Belarus’s Sound Body

Abstract

This study delves into the creative protest tactics of Belarusian activists in 2011, highlighting their use of “sound bodies” created through clapping to challenge authoritarian constraints. The research posits that these ethereal sound bodies exert significant normative pressure on the regime by challenging the regime’s legitimacy. By analyzing the clapping protests as civil disobedience, this study illustrates the effectiveness of this non-visual form of protest in compelling the authoritarian regime to address the collective call for change. Through this lens, this paper contributes a nuanced understanding of how decentralized protest strategies, particularly those leveraging sound, can serve as potent mechanisms for challenging oppressive governance in a digitally connected global landscape. This essay thus intervenes into the realms of argumentation theory and sound studies.

Keywords

• acousmatic sound
• normative pragmatics
• social movement
• argumentation
• sound bodies