Protests as Sites of Learning: A Case Study of the Sri Lankan Tamil and Anishinaabe Demonstrations in Canada

Abstract

Social movements, in Canada and around the world, offer a rich window to study social actors as they struggle for power and justice. Relatively less explored in the academic literature is the role of social movements as a site of learning. In this article, the authors synthesize several theoretical frameworks for social movement learning and apply them to extensive fieldwork, in 2009, during Sri Lankan Tamil protests in Toronto and during Indigenous land and water defence in Beausoleil First Nation. They argue that such movements can serve as a powerful educational environment and explore how learning takes place by understanding the sources and sharing of knowledge, how the social identities of participants are consequential for learning, and the underlying social, economic, and political forces that shape movements and their emergence. Ultimately, the authors claim that understanding the learning that takes place in social movements in Canada helps us understand broader political struggles and discourse in the Canadian context and beyond, including critical new forms of solidarity.