With the clear intention of disrupting the language and conceptual constructions associated with the term, KoozArch redefines the agent provocateur and places it in a sphere where their activism is not superficial or deceptive but visibly provocative and at the same time coherent with their values, true to their spirit. The concept initially referred to an activist secretly working with authorities who might provide information, sow suspicion and internal dissension, and/or provoke violent actions that would turn public opinion against a social movement and offer legal and moral grounds for its repression."Īware of this definition-historically associated with secret police and other secret agencies close to the ruling powers that seek to infiltrate non-governmental organizations in order to gain control and dismantle any type of unwanted resistance-KoozArch asks: what if things were reversed? What would happen if the only way to disrupt the status quo, to shake up all those detrimental ideas and harmful ways of doing-which even after having demonstrated their anachronism and unsustainability are still being taught, learned, practiced, and perpetuated in our built environment-is to initiate change through provocative action and agitation, no longer from the outside, but from the inside of the trench? The idea of the agent provocateur entered popular consciousness in the 19th century as Europe experienced dislocation and conflicts associated with industrialization and urbanization. One extreme form of the latter is provocation. Max in "Agents Provocateurs as a Type of Faux Activist" 1: "When authorities or elites are challenged by a social movement, they may ignore it or respond with a variety of tools-from cooptation to redirection to repression-with many points in between. Within sociology, social movement and criminal justice studies, as well as in the social imaginary, the term agent provocateur has been used to describe a person directly involved in an undercover operation.
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