Dynamics of (dis)empowerment in recent social movement participation: Collective identity and social change

1. Dynamics of (dis)empowerment in recent social movement participation: Collective identity and social change John Drury University of Sussex, UK

2. Rise of anti-globalization/anti-capitalist movement (1999-2001) • People interested in ‘political’ issues • Unity of a variety of struggles • Social change back on the agenda

3. "Identity and Socio-Political Participation“ network Our concerns include: • ‘… the interrelationships of issues of identity and socio-political participation in the context of migration and globalization…. • ‘With regard to identity, the focus is on collective identity, while issues of socio-political participation include … processes of collective claims making and protest by both minority and majority groups….’

4. Trajectory of the anti-globalization/anti-capitalist movement Development • UK: anti-roads movement (1992-1998) • Movement against Criminal Justice Bill (1994-1995) • Reclaim the Streets (1995-1999) • J18 (1999) • Seattle, Quebec, Gothenburg, Prague, Genoa • 9/11 (2001) and the anti-war movement • Antiglob/anti-cap movement today: G8 protests, e.g. • Gleneagles (Scotland) 2005 • Berlin 2007

5. Issues of theoretical interest • 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment)

6. Issues of theoretical interest • 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment) • 2. Decline (disengagement, disempowerment)

7. Issues of theoretical interest • 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment) • 2. Decline (disengagement, disempowerment) • 3. Vestigial participation (motivation of ‘activists’)

8. Theoretical grounding for the issues of interest ‘Identity’

9. What kind of model of identity do we need? • Identity as collective • Identity changes as a function of social relations • Identity as a definition of proper and possible practice in social relations • Linking these: identity as both input and outcome in collective action

10. 1. Explaining empowerment • Empowerment: development of a social-psychological state of confidence in one’s ability to challenge existing relations of domination • Neglect in the literature:: agency (power, empowerment) as a function of politicized collective identity… Despite its importance (both subjectively and theoretically), this agency or empowerment function has been under-researched. (Simon & Klandermans, 2001) • Research has concentrated on subjective power as a precondition for action – But it’s also of interest as an outcome

11. 1. Explaining empowerment • The No M11 Link Road Campaign (1993-4) • Participant observation framework • Interviews (contemporaneous, post-hoc) • Soundtrack recordings • Notes • Campaign documents • News reports • Official materials • Acknowledgements: Steve Reicher

12. 1. Explaining empowerment George Green ‘tree-dressing ceremony’ • Activists’ attempt to involve more ‘locals’ • Contractors erection of fences round Green and tree • Incursions into site • Security capitulate • Fences demolished • Green ‘reclaimed’ and restored

17. Empowerment – an analysis (i) A common categorization in relation to an outgroup • Int: Can you tell me a bit about your experiences yesterday, first of all what was it about? • P3: Well we were just trying to get on to the land that - cos it's our land really (if you think about it), it's everybody's land, and they were fencing it off from everybody. We thought we had the right to come in here

18. P4: And there was all sorts of Wanstead people here, and it I think that's what made it so powerful, it wasn't just the - I mean I don't know what you call them - the protesters in inverted commas, it was everybody seemed to have heard about it and was actually reclaiming the Green

19. (ii) Expectations of support P4: I decided, well, everyone else was doing it, I'd join in

20. Empowerment – an analysis • Unity and support: empowerment processes found previously in anti-poll tax riots, student protests about fees, and football-crowd related disorder • BUT what hadn’t been addressed in these previous studies was the experiential outcome of acting on this sense of unity and support • The act of pushing the fences down and ‘reclaiming common land’ itself was empowering

21. Empowerment as an after-effect P5: It was almost it was almost as if that kind of sent a kind of wave of- a wave of kind of empowerment through a lot of people, including protesters. I think a lot of people [ ] suddenly realized that they could actually- they could actually take take some responsibility for what was going on and actually take control. [ ] A lot of people have just powered on since then, they really have. Int: Finally what is the most you think this er this campaign can achieve? P21: Stopping the road Int: You think it can P21: yeah

22. (iii) Collective self-objectification • Imposition of collective definition of proper practice (identity) over against established power. • World changed in line with identity as evidence of power of identity • CSO in some ways consistent with: • Marx • Efficacy • Self-realization But in context of intergroup struggle

23. Explaining empowerment:Study 1 summary

24. The dynamics of empowerment as a model of possible social change • Where crowd actions were successful, it was therefore now in terms of a wider political context than they were originally perceived and intended (i) An increased sense of what one can do (ii) Generalized to more situations, outgroups and contexts (iii) Applied to an ever broadening collective A virtuous cycle of empowerment

25. From empowerment to disempowerment: A rationale for Study 2 Methodology: • In terms of data, we had read CSO off from behaviour • We now wanted now a more phenomenological study of empowerment in collective action Theory development: • Such a study should tell us something about processes of disempowerment: if CSO is empowering, then lack of failure of CSO should be disempowering.

26. Empowerment and disempowerment: Study 2 • Interviews with 37 interviewees (activists) – range of backgrounds • Each described two or more ‘empowering events’, two or more ‘disempowering events’ (causes and consequences) • Third national demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill (1994) - 3 • M41 Reclaim the Streets party (1996) - 9 • June 18th ‘Carnival against Capital’ (1999) - 6 • Mayday (2000) - 6 • Mayday (2001) - 5 • Genoa anti-capitalist mobilization against G8 (2001) - 4 • Acknowledgements: Chris Cocking, Joseph Beale, Charlotte Hanson & Faye Rapley

27. J18 (City of London, 1999)

29. CSO and unity/support • basically we took over the city of London, and yeah so that was very empowering to see loads of people on the streets who weren’t running around in suits going about their day to day business, and like having a big party in the middle of the city and breaking lots of things too, and you know it was fairly out of control, but that was fine. It was like we’d totally taken over for the day. • (J18) • there was a real sense of erm, togetherness and you know people looking out for each other • (Genoa) • Yeah, cos it was like saying there were people there who would back you up if you got into trouble. • (Corn Exchange protest)

31. Disempowerment through lack of CSO I just knew that it was a complete waste of time really, it was just like, you know radical tourism sort of thing- everyone getting to the place, getting together, showing how hard they are, smash up a few shops and then going home again, and that is… the reasons for that, feeling that… since Mayday I’ve started to think about how these one day events relate to social movements or not. You know cos if they don’t, they become ritualistic and dull and all that happened in Genoa on the previous day- well actually on both days. They just faced the state on their own, and they can’t do anything. (Genoa) I didn’t feel like I’d really done anything and I thought that… You know sometimes if you go, you can come away from these things, and you can think “yeah we really showed them” or something, and feel a lot better about yourself, and I just thought the Police had just totally controlled the situation, and it pissed me off. (Mayday 2001)

32. Decline and vestigial participation: Coping with ‘ineffective’ events Yeah, well I always see this as a learning experience, so I can take lessons each time- you have to, and I just chalked that one up to experience (Brighton RTS) J: Did this have any effect on you? Int 2: No apart from the fact that it just, no not in the long term, in the short term and subjectively it was demoralizing and upsetting (Mayday 2001)

33. Study 3: Motivation in the face of potential disempowerment • Hypotheses to explain motivation in the face of events interpretable as defeats • Activist identity (as a socially and culturally given set of practices with knowledge etc.) as providing possible resources: • Knowledge • Others in group to support interpretations, sustain the identity

34. Study 3: Gleneagles G8 protest 2005 • Decline after Genoa, burn out, war • But continued activism among some – how why continue in the face of ‘defeat’? • An opportunity to examine possible processes of empowerment, disempowerment and motivation strategies in situ. • Acknowledgement: Dermot Barr

35. Study 3:Vestigial participation (motivation of ‘activists’) • Gleneagles direct actions: • Mixture of protestors • Attempts to blockade summit • Fragmented protests • Camp as base

37. Study 3: Methods • Participant Observation framework • Semi structured interviews with 40 people • Cross-sectional and longitudinal • Opportunity sample

38. Time 1 identities 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. • Time 1 T1S2I2 So

39. 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

40. (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.”

41. Different understandings of the 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.

42. Different understandings of the 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.

43. The role of activist identity in its own right 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

44. Study 3: Empowerment, disempowerment and motivation at Gleneagles: Some conclusions • Activist identity operated as a motivational resource in the interpretation of potentially disempowering events. • What counts as ‘success’ can be disputed, contested, re-interpreted. Hence in studying CSO as a source of empowerment we need to pay attention to participants’ (changing) understandings of context and actions  The motivational role of activist identity allows participants to carry on even when isolated; it explains vestigial participation  BUT evaluating events in terms of their ability to realise ‘activist identity’ may increase their isolation – as ‘activist identity’ becomes seen as a ghetto or clique, excluding those who do not share the culture and background.

45. Dynamics of (dis)empowerment: a summary • Intergroup relations  shared self-categorization (identity)  mutual support  CSO: empowerment. • Lack of unity, support and CSO  disempowerment • BUT meaning of ‘success’ (and hence CSO) is contestable. Collective identity provides resources and motivation for continued participation…. (with possible unforseen consequences)

46. Conclusions: (Dis)empowerment and the past, present and future of the anti-capitalist movement • Empowerment explains at least some of the escalation and development of the movement. • Disempowerment explains some of the decline. • Both empowerment and disempowerment are a function of collective identity itself, which provides rationales and motivations for action with others. • The anti-cap movement may rise again in some form (with new methods, generations of activists) • The same issues analysed here can apply to other social movements and can help us to explain how particular struggles become general movements for social change.

47. Thanks for your attention