Between Fear and Courage: Campus Gates as Thresholds of Collective Identity in Bangladesh

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: The Power of Student and Youth Movements

Abstract

The July 2024 student uprising in Bangladesh revealed how youth perceive repression and construct political agency through encounters with ordinary spatial settings. Although the mobilization began as a demand for reform of the quota system at Dhaka University, it quickly transformed into a nationwide confrontation shaped by moral shock, emotional rupture, and institutional variation. Students across public and private universities confronted escalating violence, intense political labelling, and widespread uncertainty. This article argues that the most significant shifts in political subjectivity emerged not during major rallies but within small yet symbolically charged sites such as campus gates and adjoining pathways. These gates functioned as threshold spaces where students negotiated fear, monitored state behavior, and assessed the resolve of peers. Drawing on field observations and walk-based conversations from Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University, and Gono University, the analysis shows that students transformed hesitation into collective commitment through repeated engagement with these contested environments. The participation of private university students, particularly those at Gono University, broadened the movement and altered its national tempo by demonstrating that political action could emerge even within constrained institutional settings. The findings contribute to scholarship on contentious politics, political geography, and youth mobilization in South Asia by showing that collective identity formation is deeply rooted in spatial experience and emotional interpretation. The article concludes that understanding contemporary student movements requires attention to the intimate politics of place where courage is rehearsed, fear is recalibrated and political selves are made.

Author

• Arifur Rahaman, The University of Alabama