A Renewal of Protest. Observing the Yellow Vests through the Biographical Lens

• In Event: Fieldwork in Political Science 2. Reflections on Ethnographic Methods.

Abstract

Social movement literature shows that since the 1960s mobilization entrepreneurs have mainly originated from the middle and salaried classes, with strong cultural capital and previous politicization. However, recent mass protests such as the Yellow Vests movement in France have been characterized by unprecedented proportions of members of the working class and of destabilized middle classes, residents of suburban areas, who most often happened to be first-time protestors. These unexpected, inexperienced activists raise a conundrum for scholars of social movements and political participation alike, all the more so as they largely contribute to renewing the social movement repertoire as well as conceptions of citizenship. In order to account for first-time protestors’ crucial commitment, we build a case for a very qualitative method, namely life histories.

Since the emergence of the Yellow Vests movement in November 2018, the first fieldwork-based investigations have resorted to questionnaires and ethnographic observations that have aptly revealed the composite nature of the movement. However, these methods have left unanswered the question of first-time protestors’ reasons for engagement and disengagement, and have told us very little about the consequences of such a commitment on individuals’ life course as well as on the movement itself, its shape and its dynamics. We argue that, provided they are inserted in long-term immersion in the field, in-depth biographical interviews can prove to be a potent tool for political scientists confronted with the renewal of protest.

Based on a thorough methodological discussion, we highlight three main contributions of the biographical approach to the scholarship on social movements and citizenship. First, we argue that this method offers insights into how individuals became Yellow Vests and how their commitment in an extraordinary conjuncture affected their life course and their relation to politics. Second, we showcase how this very qualitative method can yield extensive knowledge of the movement itself, its sociability networks, its action repertoire and its framing process. It also gives access to its structure and temporalities, as well as to what made protest last and decline. Lastly, by putting the Yellow Vests movement in perspective with recent mass protests in France and beyond, we delineate the social transformations affecting present-day France – its protest repertoire, conceptions of law enforcement, and political cleavages.

Authors

• Emmanuelle Reungoat, Université de MONTPELLIER-CEPEL

• François Buton, National center for scientific research (CNRS France)

• Cecile Jouhanneau, University Paul Valery Montpellier