Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Competing Narratives
In late October 1999---after four months touring in Europe---we were about to head down the coast in our van to San Francisco, when a friend mentioned in passing that we were going to miss the WTO protest in Seattle a month later. Anxious to get underway prior to potential snowfall, we took the ferry off Whidbey Island to the Olympic Peninsula, and were on our way down US 101, stopping briefly to see our cousin in Arcata who at the time worked for an attorney representing Earth First clients involved in efforts to protect old-growth redwoods.
Moseying on down to warmer climes, we arrived in time for Thanksgiving with friends in the Bay Area. One week later, November 30, all hell broke loose in Seattle. Glued to our computer and the Indy Media Center live reports, we followed the Battle in Seattle through the then relatively limited independent sources available. Later, we learned our cousin was part of the legal support team for the protestors manhandled by Seattle police.
In early 2000, our friend Paul de Armond--a freelance journalist--wrote what was to be the most incisive and cited account of the conflict, Netwar in the Emerald City. Yesterday, I stumbled on a paper published by the University of Southern California titled Storytelling and Globalization: The Complex Narratives of Netwar that cites Paul's article in a case study of how the various participants in Seattle's N30 competed for world attention.
Moseying on down to warmer climes, we arrived in time for Thanksgiving with friends in the Bay Area. One week later, November 30, all hell broke loose in Seattle. Glued to our computer and the Indy Media Center live reports, we followed the Battle in Seattle through the then relatively limited independent sources available. Later, we learned our cousin was part of the legal support team for the protestors manhandled by Seattle police.
In early 2000, our friend Paul de Armond--a freelance journalist--wrote what was to be the most incisive and cited account of the conflict, Netwar in the Emerald City. Yesterday, I stumbled on a paper published by the University of Southern California titled Storytelling and Globalization: The Complex Narratives of Netwar that cites Paul's article in a case study of how the various participants in Seattle's N30 competed for world attention.
