“Post-Protest “Misdemeanorland”: an Ethnography of Legal Repression and Legal Resistance in Russia

This talk analyzes the case of relatively low-stakes prosecutions for protest-related “administrative” offences and the defensive legal mobilization that they prompted. This use of law and rights claims and sustained organization of legal aid and information support for prosecuted individuals in cases, where a guilty verdict is all but certain, speaks to the broader question of authoritarian legality and constant oscillation of defense actors and defendants themselves between (dis)belief in law