditions, just to name a few. Although the internet has also failed us, by not contributing to better inform or sensitise people (leading to dehumanisation and alienation through information warfare), we cannot deny that the internet and social media have the potential to make topics and fights more accessible to everybody.
Since the core of activism is to occupy public spaces, it is legitimate to raise awareness and advocate online as well, as the internet is a public space. Undoubtedly, it is the place where most people can be found nowadays.
However, we should be careful not to label everyone creating content online for a specific cause as an activist. The meaning of YouTubers, influencers and activists seem to be a bit blurred. Without any intention of giving an exact classification here of all these roles, it can be said that generally, influencers are the ones monetizing based on their online activities; while activists fight against the system and tend to be independent of brands’ advertisement offers. Collaboration is not a negative choice per se, as it might offer even more visibility to one’s cause, but it is important to bring order to the different terms that are more often than not used interchangeably by laypeople.
Another important point addressed in the conversation is the difference between an activist and a rebel. According to Diletta, activists are more open to dialogue, while rebels are usually more critical and less inclined to compromise. They are often associated with anti-systemic tendences because we are not used to what rebels represent, we don’t know the energy with which they drive societal change, we are not educated to listen to them or read books about people in resistance, people who have died for a cause or have been oppressed. If you think about it for a moment, we normally study oppressors’ history in schoolbooks!
We leave you with the final sentence of Charlie Chaplin’s speech in the movie “The Great Dictator”: “Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”.
And, as Diletta said: “Act now!”.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism#Types_of_activism
[2] If you want to know more about the phenomenon of caporalato (in Italian), you can have a look at this research https://jied.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/jied.95/
Are you interested in watching the different sessions of the EAVI Conversations 2021?
Related Posts
Conclusions drawn from the discussion with Diletta Bellotti – 1st of December (EAVI Conversations 2021)
“Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.”[1]
Numerous are definitions on the internet, but this is one of the few giving emphases to the concepts of change and the common good; aspects also highlighted by our host Diletta Bellotti, a human rights advocate and activist. After her session, we can probably rephrase the definition of activism in her own words: “Activism consists in acting with the urge to make changes in society fighting against injustice”.
What these explanations lack is demonstrating where this urge to act comes from. In Diletta’s case, this feeling was dictated by a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction whenever witnessing human rights violations, which eventually faded when she took up the fight. She started with an online campaign on Instagram “Bloody Red Tomatoes” to denounce the exploitation of cheap labour force in the tomatoes’ fields in Southern Italy by gangmasters.[2]
If it’s just the sense of injustice that can make us great activists, then why do not the masses mobilise to advocate for human rights? Although there is no simple answer to this question, Diletta believes this is due to the sense of detachment from pain and injustice people develop while growing up. To illustrate this, she recurred to a metaphor: as children, we usually play with animals, we watch cartoons with animal characters and we grow loving them, at the same time we also eat them. This happens because over time we don’t associate our love for animals with the components of our omnivorous diet. We are therefore breaking the connection between these two spheres, as most of us do whenever confronted with discrimination; we rarely associate our discomfort with it.
The media, especially social media are powerful tools in amplifying the message and raising awareness of human rights among a wide variety of audiences, offering an online interface to the activists’ actions and undertakings. There is much debate going on whether an activist is a member of social and political movements, often protesting in the streets and oblivious of technology (which is mainly an old school statement); or rather someone who is mostly or exclusively active online (new school/form of activism). For Diletta, it seems clear that the offline community has failed at being online and, thereby making some issues less accessible to people not able to participate in street protests due to physical or economic conditions, just to name a few. Although the internet has also failed us, by not contributing to better inform or sensitise people (leading to dehumanisation and alienation through information warfare), we cannot deny that the internet and social media have the potential to make topics and fights more accessible to everybody.
Since the core of activism is to occupy public spaces, it is legitimate to raise awareness and advocate online as well, as the internet is a public space. Undoubtedly, it is the place where most people can be found nowadays.
However, we should be careful not to label everyone creating content online for a specific cause as an activist. The meaning of YouTubers, influencers and activists seem to be a bit blurred. Without any intention of giving an exact classification here of all these roles, it can be said that generally, influencers are the ones monetizing based on their online activities; while activists fight against the system and tend to be independent of brands’ advertisement offers. Collaboration is not a negative choice per se, as it might offer even more visibility to one’s cause, but it is important to bring order to the different terms that are more often than not used interchangeably by laypeople.
Another important point addressed in the conversation is the difference between an activist and a rebel. According to Diletta, activists are more open to dialogue, while rebels are usually more critical and less inclined to compromise. They are often associated with anti-systemic tendences because we are not used to what rebels represent, we don’t know the energy with which they drive societal change, we are not educated to listen to them or read books about people in resistance, people who have died for a cause or have been oppressed. If you think about it for a moment, we normally study oppressors’ history in schoolbooks!
We leave you with the final sentence of Charlie Chaplin’s speech in the movie “The Great Dictator”: “Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”.
And, as Diletta said: “Act now!”.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism#Types_of_activism
[2] If you want to know more about the phenomenon of caporalato (in Italian), you can have a look at this research https://jied.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/jied.95/
