‘Activist’ identity as a motivational resource: Dynamics of (dis) empowerment at the G8 direct actions, Gleneagles, 20

‘Activist’ identity as a motivational resource:Dynamics of (dis) empowerment at the G8 direct actions, Gleneagles, 2005 Dermot Barr & John DruryDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of Sussex

Empowerment in collective action • Social and psychological importance • Processes • Intergroup dynamics: support, unity • Collective self-objectification • Coping with disempowerment…?

Coping with potential disempowerment • Activists’ cultural resources • Meaning of events as contestable • Both of these are identity-related

Rationale • Research so far has only inferred these processes post hoc • G8 Gleneagles as an opportunity to examine definitions of a potentially disempowering event across people and time • Background – scale of previous anti-cap demonstrations

G8 Protests 2005:a brief chronology Saturday 2 JulyMAKE POVERTY HISTORY DEMO Edinburgh Sunday 3 JulyG8 ALTERNATIVES COUNTER SUMMIT Edinburgh Monday 4 JulyCND BLOCKADE FASLANE NUCLEAR SUB BASE Tuesday 5 JulyPROTEST AT DUNGAVEL ASYLUM SEEKERS PRISON Wednesday 6 JulyMARCH TO THE GATES OF GLENEAGLES Gleneagles Hotel

Our focus: The G8 Blockade • “Obviously the thing on Wednesday morning was possibly the lowest point in the week, we just trudged through the wilderness overnight for quite a significant distance, it was cold, it was wet, we hadn’t really slept, we were all very aggravated, and had been routinely intimidated through the night by the police, and in a very bad psychological state of affairs.” (T4S1I7 N)

Method • Participant Observation • Semi structured interviews • Cross-sectional • Opportunity sample • Longitudinal

Unity/Fragmentation (time 1) • “D: How would you describe the people that are protesting, going up now and have gone up recently? • I think it’s a fairly mixed bag, you’ve got people here who are protesting against G8, I suppose you’ve got your kind of anarchists and the anti-capitalist movement, and you’ve got things like Make Poverty History which is going up to kind of just reform as opposed to completely over-rule. So it’s quite mixed, and it is in ages as well, mixed ages, completely mixed bag of people.” (T1S2I2 So) • “obviously most people here are probably anti-capitalist, especially for the G8 demonstrations now rather than the demo before on the second,” T1S2I4

Unity/Fragmentation (time 2) • “there’s this pretension about being like a whole collective” (T3S2I4) • “the protest has changed to what happened before at the other G8 meetings, it’s more that you have a kind of official tolerated protest, this Bob Geldorf kind of thing, which you know is a meeting with, you know, making a conscious decision between protesters and basically the G8 and but that takes away the you know it really takes away the voices of the people who are really protesting here” (T3S1I1)

Discussion and definition of success/failure varies across participants • D: “What would you hope to achieve from this kind of action?” • Well, ideally blocking the road, (TIME 2)T3S2 • D: “ What would you consider a failure today, if today was to be a failure, what would that be?” • “A failure would be if they succeed more and more in dividing the protest.” T3S1I1 • T1S2I1 D • D: So what do you think the best outcome, what can be achieved from the protests and what is the best outcome that could happen? • The best outcome would kind of be the obvious things, such as lessening debt, more aid and stuff like that.

Discussion and definition of success/failure varies with time • Time 1 • D: So is that what you would hope to achieve? • Ultimately, it would be great to stop the thing from happeningT1S2I2 So • Time 2 • D: What would you consider a success or a failure for the protests today? • If we could just get a voice, that people be allowed to demonstrate in the way that they feel is appropriate. T3S2I5 • Time 3 • I think that their hopes where that they might postpone or shut down or cause trouble for the G8 taking place. And I think it did to a certain extent it was more kind of taking back autonomy and power from that meeting SO

(Dis)Empowerment varies across participants • D: Do you feel that these kind of actions are empowering? • Yes. • D: How would you say that they’re empowering, I mean why are they empowering? Is it numbers of the crowd, is it unity, is it . . • I don’t know, yes, it’s just • Female: It’s no good just giving a donation and waiting for someone else to do it, we’re just here saying this has to be changed, here and now. • Male: You just know that you’re doing the right thing, and no matter what, even if you’re with the crowd or you’re not with the crowd, you’re just doing the right thing. • (DIS)EMPOWERMENT T3S2I5 • D: Do you find these type of events empowering? • Not at the moment. Not right now. Generally, yes. • D: Why not right now? • Because we’ve been, all power’s been taken away totally from us at the moment.

(Dis)Empowerment varies across time • T3S1I3 SO Time 2 • “but to be honest I don’t know whether to feel more empowered or less empowered, because it’s a kind of weird space we’re in because we don’t really know what’s happened today.” • So Time 3 • “Then that’s quite empowering so its either a case of having an immediate goal that you can see or knowing that you can work, that you’ve got people that you’re unified with that you can work together to have an eventual goal that might be sometime in the future.”

Redefinition of aims • REDEFINITION OF AIMS T3S1I1 • I think this is the main issue for me to come here, I think the main political issues. But also the protest, the culture of protest, as well because we should not forget what happened in Genoa and what happened to the protesters and where we went from Seattle so that’s a global protest going on all over the world • REDEFINITION OF AIMS (TIME 2) T3S2I5 • D: Why do you take part in things like this? • “Because I believe that everyone’s got civil rights.” • A Time 3 • “Yeah it almost became a struggle between us and the police, us and the state, yeah it was a much bigger bigger thing I think than maybe like us against the G8” • D: Do you think then that it achieved what it hoped to achieve • P(S): “No. I don’t think it really did. In terms of getting groups, one of the things that I think is the best thing about that kind of thing is that it got groups together.” • (Sa Time 3) Inability to redefine aims • Prior to going I thought that we might achieve something, or we’d see an actual sort of, you know, something would happen.

Reference groups • (N Time 3) • Then back to Stirling after blockading the road felt extremely disenfranchising, but then in the evening talking to other people and really getting an idea of the picture of what had been going on, through working in the media centre and receiving calls and looking through the timeline the logs of what had been happening, I saw that actually we had been very effective • REFERENCE GROUP T3S1I2 A • There was stuff going on in Edinburgh, I believe, you know, through our wonderful network of communications, it seems that they managed to achieve quite a lot, but, and keep it going for quite a long time.

Reference Groups • Sa Time 3 • Int: What did you think of the idea of affinity groups • “I didn’t really have one”…. • Int: So could you sum up the weeks events and what they meant for you • Sa: The events didn’t mean very much cause I didn’t think they were successful • D Time 3 • “I just know from like my friends back home people from people I talked to afterwards, my parents, they saw what we were doing as a really like a bad thing that we weren’t doing it for a purpose as such we just wanted to kind of cause havoc. I don’t think the real reason got across to everyone.”

Campsite • N After) • D: The camp at Stirling, how important do you think that was. • P(N): I think that was very important. The temporary autonomous zone, the zone that the camp took up, the area that the camp occupied becamae a, the small little island of sanity amongst our world, you really got to see an example of how society could be organised. So that made the ideals of what you were fighting for somewhat more tangible and therefore more real, because you had this little example of an alternative way of working. • EMPOWERS (So After) • D: How important do you think the campsite was for the protests • P(S): I think it was very important. I think it was actually like the very central part of the G8 protests. Because actually what it did was allow activists to network with each other to understand each others kind of ideas and opinions but it was also it gave you quite a sort of sense of power cause actually you could see that you weren’t standing alone that you were standing with how ever many other people in one area. • CAMP(alice after) • And it was such a brilliant buzz on camp to see that we were living this kind of I don’t know anarcho-syndiclist dream.

Campsite • Yeah Stirling yeah • D: And what did you think of the atmosphere there and how did that make you feel? • P(D): It was quite on guard all the time, probably cause the police were obviously around all the time and there was quite a lot of am very like groupy very kind of cliquey different groups kind of planning different actions am so it made you feel like part of it if you were in your own group I guess but if you weren’t you felt kind of like on the outside • CAMP (Sara After) • There was a lot of fear within the camp which was unnecessary and it seemed like more people spent their time worrying than taking any action.

Identity as lens for evaluation • Little unification • Some participants were able to redefine aims reflecting social identity • Participants used different reference groups reflecting social identity • Participants valued Stirling campsite differently reflecting CSO

Identity as a lens for evaluation • Int: Have your experiences affected your motivation in getting involved in other demonstrations and other things? • Well, I’m a die hard protester so … • (O After)

‘Lifestylism’ Female: Yes, to network and you just want to be seen, want to get involved, and what you are fighting for is actually, you’re on the right path or something, T3S1I2 • A After • “It will definitely change the way I feel about protesting and am just being part of , I dunno I don’t want to label it as a counter culture or lifestyle or just something but its just something I can see myself sticking with for the rest of my life you know.” • “I think that some of the demos that were the most empowering were not ones that were kind of about a far off goal they were things like the reclaim the streets demo because it was like right now this is our space and that was more empowering because actually right now you were doing exactly what you wanted to be doing. And you were achieving your objective by being on the demo” So Time 3 • T3S1I2 A • D: Was it, tell me why you’re involved in this. • I’m . . . why am I an activist? Because I fucking love it

Conclusions • Activist identity operated as a motivational resource in the interpretation of potentially disempowering events.  This allows participants to carry on even when isolated  It may increase their isolation

‘Activist’ identity as a motivational resource: Dynamics of (dis) empowerment at the G8 direct actions, Gleneagles, 20