Demonstrations: sites and sights of direct action

The term demonstration refers both to political and to scientific and technical activity. On the one hand, A demonstration is a public political protest. On the other hand, the condcut of a demonstration is, in a scientific or tecnical context, a matter of witnessing a natural phenomenon or atecnological possibility. the subject of this paper is the conduct of direct action against the construction of the Newbury bypass and the development of the A30 trunk road in Devon. The Paper argues that such actions can be understood as demonstrations in the tecnical as much as in the political sense. In doings so, the paper draws attention to the tecnical and ethical practices involved in the conduct of a demonstration.