Is there an option to oppose without automatically participating in the opposed? This volume explores different perspectives on dissent, understanding practices, cultures, and theories of resistance, dispute, and opposition as inherently participative. It discusses aspects of the body as a political instance, the identity and subjectivity building of individuals and groups, (micro-)practices of dissent, and theories of critique from different disciplinary perspectives. This collection thus touches upon contemporary issues, recent protests and movements, artistic subversion and dissent, online activism as well as historic developments and elemental theories of dissent.

This volume unravels the debates on the "Participation Age": Instead of perpetuating visions of social "all-inclusion" or the "digital divide", the collection reclaims collectivity as an effect of technological and historical conditions. Thinking of participation both as promise and duty, the contributions analyse the attractions and impositions connected to the socio-technical formation of collectivities. The constraints of participation are addressed by focusing on the mutual shaping of user practices and technological environments. It is hence a relational thinking that allows specifying the manifold interconnections of technology, practices and discourses.