Between Streets and Screens

A protestor beaten to the ground in Cape Town, indigenous activists threatened with eviction in Rio, teenagers shot dead by police officers on duty – How do we know about these incidents, which are otherwise rarely reported on? In the past decade, urban citizens recording videos as audiovisual testimony, thereby bearing witness to protests and police violence emerged as a phenomenon from cities across the globe.
Who is filming these videos and why? Jacob Geuder explores how digital grassroots video activism came about and how it is shaping urban struggles. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre and focusing on Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro, this nuanced ethnographic study asks how urban movements use digital media to expose police violence, amplify marginalized voices, and challenge neoliberal urbanism. The book examines the unequal distribution of attention across digital platforms, the role of gatekeepers, and the risks faced by videographers documenting state violence.