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In person icon Protest Movements and Collective Mobilizations in North Africa: Ruptures and Continuities in the Era of Arab Upheavals

Africa
Social Movements
Mobilisation
P320
Clément Steuer
Institute of International Relations Prague

In person icon

Tuesday 11:15 - 13:00 BST (25/08/2020)

Abstract

This panel proposes to explore the diversity of protest movements and collective mobilizations that preceded and followed the 2011 uprisings in North Africa. Much work has been devoted to the Arab uprisings, revealing divergent interpretations as to the nature of the protest movements that have been part of the changes in the region since 2011. The analyses have either insisted on the spontaneous (or even riotous) and leadership-less character of the protest movements, either highlighted the role of young people and social media networks, or, have stressed the need to include the analysis of collective mobilizations, including Islamist mobilizations, in a social movements’ approach. Despite their diversity, the analyses inspired by the various currents of social movement theory, whether they favour an approach in terms of moral economy, focus on militants’ trajectories or on the processes that forge collective identity, have this in common, on the one hand that they seek to go beyond culturalist perspectives and the thesis of Arab exceptionality, and on the other hand that they are part of a critique of structuralist approaches to mobilizations, which would tend to establish a mechanical relation between socioeconomic conditions and mobilizations. Few works, however, articulate in the analysis of these mobilizations, both the structural dimensions, linked to the socio-economic context and the subjective ones that fuel the feeling and the consciousness of injustice. In addition, the analysis of social mobilizations in the context of "Arab revolts" is often inscribed in a dichotomous approach that differentiates between protest movements of a social nature (bread and butter) and mobilizations of a political nature. Based on empirical research carried out within the ERC TARICA project, this panel has two main objectives: 1. to explore the diversity and the dynamics of protest movements and collective action in North Africa in terms of their demands, repertoires of action and types of organisations. Issues of interest cover the question of rupture versus continuity, the emergence of collective mobilizations favouring horizontal forms of organisation, reactivating local, ethnic or religious identities, the relationship between traditional forms of collective action (trade unions) and those taking place within the framework of associations or informal groupings. 2. To reflect on the economic and social dimensions of protest movements, on the effect of the context on these movements, and finally on how to articulate social movements’ and political economy approaches in the analysis of collective mobilisations in North Africa.

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