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

About the Lecture: The legal repression of opposition protests in pre-war Russia is characterized by the deployment of a bifurcated repressive system. This system relies, on the one hand, on “administrative” offenses and, on the other hand, on the criminal justice system to punish protesters. Following the demonstrators from the streets to the police bus, the police precincts and the court, 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 belief and disbelief in law. About the Speaker: Renata Mustafina is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. Renata is a law and society scholar with research interests in authoritarian legality, legal mobilization, and defense lawyering in repressive settings, as well as in critical approaches to human rights. Her book manuscript, tentatively titled “Against Impossible Odds: Defensive Legal Mobilization in Russian Protest-Related Prosecutions,” ethnographically studies the legal aftermath of opposition protests in pre-war Russia (2012-2017). Renata holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Sciences Po, an M.A. in Sociology from École Normale Supérieure, and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from Moscow State University