From uprising to secession: a plea for a localized and processual approach to the avatars of the yellow vest movement

Abstract

For about fifteen years now, so-called leaderless movements, often stemming from appeals via social networks and having recourse to lasting or episodic occupations of public spaces have flourished. This has had the effect of calling into question the usual toolkit used by social movement scholars to study them. More precisely, it is a question of which levels, dimensions and units of analysis are relevant, especially when it comes to describe movements’ social base and worldviews. In this paper, based on a localized and a long-term collective undertaking, begun from the very beginning of the Yellow Vests movement in November 2018, we discuss those shortcomings and suggest avenues for analysis. We rely on three sets of data in a concomitant manner: life history calendars, social media data (mainly Facebook) and field research (participant observation and biographical interviews). By considering time and place as key variables, we offer an innovative way to describe how the YVs movement has been constructed in a constant flux of change.