I am a political theorist, teacher, and writer. I am currently at Columbia University where I am a Lecturer in the Discipline of Political Science and a Lecturer in the Core Curriculum. I received my Ph.D. from the Government Department at Harvard University.

I have written on social movements, labor organizing, architecture, and public space. My writing has been published in Political Theory, Jacobin, and KINO!.

My dissertation and first book project, Worlds of Our Own Making: A Political Theory of Protest Space, develops a novel account of spatialized political struggle. Occupations and encampments are central tactics in the repertoire of contentious politics—but why? Many familiar goals of protest—to raise awareness, articulate demands, build momentum, or assemble the public—are better served by other forms of protest. My dissertation shows why spatial protests nevertheless remain widespread. Through case analysis of social movements from across the 20th and 21st centuries, I argue that protest occupations are better understood as a form of spatial disobedience: a genre of civil disobedience that refigures social space. They offer a way for activists to confront the political power of space, and to wield spacemaking (a scene-setting power usually reserved for technocrats or corporations) from below. I offer an account of how spatial disobedience can have democratic political value as a form of epistemic contestation, as a practice of political freedom, and as a public experiment in self-making.

I am currently working on a project on the Free Speech Movement.

Writing + Research

Teaching + Advising

Contact

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Celia Eckert