Repertoires Of Collective Action Research Articles

Kurdish Mobilization in Turkey and Syria: A Comparison on Action Repertoires

In this article, the collective action repertoires of nationalist Kurds in Turkey and Syria between the years 1918-2018 are compared. This comparison is conducted based on the levels and forms of mobilization. Examples span a broad spectrum including rebellion, protests, legal politics, and mass mobilizations. The findings of the research reveal distinct differences in the action repertoires of the Kurdish conflicts in Turkey and Syria, and the level of violence also varies between the two countries. Employing a qualitative approach, this study uses a multi-case strategy and thematic analysis method. The objective of the study is to provide researchers with a conceptual and empirical framework concerning the action repertoires of Kurdish movements. The results obtained aim to enhance understanding of the repertoire of contention in non-Western societies.

Femitags in the networks and in the streets: 50 hashtags for feminist activism in Latin America

The aim of this article is to characterize the main hashtags of Mexican feminist activism as part of the Latin American connected crowds, on the basis of a review of the most popular trends between 2016 and 2021 on Twitter. A total of 50 hashtags have been selected that, due to their repeated use, are characterized as femitags, that is, performative meta-discursive identifiers that mainly do three things: disseminate and tune in to frames of protest; extend women’s voices and slogans; and mobilize synchronic, diachronic, and transnational repertoires of collective action. These femitags appear in situated contexts, usually around events such as new cases of violence against women and calls to take to the streets, but with their extension, they become meta-communicative labels that articulate different activist practices. This study reveals not only their functions, but also their role as articulators of networked mobilizations, demonstrating the profound online and real-life intertwining of the fourth wave of Mexican, Latin American, and Spanish-speaking feminism.

Theorizing social movements against the Indian state’s developmental paradigm: A comparative study of the Kovvada and Sompeta movements

ABSTRACT This paper studies the impact of social movements on the Indian state’s developmental paradigm. Adopting from Varigonda’s (2020) framework, the paper argues that the impact of social movements on state policy and its implementation is primarily determined by three key factors: the collective action repertoires of social movements; the politicization of the Indian state’s developmental paradigm; and the openness of state input structures. This framework is tested through a comparative study of two movements that have emerged against two examples of the Indian state’s developmental paradigm: a proposed nuclear plant at Kovvada and a proposed thermal plant at Sompeta, both in Andhra Pradesh. The Sompeta agitation was successful in impeding the thermal plant’s inception while the movement in Kovvada eventually petered out. The paper demonstrates how the variation in the impact of the two movements can be attributed to the social movement in Sompeta benefitting from stronger collective action repertoires; greater politicization of the state’s developmental paradigm; and more open state input structures, vis-à-vis the movement in Kovvada.

The radicals watched from the sidelines or the ambivalent citizens’ relations to radicalism in a poor Montreal neighbourhood

ABSTRACT This analysis seeks to understand the appropriation or rejection of radicalism by two groups in a poor and immigrant neighbourhood of Montreal. Yet although both defend the same causes and share the same progressive dimension, one presents itself as a group of non-radical citizens while the other presents itself as a group of radical activists. So for each group, what do these different definitions of identity enfold: citizens versus militants, non-radicals versus radicals? More than the acceptance and the use of violence, the investigation’s results reveal that the divergences observed illustrate a different construction of the intersection between social class, cultural or ethnic identity, and global and local boundaries. These different ways of conceiving the intersection shape specific democratic practices and relations to politics. This analysis outlines the relevance of not restricting the reflection on radicalism to a focus on the repertoire of collective action but rather exploring its meanings for citizens in their daily lives and its implications for their relations to politics. Finally, it also offers a concrete picture of left-wing ideological tensions and debates and how some grass roots organizations try (or do not try) to resolve them.

Struggling over Serra do Curral

The Serra do Curral is a mountain range that extends to the municipalities of Belo Horizonte, Sabará and Nova Lima, in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It is already deteriorated by a long history of mineral extraction not followed by any environmental restoration. Since the 1960’s, Serra do Curral has been an object of many civil society collective actions calling for its preservation. In 2022, the authorization of new mining operation provoked a strong civil society reaction. A coalition of environmental and social activists, alongside new political actors convened in defence of Serra do Curral now demand the immediate revocation of the licence. The present article analyses the current conflict, identifying the main actors, their collective action repertoires, and how those actions play out as the conflict unfolds. The research is conducted through documental inquiry, media coverage analysis and on-site direct observation. Looking into the political struggle around new-extractivism conflicts, we argue, can provide important data and insights about resistance and the developing of alternatives.

Why do opt-out movements succeed (or fail) in low-stakes accountability systems? A case study of the Network of Dissident Schools in Catalonia

External and standardized assessments based on student results are a contested education policy among school actors. Movements of opposition have emerged in different countries, especially in those contexts with high-stakes accountability systems. However, this phenomenon has not been analyzed in soft accountability systems. The objective of this article is to study the opt-out movement in Catalonia, understood as an anti-standardization movement in a system of soft accountability. In order to do so, we adopt the case study approach as a methodological strategy, based on the triangulation of semi-structured interviews with activists (n = 14), key stakeholders (n = 3), and document and press analysis (n = 25). The results shed light on the emergence and nature of the movement, its opportunity structures, the discursive frames and the repertoires of collective action. Our results show how accountability instruments have a ‘life of their own’ beyond their policy design. In this sense, the opt-out movement in Catalonia identifies potential risks and adverse effects similar to those reported in high-stakes systems, developing a repertoire of collective action and discursive frames similar to other emerging anti-standardization movements in high-stakes contexts.

Tilting at 'Nuclearmills'? : Wind Energy, Grassroots Networks and Technologies of Protest in Spain, 1976-1984.

In 1975, the death of dictator Francisco Franco opened the door to aturbulent period known as the "Spanish Transition." In the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, national politics, political violence and social demands were interwoven with international shifts in science and technology and global debates on "energy transitions." In close dialogue with foreign environmental groups, the anti-nuclear movement in Spain deployed alarge repertoire of collective action; it ranged from pleasant activities to violent direct actions against nuclear technologies, but also included the making of technological alternatives. Counter-culture activists and counter-experts opposed nuclear energy and promoted renewable energy as two sides of the same coin.This paper explores the pioneering (and networked) initiatives of an anarchist-oriented group called Self-Managed Radical Alternative Technologies, created in 1976, and agroup of young engineers who founded the cooperative Ecotècnia, which was behind the construction of the first commercial wind turbine in Catalonia in 1984. The paper focuses on the transnational circulation of grassroots knowledge, the epistemics of resistance, and the development of wind energy technologies as "technologies of protest." Technologies of protest illuminate how the social construction of technology is intertwined with what Icall the "social destruction of technology."

Social movements against Hindutva: analysing their impact on the Indian state’s support for cow protection vigilantism

This paper analyses the impact of social movements on the Indian state’s support for cow protection vigilantism, which forms a key aspect of its adherence to the Hindutva ideology. Adopting Varigonda’s framework, the paper argues that the movement’s impact is determined by its collective action repertoires, politicisation of its affiliated identity and openness of state input structures. The paper tests this framework through a comparative study of two movements: the Dalit-centric post-Una and the Muslim-centric post-Dadri movements. It demonstrates how stronger action repertoires, characterised by protracted mass mobilisation; effective politicisation of the Dalit identity and its propensity towards electoral mobilisation of the Dalit populace; and open state input structures, characterised by the consistent support of major political parties, enabled the post-Una movement – unlike the post-Dadri movement – to impede state support for cow protection vigilantism.

Contesting large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South

• The analysis synthesizes the case study literature to explain how communities contest large-scale agricultural investment. • Communities use varied tactics, mostly from the repertoires of everyday resistance, collective action, and rights-based means. • Rural communities face unfavorable circumstances for organized protests. • Certain political opportunities and involvement of local leaders enable contentious collective action or rights-based resistance. As agricultural investors have acquired large tracts of land in the Global South recently, many affected communities and civil society groups have contested what they perceive as land grabbing. These communities have struggled to retain their land, protect their livelihoods, or benefit from the investment. There has been much academic interest in these conflicts. Studying the emerging literature, this review identifies the main theoretical perspectives and synthesizes the case study evidence. The goal is to better understand how communities contest large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) and to explain their tactics. For this purpose, a sample was collected that consists of 46 studies and 28 LSLA cases from the Global South. Since most of these studies adopt single theoretical perspectives from resistance research, the present study links multiple theoretical strands, most importantly everyday resistance, contentious politics, and legal mobilization. Based on the cases reviewed, the analysis shows that the tactics of contention are diverse but can also be grouped into three repertoires. It is found that affected communities use everyday resistance mostly when they face particularly unfavorable circumstances. In contrast, certain political opportunities and involvement of local leaders enable organized protests through either collective action or rights-based contention. Overall, this study contributes to the literature not only by bringing together case observations to see the big picture, but also by identifying the main repertoires, tentative frequencies of tactics, and less relevant circumstances and mechanisms. In practical terms, the findings suggest that development and civil society actors can play important roles for assisting rural populations and local leaders in fending off land grabs.

Political Agroecology in Senegal: Historicity and Repertoires of Collective Actions of an Emerging Social Movement

Agroecology has become an ideological foundation for social and environmental transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. In Senegal, agroecological advocacy coalitions, made up of farmers’ organizations, scientists, NGOs, and IOs, are using agroecology as an umbrella concept for proposing policy changes at multiple scales. We describe the history of the agroecological movement in Senegal in the context of the constitution of a national advocacy coalition. We then examine the “repertoires of collective action” mobilized by the coalition. Four repertoires are identified: technical support and knowledge co-production, territorial governance, alternative food networks, and national policy dialogue. Our analysis highlights the potential that these multi-level approaches have to sustainably transform the current food systems in sub-Saharan Africa. However, our research also reveals the limited agency of farmer organizations and the limitations of a movement that is strongly dependent on NGOs and international donors, leading to a “projectorate” situation in which contradictory policy actions can overlap. We further argue that, although the central government has formally welcomed some of the principles of agroecology into their policy discourse, financial and political interests in pursuing a Green Revolution and co-opting agroecology are pending. This leads to a lack of political and financial autonomy for grassroots farmers’ organizations, limiting the development of counter-hegemonic agroecology. We discuss the conditions under which territorial approaches, and the three other repertoires of collective action, can have significant potential to transform Sub-Saharan Africa in the coming years.

Why “Dissident” Irish Republicans Haven’t Gone Away

When considering “terrorists” and “terrorism,” the focus tends to be on violence—the threat of violence, its aftermath, the ideology and belief systems that lead to it, and so forth. Political violence, however, represents only a portion of the repertoire of collective action that is available to “terrorists.” Images from “dissident” Irish Republican events and photo-elicitation interviews with activists who participated in these events show that: (1) the repertoire of “violent” organizations includes nonviolent political activity; and (2) the organizational structures and affective incentives that sustain activism in nonviolent voluntary associations and social movement organizations also sustain activism in organizations that embrace physical force or “terrorism.” In combination, these findings show that “dissident” Irish Republicans are likely to persist into the foreseeable future. More generally, the findings also show that our understanding of “terrorists” and “terrorist organizations” will be enhanced if we focus less on their violent activities and more on their similarities with nonviolent activists and organizations.

A de-monumentalizating revolt in Chile. From the whitened nation to the plurinational political community

ABSTRACT Among the most outstanding repertoires of collective action in the ‘revolt’ that took place in the spring of 2019 in Chile, were the exercises of dismantlement and the demand for indigenous presence. And this is curious because the official history of Chile has sought, in many ways, to deny ‘the Indian’ of the total story. The ‘other’ emerges only as a past fragment, while the bodies and biographies of the elite flood books and cities with their monumental presence. So, what does the dismantlement of this elite history and the vindication of the denied indigenous presence indicate to us? Are we perhaps facing a popular revolt with decolonizing overtones? What initial conclusions about the evolution of national identities can be drawn from these political and aesthetic repertoires? We believe that, after the actions of discarding, scratching or saturating the public monumentality, a deep criticism is projected towards the homogenizing narratives of the nineteenth century nation. Today, ‘whiteness’, as a cultural script of the nation, is put under tension. Finally, we believe that, along with the criticism of the continuities of a racist story of the nation, there emerges a search for the elaboration of new identitarian and cultural scripts. It emerges, imagined from that erased indigenous condition, as a variegated construction of the political community emerging from silencing of five centuries. This is where the decoloniality of the social outbreak is incubated.

Varieties of environmental movements, political strategies and movement dynamism

ABSTRACT Various scholars have recently discussed the possibility of establishing global and local alliances of counterhegemonic and environmental movements. However, such calls for overcoming the divides often remain theoretical and vague as regards to the ways in which different political strategies may actually come together in practice. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by tracing the intersections of different varieties of environmental politics in Salt Lake City (United States) over ten years. Based on preliminary observation, we identified three branches of the environmental movement in Salt Lake City, each of which appeared to engage predominantly in a different type of environmental politics: prefigurative, radical, and reformist. Unpacking each movement branches’ distinct political strategies, we compare them to expose their similarities and differences with regards to their collective identity, action repertoires, and organizational forms. In order to uncover the concrete intersections characterizing the movement branches, we analyse movement dynamism and their political strategies over the past ten years.

The cameras you put on us are going to come back. Social media and the reporting of abuses by law enforcement bodies in Chile's 2019-2020 protests

Social protest takes on new characteristics today, mediated by the use and appropriation of digital technologies. Citizens make use of devices as a central part of the mechanics of the protest, incorporating digital strategies into their repertoire of collective action. One of these uses highlights the centrality of the new screens for the defense of Human Rights, through the recording, publication and spreading the abuses of repressive forces and the montage of fake news through social media. A citizen's capacity to watch over the watcher. Due to its duration and characteristics, the case of the protests that began in October 2019 in Chile is a paradigmatic case from which to study these transformations.

Del alteractivismo al estallido social: acción juvenil colectiva y conectiva (2011 y 2019)

Resumen (analítico)En este artículo analizamos la participación de los jóvenes en los movimientos alteractivistas de 2011 y los estallidos sociales de 2019, quienes, al parecer, han sido protagonistas de nuevas formas de acción colectiva y conectiva. Desde el enfoque cualitativo de investigación y el método de análisis documental, se revisó un corpus de 61 documentos que comprenden literatura académica e información mediática sobre estos hechos. En los resultados se destacan: la redefinición ontológica y sociopolítica de la condición juvenil a partir de la acción colectiva; el tránsito de prácticas políticas antiglobalización a repertorios de acción colectiva más radicales que buscan resistir a la precariedad y la violencia; y acciones conectivas que transitan de estrategias de replicación a intercambios entre gestores de contenidos y audiencias, por medio de textos multimodales-performativos.

Repertoires, identities, and issues of collective action in the candlelight movement of South Korea

In this case study, we examine the evolution of particular themes and identities of collective action. Using the 2016 Candlelight Movement in South Korea as a case study, we attempt to understand how communication processes construct the sociocultural meanings of collective action. We argue that understanding a social movement requires comprehension of the communicative actions of the movement participants, either physically or symbolically engaged, through which they together make sense of the broad contexts and meanings of the movement as they actively pursue construction of the identities and themes of the collective action. Based on a communication perspective of social movements, we developed three research questions regarding the specific features of the collective action repertoire, collective identities and issue framing. Considering the extensive impact of media communication technologies in mobilising collective action in South Korea, especially mobile social networking platforms, we chose one of the most popular social network sites, Twitter, as the data source of communicative actions for the study. Content analysis and semantic network analysis was conducted with a sample of 1,779,902 tweets. Based on the analyses, we suggest that the collective action and identities both shape and are shaped by the communication networks of the movement participants as they interact with not only the counter-movement actors, but also the movement’s social, economic and cultural conditions.

Crisis de la república delegativa. La constitución de nuevos actores políticos en la Argentina (2001-2003): las asambleas vecinales y populares

Los días 19 y 20 de diciembre de 2001 se produjo la protesta social más importante que ha vivido la Argentina democrática reciente. La irresolución del reequilibrarniento institucional durante los primeros meses del estallido abre las oportunidades políticas para la conformación de un nuevo actor político, el movimiento asambleario, el cual será central hasta el reacomodamiento del sistema institucional con la elección presidencial de abril de 2003. El objetivo es estudiar desde su origen las novedosas características que asumirá este movimiento en toda su complejidad. Para ello, se analizará el estudio etnográfico realizado de enero de 2002 a febrero de 2003 en dos casos, la Asamblea Vecinal de Palermo Viejo y la Asamblea Popular Cid Campeador; los cuales se presentan como representativos de los dos grupos que conformarán al movimiento, y que definirán su identidad, estructura de organización, así como los repertorios de acción colectiva.

Direct Actions in the Czech Environmental Movement

Direct actions constitute an important repertoire of action for environmental movements in Western countries. This article differentiates two ideal types of this repertoire of action: the anarchist concept, which understands direct action in terms of values and as a preferred way of doing things; and the liberal concept, which uses direct action in an instrumental way. Based on my empirical research in post-socialist Czech Republic, the article focuses on debates over environmentalism and, to be more precise, on uses of direct actions by environmental organizations. It explains why the liberal concept was very limited and why direct action as a preferred way of doing things has not become a part of the repertoire of collective action. The article argues that the movement was politically moderate due to a combination of reasons: the very specific historical experience of the Czech environmental movement, which inclines it to use dialogue rather than confrontations with power; the fear of political hostility and marginalization by the state; and the internal dynamics of the environmental milieu.

Mapping repertoires of collective action facing the COVID-19 pandemic in informal settlements in Latin American cities

How are civil society organizations responding to COVID-19’s impacts on informal settlements? In Latin America, civil society organizations have developed a repertoire of collective action, seeking to provide immediate and medium-term responses to the emergency. This paper aims to map these initiatives and identify strategic approaches to tackle the issues, given the strengths of those undertaking the initiative, and the scope, purpose and sphere of intervention. Using direct contact, a survey, and a virtual ethnography with social organizations has allowed us to identify and characterize the initiatives. The repertoire focuses on emergency measures around food security, and pedagogies for prevention, sanitation and income relief at the neighbourhood and district levels. We argue that the civil society response repertoire is diverse in form and resources but limited in scope; meanwhile the urgency of the situation and the mismatch with state action mean that crucial spheres of informality, vital to cultivating grounds for a healthy recovery phase, are being neglected.

Civil Society and Social Mobilizations in the Context of the Rio Doce Socioenvironmental Disaster.

To explain how social movements and organizations changed in the context of the Rio Doce, Brazil socioenvironmental disaster, this article identifies a process of organizational innovation. The research is based on documental data and interviews with activists over the 3 y of the disaster. The main argument is that organizational innovation consists of changes in organizational forms and repertoires of collective action, based on existing organizational models and tactics. On the one hand, the innovation occurred through the territorialization of novel organizational forms, intermediated by social movements that act as incubators. On the other hand, it consisted of the combination among extrainstitutional, institutional, and multiscalar repertoires and in the innovation in tactics and performances. Mechanisms of adaptation, imitation, and negotiated diffusion are identified which operated in this innovation process. It is argued that the organizational innovation of social movements was propelled by political constraints of disaster governance, which pushed them to innovation, in addition to the role of preexisting organizations. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;16:681-690. © 2020 SETAC.