Stellan Vinthagen is a Professor of Sociology and a scholar-activist. Vinthagen is the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, U.S.A.. He is also a researcher in his native Sweden at The Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, where he is leading the Resistance Studies Program. He is an academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) with a PhD in Peace and Development Research from University of Gothenburg (2005).
Vinthagen researches resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action and social change. He has written or edited eleven books, the latest being Researching Resistance and Social Change, a Critical Approach to Theory and Practice (Roman and Littlefield, 2017). Vinthagen is also author or co-author of numerous articles, e.g. “Sovereign Power, Disciplinary Power and Biopower: Resisting What Power With What Resistance?” 2014 (with M. Lilja) in Journal of Political Power; and “Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: An Analytical Framework”, Critical Sociology 2014 (with A. Johansson), and “Legal Mobilization and Resistance Movements as Social Constituents of International Law”, Finnish Yearbook of International Law 2013.
Having been active in many different social movements since 1980 (environmental, migrant rights, anti-arms trade, peace, Palestine solidarity, etc.), he has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions. He has been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has served in prison totaling more than one year in Sweden, Germany and the UK, among other nations. Between 1986-2000 he was one of the key organizers of the European Plowshares Movement, a movement that carries out nonviolent direct disarmament actions at military bases or arms factories.
Since 2000 he has been an active participant at several protests within the Global Justice Movement and at most of the gatherings of the World Social Forum. Additionally, he was one of the initiators of the Academic Conference Blockades 2007 at the Trident nuclear submarine base in Faslane, Scotland. During two blockades more than 50 academics from different countries and varied scientific disciplines blockaded the entrance of the nuclear base, while they conducted a typical academic conference, read out their research papers, and held discussions with students. Both blockades ended with police arrests.
Vinthagen became a member of the Council of War Resisters’ International (WRI) in 2010. He is one of the initiators of the Swedish Ship to Gaza, a coalition member of the Freedom Flotilla. In May, 2010 the Flotilla tried to break the siege of Gaza with several ships bringing hundreds of humanitarian workers and desperately needed aid to the politically created humanitarian crisis in Gaza. When the Israeli military killed ten of the participants and wounded several others, the action became wide-spread international news. The world-renowned journalist John Pilger says “The Freedom Flotilla is one of the most important direct actions of my lifetime”. Vinthagen was subsequently responsible for the nonviolent action trainings of the Flotilla in 2011 and 2012. Among those seized by the Israeli military in international waters in October 2012, he was subsequently jailed and deported from Israel.
Vinthagen lives in the Irene Community, Dals-Ed, Sweden, and the Pioneer Valley Cohousing, Amherst, USA.