Theorizing Initial and Sustained Protest Participation: From Emotional Energy to Fictive Kinship

• In Event: 20861 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Explaining Movement Participation: Threats, Grievances and Emotions

Abstract

Why do people join protests, and what sustains their protest participation over time? Drawing on in-depth interviews with participants in the 2020 George Floyd protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul, this article compares the distinct motives of initial and sustained protest participation. The analysis reveals that initial protest participation was fuelled by a threefold emotional process: sadness and anger, a need for social solidarity and emotional energy generated at protest sites. By contrast, sustained participation – after more than two years of activism – was motivated by fictive kinship, that motivates protest participation either through identity-fusion of committed social movement activists or through a family-like sense of loyalty. By systematically comparing initial and sustained protest participation, the analysis reveals divergent theoretical mechanisms that underpin protest participation at different stages of activism. These findings challenge static models of protest participation and establish fictive kinship as a new concept for understanding sustained participation.

Author

• Mathis Ebbinghaus, University of Oxford