Occupy Wall Street: an “Imaginative” Exploration of the September, 2011 Protests in New York City

Occupy Wall Street: An “Imaginative” Exploration of the September, 2011 Protests in New York City Jason Quintal A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the M.A. in Criminology © Jason Quintal, Ottawa, Canada, 2015 I’d like to thank Dr. Jon Frauley, whose insight and guidance were invaluable throughout the research and writing process. To my mother, whose encouragement and faith in my academic abilities gave me the motivation I needed to overcome the most trying obstacles throughout this process. ii Abstract The Occupy Wall Street Movement on September 17, 2011 that involved public protest and the occupation of Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district, is an important example of mass public dissent in American history. The conflict that lies at the heart of the protests is between two parties identified in the data as the 99% and the 1%. An abductive, grounded research strategy to explore the language used in interpreting the circumstances and details of the event, is used in conjunction with a theoretical framework provided by C. Wright Mills (1959) and Jock Young (2011), to uncover the motivations behind the 99%’s decision to protest. What is revealed upon completion of the analysis are two broad motivations for public protest by the 99% related to issues of fairness and access, set within an historical context of growing dissent against corrupt economic institutions and the governments that sustain them. iii Preface On July 13, 2011, the Vancouver-based Adbusters Media Foundation, an anti-consumerist group best known for its award-winning magazine AdBusters, issued a call to readers asking them to participate in a “US Day of Rage” scheduled for September 17, 2011. Frustrated by a growing disparity in wealth and the absence of legal repercussions for the corporations and bankers behind the 2008 global financial crisis, it suggested supporters set up camp in Zuccotti Park (in the heart of the financial district) in New York City, in order to peacefully demand change: Are you ready for a Tahrir Moment?... On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. - Adbusters, issue no. 97 This action set in motion a series of protests, demonstrations, and a two month occupation that would come to be known as “Occupy Wall Street.” This thesis is an attempt at making sense of the dispute between the 99%, the protest group consisting of members of the poor and working class who represent the socio-economic circumstances of the majority of American society, and the ‘antagonists’ referred to as the 1%, a small group consisting of business owners and government officials who collude to control a disproportionate amount of wealth and power. The analysis performed is intended to draw insight and develop theory related to the motivations and impetus behind the actions of the 99%. Blaikie (2007), Charmaz (2006) and Creswell (2013), establish the strategic foundation utilized for my investigation of Occupy Wall Street, listing the elements and detailing the procedures needed in order to complete a thorough examination of the event. To summarize the contribution of Blaikie (2007) and Cresswell (2013), social inquiry must necessarily contain a method (or process for uncovering information and drawing conclusions that can be replicated by others and holds up to academic scrutiny), as well as theoretical ideas and assumptions about what constructs reality (ontological assumptions) and how knowledge of reality is produced (epistemological assumptions). For the purposes of my analysis, I orient myself within an “Interpretivist” and “constructionist” paradigm, recognizing that individuals come to construct their social reality by attaching subjective meanings to lived experiences, and that, a plurality of meanings and interpretations can exist for any given object or event. The meaning creation- association process is determined by individual perception and context. As a researcher, we cannot come to any “absolute truths” about the social phenomenon under investigation, but rather, accept the possibility that multiple interpretations, and therefore, multiple “truths,” are possible. Elements of an Inductive and Abductive research strategy were incorporated in my examination of Occupy. Recognizing that different opinions surrounding the Occupy protests were bound to exist, I collected a substantial number of texts to ensure that a variety of perspectives would be represented. The goal of inductive analysis is the identification of generalizations, or patterns of ideas that can be found consistently throughout the source material, which are referred to throughout this thesis as “topics.” The underlying logic surrounding this research strategy is that the quantity of identifiable topics in the text is related to the importance and relevance that topic holds among commentators of the Movement. Abductively, the importance of language use iv among those who commented on Occupy is emphasized, with individual meanings – that ultimately combine to form a general perception of reality - found in the word usage pertaining to Occupy. The analysis fundamentally explores the many narratives surrounding the Movement, acknowledging that the meanings individuals attach to the event are embedded in the language usage and vocabulary. The “reality” of what happened is constructed by those who experienced it, and is in part a function of how the event was interpreted, and how those interpretations were communicated and disseminated to others. Being incapable of participating in the protests or witnessing the event first-hand, having been in Ottawa while protests occurred, prevented me conducting interviews with participants of the Movement directly. Thus, secondary accounts were used to examine interpretations of the event, consisting of three distinct data sets found using three online platforms: Google Search, the University of Ottawa Online Library, and Tumblr. These data sets can be seen as three “voices,” with each speaking about the Movement from a unique position. Media pundits offer facts and provide commentary on what they see unfolding before them. Their opinions are derived from personal experience in connection with documentary observation of the protests. Authors published in scholarly journals tend to abstain from providing personal opinions that cannot be substantiated with some form of evidence. The protests, for the most part, are examined critically and objectively, with many parallels and comparisons drawn between Occupy and other major social demonstrations in recent history. The incorporation of scholarly data is in keeping with the research practices of Mills (1959: 122), who noted the importance of considering the work of other scholars in helping establish a foundation from which to build your own research. Testimonials posted to the “We Are The 99 Percent” Tumblr thread are considered “first-hand accounts,” providing the best source of information regarding the personal biographies of those who supported Occupy Wall Street. They are understood as journal entries written by individuals who align with the 99%. Each post is intended to provide evidence of the consequences of wealth disparity and inequitable access to opportunities for the average American citizen; evidence that the claims being made by the 99% are true. They are taken at face value, ignoring the possibility of falsehoods and exaggerations. Analysis of the source material is performed using a grounded approach outlined by Charmaz (2006). Charmaz (2006), offers a general outline for performing grounded theory, which includes the creation of analytic codes and categories developed from data, and the integration of categories into a theoretical framework. Mills (1959) provides insight into the creation of analytic codes, arguing that the identification of common ideas into “types,” and cross-classifying them in order to uncover the “conditions and consequences” of each type, is the best way to draw relevant conclusions from the source material. Mills (1959) differentiates between the terms “topic” and “theme,” words that are often used synonymously with “type.” A topic is defined as a broad concept requiring a section or chapter to discuss, for example, the topic of “Economic Inequality in America.” Themes are broader trends and “master conceptions” that are revealed by comparing topics and examining the logic in which topics unfold in the analysis, for example, “Social Stratification” or “Crony Capitalism.” In the analysis performed for this thesis, the categories that emerge from the source material are referred to throughout the study as “topics” and sub-topics. These topics were identified by performing multiple close readings of the source material, “coding” the topics found within the content in a process involving three steps, borrowed from the coding procedures provided by Strauss and Corbin (1990; 1998). First, initial topics were identified during the first v round of close readings (“open coding”), followed by the grouping of important topics together into larger subjects or “conceptual families” (“axial coding”) during the second round of close readings. For example, the initial topics of “social media utilization,” “Adbusters Magazine,” and the “occupation of Zuccotti Park,” were eventually grouped together in order to discuss the “subject of place” in relation to Occupy Wall

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