engleski

The legacy of protest participation

Dissatisfied with the neoliberal agenda for education, high tuition fees, the increasing commodification of higher education and the exclusion of their voices in policy decisions that affect them, students at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Rijeka in Croatia “occupied” their faculty for 20 days in 2009, thus joining global student movements inspired by similar grievances. During these 20 days the faculty became their home: they slept on its floors, cooked and ate in its yard, planned and managed various events (lectures, workshops, exhibitions, performances), prepared media releases, organised assemblies and mobilized academic staff. Similarly, dissatisfied with the neoliberal agenda and privatisation of public urban space, its governing against the public interest and the exclusion of citizens from decision-making regarding urban development, the Right to the City protests in 2010 gathered several thousand people who protested against the shopping mall project while several hundred people occupied and physically defended a pedestrian zone for 32 days. Protesters slept on the street, organised various events including poetry readings and communicated their message creatively through myriad protest performances. In this paper these two social movements serve as case studies for an exploration of two themes. The first theme is the process and product dynamic of social movements. Castells (2012) refers to a focus on the latter as a “productivist vision of social action” which is underpinned by the conviction that if nothing concrete is accomplished (particularly vis-à-vis state institutions) then that is failure. According to Castells, in some of the contemporary social movements’ circles, this is seen as a reproduction of the capitalist logic in the evaluation of the movement. For these protesters the process of protesting is the product. The second theme relates to the biographical impact of participating in social movements which again challenges the dominant emphasis on the consequences of protest participation for society. The paper draws on interviews conducted with the core group of students from Rijeka involved in the Right to Education protests and protesters involved in the Right to the City protests. The central question guiding the paper is: What is the meaning of protest participation for those involved? How do they negotiate the process-product dynamic of involvement? What do they see as the legacy of their involvement? How do the protestors see other protestors and how do they construct the inter-connection of social movements both nationally and internationally? Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) concepts of ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ and Turner’s (1969) concept of ‘liminality’, we interpret the two protests as liminal phenomena characterised by transgression of the status quo in the educational and urban fields which contribute to habitus modifications. We classify the main modifications as knowledge, skills, attitudes and values acquisition and development, modified educational and professional trajectories, strengthened and widened social networks (nationally and internationally) and personal development. For the interviewed protesters, protest participation is a period of learning, of “destabilising” and “demystifying” power relations and forging new friendships. It is about social change, but also personal transformations.

protest movements ; biographical impact

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