Repertoires Of Action Research Articles

Far-right contentious politics in times of crisis: between adaptation and transformation

ABSTRACT The far right is often seen to thrive in times of crisis. The unfolding of the Great Recession, the migration crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic provide an unprecedented opportunity to delve into far-right collective actors’ relationship with ‘crisis’. With our study, we are interested to explore whether far-right mobilisation in the protest arena is indeed linked to short-term periods of crisis or part of a broader, longer-term process of societal transformation from the ground up. We deploy a new dataset on far-right protest events – part of the Far-Right Protest Observatory (FARPO) – covering 10 European countries and the period 2008–2021 (N = 4,440) to elicit and characterise nativist mobilisation at the non-institutional level. Although far-right collective actors have reacted to periods of crisis, the rate, size, and interactions surrounding their protest mobilisation have been steadily on the rise, their repertoire of action has been overwhelmingly conventional, and their claim-making dominated by trademark issues like immigration and multiculturalism. Instead of simply adapting to crisis, we contend that the far right is prompting a broader process of transformation and increasing its penetration of civil society.

Introduction: Mobilizing during COVID-19: social movements in times of crisis

ABSTRACT Early 2020 saw the beginning of a pandemic that triggered an unprecedented global health crisis and economic turmoil. The COVID-19 pandemic also crucially affected the dynamics of political mobilization in social movements. This introduction seeks to reflect on such effects. In particular, we ask: How did the pandemic change or hinder existing struggles? To what extent did new activist networks, issues, and forms of action emerge? Drawing on the special issue’s contributions, we highlight how the pandemic gave way to new incentives and forms of mobilization, in particular the anti-lockdown protests with covid-specific claims, and actor constellations that often brought together people with diverse ideological orientations. These mobilizations were crucially facilitated by social media, bringing together previously disconnected people and harnessing heightened emotions of fear, anger, distrust, uncertainty, and anxiety. At the same time, existing movements continued their work on longer standing issues and often effectively adapted their organizational infrastructures, repertoires of action, or goals to a new set of priorities and circumstances. As in other crises, the pandemic spurred mutual aid and solidarity activism for those most affected by the pandemic.

The impacts of COVID-19 on youth activisms in Spain (2020–2022)

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic can be considered a ‘period of emergency critical juncture’ that affected social movements and collective action. Based on this premise, this article analyses its impact on youth activisms in Spain, investigating its structural or circumstantial nature. The research used in-depth interviews and focused on three types of youth activisms - feminisms, environmentalisms, and socio-community - chosen for either their mobilising force prior to the pandemic or their relevance during it. In order to assess the temporary or permanent effects of the pandemic on these activisms, three dimensions were studied: organisational forms, mobilisation issues and repertoires of action. The results allow us to identify short-term impacts, such as the interruption of the rhythm of activism, the prominence of the virtual world, and the creation of pragmatic alliances of local collective action, while at the same time allowing us to glimpse those that may have a more structural character such as the inclusion of mental health as an issue and the normalisation of repression and criminalisation of activism in securitarian contexts.

Salafis’ hybrid trajectories of socio-political engagement in Tunisia and Algeria. A social movement perspective

ABSTRACT Over the past decades, numerous studies have enhanced the understanding of the Salafi milieu, revealing a diversity within the movement that goes beyond the traditional classifications of quietist, jihadist, and political Salafism. This research builds on recent scholarly work by exploring the porous boundaries of the Salafi realm, emphasizing the concept of hybridization. It examines the blending of registers and repertoires of action from other social worlds with Salafism, utilizing a social movement perspective and first-hand field data. The study investigates Salafi trajectories of engagement beyond the religious sphere in Tunisia and Algeria during perceived periods of constraint. This comparative analysis is both empirically and theoretically significant, given the distinct socio-political landscapes of the two countries. Tunisia was recognized as a democratic exception in the MENA region in 2011. In contrast, Algeria, rising from the ashes of its civil war, is regarded as a resilient rentier state largely unaffected by the Arab uprisings but significantly impacted by the Hirak movement in 2019. Despite these differences, both countries have experienced revolutionary moments and repressive campaigns, offering opportunities for the transformation of Salafism.

Sustaining superior visibility within digital platforms through inside and outside competitive action repertoires

Although often credited with leveling the competitive playing field, platforms pose novel challenges for millions of complementors within their ecosystems. This study explores the tactics complementors use to maintain superior visibility on these platforms. Building on competitive repertoire theory, we conceptualize two categories of competitive actions that capture the dual environmental complexity faced by complementors: inside and outside competitive moves. We assemble a unique dataset from a leading food delivery platform in Europe, providing a comprehensive view of complementors’ competitive repertoires and visibility over ten months. We find that complementors’ inside competitive repertoires with high volume and complexity are associated with sustained superior visibility. However, we also find that complementors whose competitive repertoires diverge from those of their competitors are more likely to exit the superior visibility strata. Additionally, we identify outside action repertoires as a second pathway to differentiation, built on complementors’ idiosyncratic resources and less dependent on platform architecture and rules.

The pitfalls of smart urban infrastructure during a period of unrest: Networked dissent against smart lampposts in Hong Kong

While the notion of the smart city has grown in popularity, the backlash against smart urban infrastructure in the context of changing state-public relations has seldom been examined. This article draws on the case of Hong Kong’s smart lampposts to analyse the emergence of networked dissent against smart urban infrastructure during a period of unrest. Deriving insights from critical data studies, dissentworks theory, and relevant work on networked activism, the article illustrates how a smart urban infrastructure was turned into both a source and a target of popular dissent through digital mediation and politicisation. Drawing on an interpretive analysis of qualitative data collected from multiple digital platforms, the analysis explicates the citizen curation of socio-technic counter-imaginaries that constituted a consent of dissent in the digital realm, and the creation and diffusion of networked action repertoires in response to a changing political opportunity structure. In addition to explicating the words and deeds employed in this networked dissent, this article also discusses the technopolitical repercussions of this dissent for the city’s later attempts at data-based urban governance, which have unfolded at the intersections of urban techno-politics and local contentious politics. Moving beyond the common focus on neoliberal governmentality and its limits, this article reveals the underexplored pitfalls of smart urban infrastructure vis-à-vis the shifting socio-political landscape of Hong Kong, particularly in the digital age.

Protest Wave Palestine: “We are All Palestnians”

Abstract The attack of October 7 2023 by Hamas and other Palestinian Armed Groups (pag) on Israel and the retaliatory war on Palestinians since then have led to a massive wave of protest across the world. These protests have been variously received by governments and local authorities, particularly in Europe and North America, and by Israel’s allies as threats – even to national security – in and of themselves. These governments, authorities, along with the mainstream media largely fail to see the protests as part of a massive global siren call for ceasefire, or for ending acts which may constitute war crimes, including genocide and starvation. What I wish to address in this essay are the ways in which these protests have proven dynamic, unprecedented in size and sheer geographic spread, and as a vast repertoire of action. In this essay I also argue that, before we even speak of the import of this moment of global solidarity we need to acknowledge that, in so many ways, it is mimetic of a long history of Palestinian protest all-too frequently overlooked or deliberately ignored. For this reason part of this essay seeks to re-centre such protest.

On Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Abstract Andreas Malm says sabotage is needed to save the world from climate catastrophe. In this Forum, scholars of pacifism and nonviolence caution against such a course of action by pointing to several important factors at play in determining the success or otherwise of activist campaigns, including barriers to participation, organisational dynamics, loyalty shifts, the backfire effect, and the role of framing and public opinion. Ongoing research into pacifism and nonviolence presents a nuanced picture of the current strategic landscape of climate activism, revealing lessons that the climate movement must consider as it reflects on what repertoire of action to embrace to enhance its effectiveness and mitigate the unfolding climate emergency.

"Verdaguer ha mort, visca Verdaguer!". Dol, memòria i política en el funeral d’un referent cultural de la Catalunya contemporània

This article situates itself in the field of historiographic studies that deal with memory, the politics of death, and the commemorative cult of public figures. More specifically, it aligns with approaches that conceive funerals as significant ritual expressions within the repertoire of collective action and in the forging of communities. The funeral of Jacint Verdaguer (1845–1902) is considered here the first great posthumous homage to the deceased and a notable moment in the construction of his afterlives. Various aspects of this episode are analysed, from the factors that lent it an extraordinary character, the forms of expressing grief, the role played by the press, the relationship between the event and memory, as well as the plural meanings attributed to the figure of Verdaguer and early evidence of the contested appropriations of his legacy. As will be shown, the event was powerfully shaped by politics, giving it the character of what we might call, following Fureix, a contestatory or opposition burial. Careful study of this rite of passage ultimately demonstrates that Verdaguer was a common reference point through which Catalan society was able to negotiate, if not resolve, consensus and dissensus.

All Growing but Differently: Two Ideal-typical Forms of Continuity and Expansion Followed by Young German Activists

This paper seeks to further the discussions about what continuity in activism can look like, about the differentiated trajectories that activists can follow and how growth and continuity (as trait shared by all activists) might be differently patterned by factors at the micro- meso- and macro- levels. For this, the present analysis zooms into the trajectories of 9 activists and proposes two ideal typical kinds of trajectories (the abeyant-experimental and the lineal sustained) based on the patterns of growth, expansion, and change as narrated by the participants. The interview analysis suggests that activism has been experienced as an in-flux process during which growth and change have been constant. Participants report about gaining specific skills, expanding their networks, adopting new routines and repertoires of action, adopting different frames of cognition and even a experiencing changes in their self-perception due to their political engagement. The study proposes an analytical concept to further the analysis of activist trajectories and stress the differentiated expressions of growth and expansion revealed by activists.

The Contribution of Women from the Organized Colombian Diaspora in Catalonia to the Generation of Transnational Human Rights Defense Practices

Objective/context: To learn about the contributions of women of the organized Colombian diaspora in Catalonia to creating transnational practices in favor of peace and denunciation of human rights violations in Colombia. Specifically, we seek to identify the main actors, organizational spaces, and collective action repertoires developed by Colombian women in Catalonia. Therefore, we approach the literature on the political participation of migrant and exiled women from the perspective of political transnationalism. Methodology: This qualitative and participatory research study examines bibliographic and documentary sources, semi-structured interviews with Colombian women participating in the organized diaspora, and participant observation of mobilizations. Conclusions: The analysis and discussion of the results show that for some women, their participation is based on their exile and previous political involvement. For others, it is driven by the recognition of their condition as migrant subjects, as well as the different axes of inequality that cross them, which allows them to connect their individual discomfort with the collective discomfort of their country of origin and develop new interpretative frameworks and new repertoires of action aimed at sensitizing and influencing the Colombian socio-political reality. Originality: This research contribution allows for further debate on the transnational political role of migrations in a globalized world and what role women can play in it.

The square against the ballot box: Bolsonaro supporters’ challenge to the Presidential Election in Rio de Janeiro

This article looks at the occupation of the square next to the army headquarters in Rio de Janeiro the day after the second round of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election. This mobilization brought together radical Bolsonarist voters and activists calling on the army to undo the election result to restore the defeated President, Jair Bolsonaro. This study provides insights into the dynamics of collective action in the radical fringes of Bolsonarism. While resorting to a non-violent repertoire of action, namely the occupation of a square, the participants borrowed from the conceptions and logics of action of military circles. The duality of this mobilization provides insight more generally into a central dimension of Bolsonarism, namely the mobilization of the rules of democracy and the rule of law to disqualify their foundations and procedures.

Repertoires of action and collective memory: the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the relationship between repertoires of action and collective memory by exploring the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy. These were a key form of action of 1970s feminism in the country, which rapidly disappeared after the institution of state-based Family Health Centers. In the last decades, feminist and transfeminist self-managed health centers have resurfaced in several Italian cities. The present article investigates the mnemonic dynamics underpinning the re-adoption of a form of action from the past in subsequent cycles of mobilization. Social movement scholars have stressed the relatively stable and repetitive character of the repertoire of collective action over time, considering it as part of an implicit memory. The article examines a case in which the discontinuous adoption of a form of action makes its retrieval by subsequent activists the result of active memory work. While the study of social movements and collective memory has grown considerably in the last decades, the study of repertoires remains largely under-researched in this field. Filling this gap, this study shows how, by adopting a symbolically and historically meaningful repertoire, activists re-elaborate their collective identity in the present and establish a relationship with previous cycles. It suggests that further research should investigate the relationship between collective memory and repertoires of action.

Coloniality, Race, and Europeanness: Britain’s Borders after Brexit

Abstract The scholarship on the politics of immigration often frames governments’ responses to far-right mobilization as a return to border closures and a rowing back on neoliberalism. In this article, I draw on and expand the scholarship on coloniality to address the limitations of this diagnosis. Specifically, I explore the role of political mobilization in the making of the post-Brexit border regime. My research draws on the analysis of legal and policy initiatives between 2020 and 2023 and twenty-three research interviews with individuals who express their opposition to immigration via engagement in think tanks, grassroots organizations and vigilante groups. The interview data indicates multiple connections between these milieus and shows that each engages in action repertoires beyond the nation-state. And while this prompts border closures, the post-Brexit border regime also encodes openings and loopholes for the circulation of financial elites and precariously employed workers. Thus, I argue that state and non-state actors co-produce a neoliberal border regime of stratified rights, partial inclusions, and gradual exclusions. These variegated entitlements draw on and reinvigorate the racial order of coloniality. The post-Brexit immigration regime enables the free mobility of those racialized as “West European,” facilitates disposable labor mobility of those racialized as “Eastern European,” and restricts the movement of those racialized as “non-European.” This racial imaginary does not only operate via binary distinctions of (non)-Britishness but puts people in complex hierarchical relations to “Europeanness.”

Updating predictions in a complex repertoire of actions and its neural representation

Even though actions we observe in everyday life seem to unfold in a continuous manner, they are automatically divided into meaningful chunks, that are single actions or segments, which provide information for the formation and updating of internal predictive models. Specifically, boundaries between actions constitute a hub for predictive processing since the prediction of the current action comes to an end and calls for updating of predictions for the next action. In the current study, we investigated neural processes which characterize such boundaries using a repertoire of complex action sequences with a predefined probabilistic structure. Action sequences consisted of actions that started with the hand touching an object (T) and ended with the hand releasing the object (U). These action boundaries were determined using an automatic computer vision algorithm. Participants trained all action sequences by imitating demo videos. Subsequently, they returned for an fMRI session during which the original action sequences were presented in addition to slightly modified versions thereof. Participants completed a post-fMRI memory test to assess the retention of original action sequences. The exchange of individual actions, and thus a violation of action prediction, resulted in increased activation of the action observation network and the anterior insula. At U events, marking the end of an action, increased brain activation in supplementary motor area, striatum, and lingual gyrus was indicative of the retrieval of the previously encoded action repertoire. As expected, brain activation at U events also reflected the predefined probabilistic branching structure of the action repertoire. At T events, marking the beginning of the next action, midline and hippocampal regions were recruited, reflecting the selected prediction of the unfolding action segment. In conclusion, our findings contribute to a better understanding of the various cerebral processes characterizing prediction during the observation of complex action repertoires.

Where’s the beef?: the politics of health care reform in South Korea

Background: In February 2024, the South Korean government released a policy proposal for healthcare reform, with one of the main pillars being increased medical school admissions. This policy has sparked intense opposition from the physicians’ top association. Most importantly, interns and residents—the bedrock of the medical workforce in Korean hospitals—began to leave en masse. Consequently, a medical crisis emerged, in which many medical and surgical procedures were delayed.Current Concepts: According to studies on comparative health policy and systems, the crisis could be attributed to the unique characteristics of the Korean healthcare system, in which the administration and doctors have failed to establish a substantive dialogue through which policy options are examined and deliberated. These dynamics necessitated the establishment of an institutional space for interest group politics, causing both to suffer from a lack of action repertoires. The stalemate we witness reflects the enduring patterns of the same issue.Discussion and Conclusion: To ensure the success of the current initiative, institutional arrangements must be established in which policymakers and physicians make a credible commitment to each other. Alternatives, for instance, include reactivating and regularizing the Health and Medical Services Policy Deliberation Committee, which could pave the way for establishing a venue where key stakeholders can discuss future agendas, such as how to ensure improved accessibility to “essential” care and mitigate its subnational variation, thereby creating a long-term vision for new health system governance in South Korea.

Explaining the impact of citizens’ initiatives on social movements: insights from the Spanish housing movement

ABSTRACT How do instruments of direct democracy affect the social movement organisations that sponsor them? Drawing on social movement studies and direct democracy research, we argue that direct democracy has a transformative effect on its sponsors because it triggers a triple process of movement building, learning, and bargaining with political elites. This triple process sets in motion enduring trends within the organisation that has undertaken the burden of promoting the initiative. We illustrate this argument with the case of a people’s legislative initiative (a non-binding mechanism of direct democracy) organised by a housing rights organisation between 2011 and 2013 to counter the eviction crisis in Spain. This initiative did not result in the reform that activists demanded. Nevertheless, it contributed to consolidating the sponsor organisation, innovating its repertoire of action, and broadening its strategic options.

Landscape discourses and rural transformations: insights from the Dutch Dune and Flower Bulb Region

AbstractRural landscapes are facing a loss of biodiversity. To deal with this challenge, landscape governance is seen as an alternative and addition to sectoral policies and a potential way of realizing transformative change for biodiversity. To study transformative change in the Bulb Region, the Netherlands, this study uses a discursive-institutional perspective. A mixed methods approach was used including 50 interviews, participant observation and document analysis. The structuration and institutionalization of three competing landscape discourses were analyzed: a hegemonic discourse rejecting any changes in bulb farming; an emerging discourse aiming to enhance sustainability through innovation; and an unstructured discourse questioning the sustainability of bulb farming. The paper shows that the emerging sustainability discourse strengthens the hegemonic discourse by providing an action repertoire for farmers to deal with changing societal demands, while not questioning the hegemonic view on the landscape. Moreover, an institutionalized landscape discourse can be very stable if discursive (relation between naturalized landscape perspectives, identity and the articulated economic interests) and non-discursive factors (natural-spatial conditions, structure of agricultural sector, embeddedness in international trade) are strongly intertwined, leaving little room for alternative discourses. The sustainability discourse was induced by changes outside the Bulb Region (e.g., legislation), thus raising the question whether landscapes are the appropriate level to expect the initiation of transformative change. For rural transformations to come about, solely relying on policies on the landscape level is not sensible. A mix of policies at both the landscape and higher levels offers more perspective for transformative change.

Data in movement: the social movement society in the age of datafication

ABSTRACT Data has increased currency in contemporary activism and has become an integral part of the action repertoire of today’s social movements. But data and data infrastructure are not only tools to support a movement’s struggle: they are constitutive parts of the environment in which movements operate, and objects of contention in their own right. These developments challenge scholars of social movements and collective action. How are movements changing under the pressure of datafication? What ‘new’ mechanisms, actors and tactics meet the growing demand for citizen participation in an increasingly datafied society? Is social movement scholarship ‘fit’ to capture and interpret this evolution? This theoretical article puts social movement studies in dialogue with critical data studies with the aim of encouraging a much-needed cross-pollination. It advances the notion of ‘datafied movements’ to address the novel structural condition of contentious politics in the age of datafication and to explore the socio-technical, systemic effects of data and data infrastructure on movement dynamics. It reflects on how five key social movement dynamics, and the related elements in the conceptual toolbox of social movement studies – group formation, opportunity structures, action repertoires, meaning work, and collective identity – are altered by datafication and the advance of intelligent systems in society. In so doing, this article charts the building blocks of a future-proof research program in social movements.

Bridging ethnography and AI: a reciprocal methodology for studying visual political action

ABSTRACT This article proposes a methodological approach to address the analytical challenge of meaningfully studying visual politics in the current abundance of online image data. It proposes a novel methodological process of bridging ethnography and computational methods for analysing visual data in a manner that avoids mixing and blurring the boundaries of the two methods while establishing a continuous interchange between them. The methodological development enables investigating how youth participate through image creation and usage, both online and offline, by outlining repertoires of visual political action. We argue that combining ethnographic research with supervised deep learning-based AI and pre-trained neural networks allows for systematically analysing large image datasets while maintaining interpretative, analytical perspectives and contextual sensitivity. Our results show that the existence of common visual features in images, the re-evaluation of the image categories and the creation of subcategories constitute key aspects for an ethnographically-informed image classification.