A year of protests or one of quarantines? Exploring new arenas of conflict articulation

What is it about?

What happens when you are in the middle of a protest movement, and a global pandemic emerges? I argue that it results in a strategic shift towards new conflict arenas - with protestors hoping to maintain momentum. I was writing this earlier this year while at Chiba University and taking into account mostly developments in the first half of 2020. And ongoing protest movements seemed to face a huge issue: They could not protest publicly. Sure, they could ignore or contest public regulations, but that would risk lives of their own supporters and undermine their public support. So this was not a feasible option. Whatever political goal they were interested in before was being overshadowed by the pandemic. This seemed good for governments and bad for protestors. But protest movements quickly adapted, through content (focussing on pandemic related policies) and form (changing places of dissent articulation). Their digital, neighbourhood based, peripheral strategies were not nearly as effective in contesting authorities - but I argue that that was not the goal either, as these mainly allowed to maintain organizational capacity for now. So the protest activities, as impressive as they are, can AT BEST maintain the state right before the pandemic (by preventing demobilization), but they do not replace protest. Which is part of the reason we saw protest activity go up again after the initial pandemic shock.

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Why is it important?

The mere persistence of activities does not necessarily indicate success; adaptations mostly froze conflicts rather than contribute to their solution.

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