How can our movement effectively practice destituent power in ways that not only expose the hidden operations of security technologies but also build collective capacity to reimagine and enact a genuinely political life beyond the security paradigm, while navigating the risks of reinforcing the very emergency logic we seek to dismantle?
Destituent power is less a siege than a mass refusal to feed the machine. Start by making the hidden obvious: chalk bright outlines around every CCTV pole, host twilight vigils where people read algorithm patents aloud, circulate spoof manuals titled “How to Switch Me Off.” Visibility punctures inevitability.
Then starve the sensors. Orchestrate data-fasts: communal hours when phones go dark, GPS is disabled and thousands wear the same paper mask, choking facial-rec database quality. Flood licence-plate cameras with reusable sticker decoys. This is not sabotage but a dignified withdrawal of consent; the network keeps watching yet the stream dries up.
Alongside refusal, rehearse the polity we long for. Hold unplugged assemblies in parks, phones sealed in Faraday pouches. Draft neighbourhood charters that apportion food, care and conflict mediation, then live by them for a lunar cycle. Record lessons on paper so the experiment outlives any blackout.
Dodge the security state’s emergency frame by staying joyful, not apocalyptic. Announce “rest days for the city’s nervous system” rather than “days of rage,” cultivating rhythms of short disruptions and long breaths.
Which node of the surveillance grid near you is ripest for sudden visibility?
In practicing destituent power through visibility and withdrawal, how can we ensure that our collective efforts foster sustained engagement and critical consciousness rather than provoke repression or deepen fear within our communities?
Repression feeds on loneliness. Turn every act of withdrawal into a shared ritual that tastes of fellowship rather than scarcity. When we ask neighbors to cut data streams for an hour, pair it with lantern walks, street food, improvised music. Joy reframes the gesture: instead of hiding from power we reveal another way of living, together, in public light.
Sustain engagement by weaving care into subversion. Surveillance off-days are balanced by contact lists for rapid legal aid, childcare rotas during actions, calm rooms where newcomers unpack the dread that cameras implant. Mutual aid is not auxiliary; it is the political life Agamben urges us to prefigure.
Narratively, speak in the key of freedom, not threat. Declare “we are restoring the commons of attention.” Celebrate small victories—glitched license-plate readers, a neighborhood that sleeps better without siren drones—so participants taste the material rewards of refusal. Fear dissipates when people witness systems falter at their touch.
Which nourishing ritual could you introduce this month that would make disconnecting from the security grid feel irresistible rather than risky?
How can we design collective rituals that not only deepen our community’s critical awareness of security technologies but also reinforce a shared sense of agency and joy, making sustained engagement feel like a reclaiming of our common life rather than an act of resistance that risks alienation or repression?
Think of rituals as temporary micro-republics: moments when we suspend the algorithm’s authority and taste self rule. Start small and sensory. Host a “Night of Unseen Frequencies”: invite families to stroll streets carrying cheap radio scanners tuned to airport security bands, ambient sounds broadcast on portable speakers. Hearing the hiss and click of invisible oversight turns abstraction into felt reality, while walking together converts fear into camaraderie.
Follow with a weekly Data Sabbath. Phones sleep in sealed boxes at a communal potluck; elders trade stories, coders sketch open-source tools on butcher paper, children decorate blank masks that later become a carnival procession through camera-dense corridors. The joy of masquerade reasserts our right to opacity, and its public beauty inoculates against repression by winning spectators before authorities can vilify.
Weave mutual aid directly into the ritual: legal observers sharing hot cocoa, mental health first-aid tents, zine stalls printing know-your-rights graphics on demand. Care is the glue that makes repetition desirable, forging habit out of resistance.
After each gathering, circle up for six-minute debriefs. Ask what surprised them, what felt powerful, what should morph next time. Iteration keeps the spell alive.
What local myth, song or flavor could anchor your first micro-republic so that neighbors crave its return before the state even notices?