Forms Of Protest Research Articles

South Africa’s volatile electorate: changing bases of party support in 2014, 2016, and 2019

ABSTRACT In South Africa, support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) dropped steadily from 70 percent in 2004 to 40 percent in 2024. How did the support bases of the ruling and opposition parties shift during this period of ANC decline? Drawing on three surveys of voters (total N = 6,804) from Black working class communities – conducted during the 2014, 2016, and 2019 elections – this study considers changes across three terrains of division: sociodemographic factors, material conditions, and protest. The results demonstrate substantial variation across the three elections, with ANC support moving towards older voters, social grant recipients, and the full-time employed. The voting patterns of protesters varied over time and with respect to the form of protest (worker, community, or student) and residential area, affirming the volatility of South African politics.

The Suppression of Depression as Multimediation: Psychiatric Diagnoses Under Myanmar's Military Dictatorship.

Myanmar has experienced decades of military dictatorship, civil wars, religious violence, economic crises, and natural disasters. While these conditions would suggest very high rates of depression and anxiety, government statistics report an exceptionally low depression rate of 0.00006%, compared to the global rate of 3.4%. This study combines analysis of epidemiological data, ethnographic observation of clinics, and in-depth interviews. I argue that Myanmar's low depression rates cannot be explained by the usual arguments about treatment gaps, lack of providers, or medication accessibility. Instead, I suggest that the military regime suppresses depression because it sees it as a form of political protest. While conditions like schizophrenia are readily diagnosed and treated as "purely biological," mood disorders are suspect expressions of dissent. Through living value theory (LVT), I explore health as a process of multimediation. The dictatorship's suppression of depression emerges as the strategic muting of medical interventions in favor of amplifying non-medical remediations.

The Magnitude of Triggering Events and the Nonlinear Dynamics of Ethnic and Religious Upheavals

ABSTRACTEthnic and religious conflicts often resemble the proverbial powder keg, characterized by sudden eruptions of conflictive mass behavior in the form of protests or riots. Typically, such escalation episodes are ignited by highly disruptive events: Point‐like triggers at a specific juncture of time and space that facilitate and precipitate collective action. Despite rich anecdotal evidence, triggering events as proximate causes of identity conflicts remain underexplored in empirical research. Challenging the prevailing linear perspective, we argue that the magnitude of a triggering event holds little significance in explaining the intensity of the ensuing ethnic or religious upheavals. Using a new, human‐coded dataset of 642 escalation episodes that details the specific triggering events and the intensity of each wave of protest or riot, we test our hypothesis by applying Bayes Factors and Bayesian regression models. Our findings provide robust empirical evidence for our hypothesis: Major precipitating events are no more likely to trigger high‐intensity upheavals than minor events. These results have significant implications for the generalizability of studies that focus on specific types of triggering events, such as repression and “focal days”, and the overall potential of forecasting the escalation of intrastate conflict.

Anthropology of peasant protest during the years of “revolutionary turning point”

Based on a wide range of published sources and archival materials, including documents of official record management, newspaper reports and chronicles, a historical and anthropological analysis of the generational factor during the period of the phenomenal peasant protest of the “revolutionary turning point” has been pre-sented. Generational methodology made it possible to conduct historical and anthropological research conside-ring the generational structure of Russian and Soviet society in the first third of the 20th century. The new fore-shortening of this research is aimed at identifying conflicts in the legal consciousness of the peasantry in condi-tions of revolutionary turbulence. Determining the role of children, adolescents and rural youth in various forms of peasant protest made it possible to combine thematic issues of peasant studies, gender studies and historical anthropology. The relationship between the emotional state of the peasantry, generational ties in the village, and the role of the community in organizing the participation of children, adolescents and youth in various forms of protest has been revealed in the context of the tradition of peasant protest in Russia. The article emphasizes that, despite the innovations of revolutionary times, the importance of the community in the “protest” solution of prob-lematic relationships “village — government” remained decisive, and the peasant protest preserved the traditional goals of rural residents — the desire for truth and justice. Specific examples demonstrate the relevance of the proposed historical and anthropological typology of the peasant protests: non-violent protest, local rebellion, and peasant revolution.

Day of civil resistanse

May 14th will henceforth be commemorated as Day of Civil Resistance. 30 years ago, the drastic form of political protest – political suicide – chosen by the nineteen-year-old Romas Kalanta on 14 May 1972 resonated deeply in Lithuanian society, especially among the youth. In the garden of Kaunas Musical Theatre, he poured petrol on himself and, as witnesses testify, after shouting “Freedom for Lithuania!”, set himself on fire. The event caused panic among LKP and KGB officials. The chekists hurried to bury Kalanta secretly themselves before the announced burial time. The people who gathered for the funeral were outraged by the KGB’s arbitrariness. Mass marches began, during which political slogans were chanted. Mass demonstrations, violence, and arrests lasted two days. More than 400 people were arrested, and Kalanta became a symbol of civil resistance.

The day of civil resistance: KGB reaction to events in 1972

At the beginning of 1972, in comparison to other cities, Kaunas did not stand out in terms of the number of people persecuted or followed by the KGB, or in terms of any illegal movement. On the other hand, one shall not forget the well–known spirit of the ‘provisional capital’. Hence, the KGB paid Kaunas particular attention, but this did not prevent the self–immolation of Romas Kalanta or the unrest that followed. 14 of May became a day of constant tension and stand–by vigilance for the Soviet security services not only in Kaunas, but throughout Lithuania. The outbreak of youth protests was expected every year, but there was no tragic Kalanta–type catalyst. Not only because of the KGB’s very active negative attitude towards self–immolations, but also because of the unambiguous position of a large part of society towards suicide – whatever the reasons, there were almost none such drastic forms of protest in later years.

“‘Can You Hear Me?’: Virtual Noisemaking in the Pandemic (New York) City”

ABSTRACTHow did urban residents use noise to stage digital protests during the pandemic? This article focuses on online “cacerolazos,” noise demonstrations by New York City housing organizers and tenants demanding rent cancellation during spring 2020. I analyze rent cancellation cacerolazos as assemblages of sonic and digital practices that enabled tenants to narrativize and contest economic conditions and to build solidarity during the early months of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Cacerolazos were conducted primarily on online platforms due to health concerns and limitations for public gatherings implemented by state officials. Participants used noisemaking to demand renter protections, foster community, and call attention to precarious housing. By analyzing digital archival and ethnographic data, I examine how the affordances of virtual space differently enabled and constrained the recognition and uptake of cacerolazos as a protest form in the United States. I also situate pandemic‐era cacerolazos within longer, interrelated genealogies of Latin American protest and dissensual noisemaking projects conducted on the internet. The cacerolazos' limited reach in early pandemic politics emblematized existing racial and economic inequalities that sedimented during the unfolding crisis in the city.

Perplexity and Anti–Vietnam War Protest in Yoko Ono’s Film No. 4

During the 1960s, American artists and activists responded to the Vietnam War’s violence with a variety of polemical forms including op-eds, marches, sit-ins, performative re-enactments, and takeovers of media outlets. In contrast to these conventional forms of protest and media intervention, artist and activist Yoko Ono’s 1966 Film No. 4 (also known as Bottoms), which the artist called a “petition for peace,” presents a sequence of human buttocks in the act of walking on a treadmill. The levity of the film’s content (i.e., butts) and the gravity of the artist’s intentions for it (i.e., a call for peace at the height of the Vietnam War) registers as an absurd contradiction. This article examines how Ono’s unconventional form of protest signaled a shift from the autonomy of abstract painting toward dematerialized art’s participatory investments and de-hierarchized modes of critique. Through its filmic self-reflexivity and its aesthetics of perplexity—achieved through the constraining film production device of the treadmill and played out in the film’s voice-over and media responses to the work—Ono’s Film No. 4 presents conceptualist humor as a strategy for navigating institutional power that acknowledges the limits of artistic ability to make material changes while also implicating viewers as participants in the United States’ intervention in Vietnam. Social and cultural orders that discipline racialized and gendered subjects and maintain capitalist, imperialist white supremacy are confounded by Film No. 4.

An Elongated Shrieking Song That Envisions Glimpses of Liberation Through Overwhelm

In “An Elongated Shrieking Song That Envisions Glimpses of Liberation through Overwhelm” I explore my artistic practice of moaning through the lens of “traumatophilia” and “overwhelm” as proposed by Avgi Saketopoulou, a Greek psycho-analyst practicing in New York. I am braiding into these reflections the question of Saidiya Hartman’s in “Venus in Two Acts” that has been delightfully haunting me, that is: “What are the kinds of stories to be told by those and about those who live in such an intimate relationship with death? Romances? Tragedies? Shrieks that find their way into speech and song?” This contemplation on the moan calls for a renewed relationship to cultural performances of loss and grief as forms of protest and disruption of public amnesia, in times of rising fascism, militarisation and ongoing genocides.

The surprising spectacle of splashing soup: Critical reflections on climate protests targeting art

Numerous news media outlets across the world have reported on climate protestors splashing food and paint across some of the world’s most recognisable paintings from van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ to the ‘Mona Lisa’. These events are a type of climate protest that has been gaining popularity in recent years – stunts targeting cultural artefacts and famous artwork to garner media attention. These forms of protest warrant closer analysis for several reasons. In most cases there was no discernable damage to these works of art due to protective glass coverings, yet these (often young) protestors are still depicted, treated and charged as criminals. In this paper, we utilise Guy Debord’s ideas on ‘the spectacle’, ‘détournement’ and ‘recuperation’ to imagine these acts as complex performative and discursive events. Our initial premise emphasises both the unique transformative potential of art activism, and inherent limitations in mobilising change. We present a call for further research and critical reflection on this phenomenon of counter-conduct that uses newsworthy (although nearly harmless) law-breaking to protest inaction on climate change.

#Girlhood: Why Memetic Aesthetics of Hyperfemininity Matter for Feminist Media Studies

Abstract There is a pressing need to focus attention on hyperfemininity as a valid and valued form of gender expression and feminist protest within contemporary social media. As resistance against the heteropatriarchal gender expectations that influence femininity and that produce femmephobia, we focus our analysis on the social media #girlhood meme trend that, we suggest, embraces a wide range of femme practices through the re-mixing of fem(me)ininity and femme-ness, while critiquing heteropatriarchal norms. We trace the circulation of #girlhood, including coquette aesthetics, #barbiecore, and #bimbofeminism, outlining how these playful expressions of femininity contribute to subverting expectations of “successful” femme bodies. We argue that if gender norms are scripts that prescribe and describe how we must act, then widening the range of acceptable feminine behaviour through hyperfemininity, as manifest in #girlhood memes, is crucial for changing how we discipline femme bodies and how we analyze femininity within media studies.

Better not to vote to restore democracy? Boycotting the 2023 national referendum as a manifestation of (anti)party identification: The case of Poles voting abroad

Abstract This article explores the attitudes of Poles living abroad who decided not to participate in the national referendum, even though they voted in simultaneously held parliamentary elections. Their abstention is viewed as a manifestation of their (anti) party identification. The ruling right-wing populist party had hoped that raising fears about immigrants, the retirement age, and the sale of Polish assets would boost support for the referendum and—consequently—parliamentary elections. However, this strategy backfired by mobilizing the party’s opponents, who boycotted the referendum in protest. Through quantitative analysis, we explore how the 2023 referendum deepened societal divisions fueled by polarization. We investigate the connection between voters’ decisions and their party affiliations. Using data from a sample of 1087 individuals, our analysis shows significant correlations between party identification and referendum abstention. The findings suggest that strong party allegiance can drive strategic nonparticipation, often as a form of protest or civil disobedience against opposing political forces.

The Nature, Ethics, and Politics of Uncivil Obedience

Abstract Uncivil obedience, also sometimes called malicious compliance, has the potential to be a galvanizing force for political change. Historically, it played a key role in many 20th century labor movements, and is still used today by both individuals and more organized activist groups. Despite this, uncivil obedience is less often a topic of philosophical discussion than its more well-known cousin, civil disobedience. In particular, uncivil obedience’s relationship to violence is almost entirely unexplored. In this paper, I outline the necessary conditions for some act to count as uncivil obedience, discuss its relationship to violence, and then present the conditions that must be met for uncivil obedience to be justified. Like other forms of protest and resistance, uncivil obedience has normative limits; there are things we ought not do with it, even in the name of fighting for a better world.

The Influence Of Animosity, Ethnocentrism, And Religiosity On Boycott Intentions At Mcdonald's In Jabodetabek

The escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict has sparked a global wave of solidarity, including in Indonesia. Boycotts against American products, such as McDonald’s, have become a popular form of protest. The purpose of this study is to analyze animosity, ethnocentrism, and religiosity on boycott intentions at McDonald’s in Jabodetabek. The method of analysis in this study uses quantitative methods using primary data obtained from distributing questionnaires as many as 130 respondents. The sampling method in this study is non probability sampling with purposive sampling technique with the testing tool used is SmartPLS. The results of this study indicate that the animosity, ethnocentrism and religiosity variable affects boycott intentions.

“The Return of my Grandfather Napoleon”: Ancestor worship, impiety, and collective possession in North Honduras

AbstractThis paper analyzes Dolores's case of collective spirit possession as a paroxysmic form of possession idiom, serving as a powerful and creative internal mechanism that both safeguards and revitalizes the core structure of ancestor worship. Drawing on my ethnographic research in North Honduras since 2009, my study reveals that rather than leading to the erosion of possession rituals, entropic forces, such as resistance, modernity, and impiety serve as vital resources, reinforcing the foundations of ancestor worship. This paper explores possession idioms and striking events, such as contagion, abduction, dramatization, illness, and death to highlight the resilience of a possession‐based religion as a self‐sustaining total social system rooted in “tradition,” yet shaped by a dynamic interplay of historical, cultural, and personal experiences. While traditional interpretations of spirit possession have viewed possession cults as forms of protest against hegemonic power—“a weapon of the weak” used to gain respect and process trauma—I suggest that spirit possession is multifaceted, ambiguous and underdetermined, operating within a social theater where critique, social irony, impiety, historical consciousness, and the carnivalesque intersect.

To Exist is a Form of Resistance

Photography has long been associated with acts of resistance. In this interview, Sarah Allen, Head of Programme and co-curator of the exhibition Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest at the South London Gallery, elaborates on the reasoning behind the show. The show includes works from 2012 to the present day, offering what The Guardian newspaper described as ‘a visual manifesto of the fourth wave of feminism’. The artworks illustrate how social media is influencing the creation and circulation of protest images and problematizes the photograph as ‘evidence’, thus breathing new life into the medium as an art form of protest. The selected artists are all moving beyond a documentary ‘style’ protest image towards work which embraces collage, the internet and performance. In the public programme of the exhibition, workshop participants were invited to conceptualise the interconnectedness of feminist struggles and how to organise across borders. Allen argues that public galleries play a vital role in platforming artists dealing with pressing social justice issues of the day.

Fingers crossed behind the back: tactics of hidden resistance in Russian wartime academia

AbstractThis study examines the transformation of scholarly activity and academic freedom in Russia under state military censorship and new ideological interventions following the outbreak of the war with Ukraine. Pre-war higher education was characterized by a significant number of restrictions on academic freedom, combined with neoliberal reforms that increased the controllability of universities. The primary goal is to understand how academics navigate high uncertainty, new restrictions on academic freedom, and career threats. Using a theoretical framework based on Scott and de Certeau, the study analyzes localized reactions on external pressure and everyday resistance. Forty in-depth semi-structured interviews with faculty from Russian universities, conducted between May and September 2022, form the basis of this research. The interviewees represented diverse backgrounds, career stages, disciplines, and locations, both within and outside of Russia. The findings reveal a range of tactics, including normalization, adapting research portfolios, finding common ground, avoidance, bootlegging, window dressing, creating safe spaces, and exit. Two general conclusions emerge: tactics focus primarily on protecting teaching over research, and exit power is crucial to everyday resistance. Negotiating exit power facilitated the creation of safe spaces within universities that offered greater academic freedom, while leaving the university became a prominent form of protest.

Gridlocked Streets or Simply Disinterested? Urban Youth and Unconventional Political Participation in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic

This paper is situated in the political landscape of Zimbabwe's Second Republic, which many believed would usher in a new era of democratic governance. It examines urban youth and their engagement, or lack thereof, with unconventional modes of political participation. Utilising focus groups conducted in Harare and Bulawayo, findings reveal how young people engage with political issues through internet-based platforms and novel artistic expressions. While internet participation offers a space to the largely digitally savvy youth for critique and dialogue, it often fails to translate into tangible policy changes or meaningful impact, highlighting a sense of futility among the youth. Despite these creative outlets, findings also indicate a significant reluctance to participate in other traditional forms of protest, such as demonstrations or strikes, largely due to fears of police reprisals and the threat of lawfare. Life cycle factors, especially the economic situation, also deter further participation, as youths prioritise economic sustenance over political activism. The transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa has not yielded the anticipated democratic dividend; instead, the political landscape remains unchanged, characterised by an enduring authoritarian culture. The pervasive use of lawfare and state security apparatus continues to deter young people from exercising their constitutional rights as outlined in Sections 58 (freedom of assembly and association), and 59 (freedom to demonstrate and petition). Unconventional participation can only thrive in an environment where constitutionalism is respected, thus the need for genuine commitment to democratic principles in Zimbabwe.

The Empty Box Phenomenon in the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections: Democracy Challenge or People's Choice?

The empty box phenomenon in the 2024 simultaneous regional elections is a representation of public dissatisfaction with the quality of candidates and political processes that characterize the local area. This study aims to explore the subjective experiences of voters who will vote for an empty box and the meaning behind their choice. This research uses a qualitative approach with phenomenological methods to find out the perceptions, motivations, and expectations of voters in areas with a single candidate. Interviews were conducted online with eleven (11) participants selected by purposive sampling with varied age, education, and economic backgrounds using Google Form application with ten (10) structured questions. The results of the study explain the main themes that emerged from the results of thematic analysis include distrust in the quality of candidates, blank votes as a form of protest against the political system, hope for fairer and more transparent elections, and finally social influence in making choices. The findings therefore suggest that this was a kind of protest, not only against one of the candidates, but also an expression of dissatisfaction with the dominance of the local ruling elite. Voters hope that this phenomenon can encourage changes to a more representative electoral system in the future.

Protest Consciousness and Protest Culture of the Young People of the Russian Far East

Social protest is the cause of conflicts in society. But it also signals unresolved problems and forces the authorities to respond to the demands of society. In the history of Russia, protest has always played a significant role, and extreme radicalism has always been its peculiar feature. The study is based on youth surveys conducted in 2020 and 2024 in the Far East. Two types of protestants were identified in the sample: supporters of peaceful and radical protest. They are carriers of two different types of protest consciousness, including values, ideas, and motives for protest. The author concludes that the youth of the Far East has two types of protest consciousness and protest culture: a peaceful type of protest consciousness and, based on it, peaceful civil protest ("petition culture"); and a radical protest consciousness and, based on it, radical protest ("rebellion culture"). "Petition culture" is associated with an active civic position, interest in politics, participation in legal forms of political and public activities. Its bearers are characterised by such values ​​as justice and equality, freedom and creativity, human rights and the desire for renewal. The culture of radical protest is determined by the subject type of political consciousness, strong negative emotions, strong ethnicity and belief in a threat to one's nationality. It can be noted that the bearers of radical protest consciousness are ambivalent in relation to the forms of protest: they are ready for both peaceful and radical forms. We interpret this as follows: if a subject is ready for more radical forms of protest, then he or she will also accept less radical ones. But bearers of peaceful protest consciousness are ready only to participate in peaceful protest (that's why they are "peaceful"). Radical forms frighten them and are unacceptable to them. According to the results of our study, the "petition culture" is more common in the sample, which means that a dialogue between the authorities and the youth is possible. The work also examines the generational characteristics of the protest consciousness of generations “Y” (or millennials) and “Z” (or centennials).