Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 03 Mar 2011
Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah
Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah
Page Range: 195 – 217
In summer 2006, Professor Ghazi-Walid Falah, a political geographer and editor-in-chief of the journal Arab World Geographer, was arrested by Israeli police after taking photographs of rural landscapes in Northern Galilee. Falah was subsequently held for 23 days, incommunicado, and without charge. An international campaign to “Free Ghazi” was launched by his family, friends, and colleagues, largely over academic listservs and other media. Utilizing social network analysis and contextualizing the campaign within structures of telecommunications technologies, the purpose of this paper is to assess the various factors that contributed to the campaign’s coalescence, its rapid development, and its global reach. Durant l’été 2006, le professeur Ghazi-Walid Falah, géographe travaillant dans le domaine de la géographie politique et rédacteur en chef du Géographe du Monde arabe, fut arrêté par la police israélienne après avoir pris des photos de paysages ruraux en Galilée septentrionale. Falah fut ensuite gardé au secret pendant 23 jours sans inculpation. Une campagne internationale pour « Libérer Ghazi » fut lancée par sa famille, ses amis et ses collègues, se servant de listes de diffusion universitaires et d’autres médias. Grâce à l’analyse des réseaux sociaux et en contextualisant cette campagne dans le cadre des structures des technologies de télécommunication, l’article examine les divers facteurs qui ont contribué à la mise en forme de l’action, à son développement rapide et à sa projection mondiale.
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