Processual Configurations of Engagement in the French Yellow Vests Movement

• In Event: How TIME Matters to Movements

Abstract

Activist careers are often described as progressing through different stages. But what if activism doesn’t unfold in this way? This paper uses the life course of participants in the French Yellow Vests movement to rethink activist trajectories. Instead of treating engagement as linear careers, we conceptualize activism as an ongoing relational process, reworked through shifting ties, places, and emotional intensities.
The Yellow Vests emerged in late 2018 in opposition to a fuel-tax increase and quickly broadened into claims about social injustice and democratic renewal. The movement was never a unified actor: it brought together participants from diverse social classes and political backgrounds, including many with no prior experience of political, union, or collective action. This heterogeneity raises a core question: how do such varied biographies become aligned with a common protest banner?
Drawing on a processual perspective inspired by Norbert Elias and enriched by Andrew Abbott’s work, we develop a configurational framework to analyze (1) how pre-movement constellations of occupational, affective, and associational ties shape entry into the Yellow Vests, and (2) how these ties are reworked through mobilization, producing pathways of sustained involvement, intermittent participation, withdrawal, or reorientation. Focusing on mobilizations in South-Eastern France between late 2018 and 2021, we combine sequence analysis of life-history calendars (N=163), geometric data analysis, and life-history interviews (N=50; 22 repeated).
This mixed-methods design supports a central claim: activist trajectories cannot be reduced to typologies or discrete episodes of participation but must be understood as long-term biographical configurations evolving across multiple life spheres. We show that recurrent pathways are structured by unequal resources and networks, and that involvement is shaped not only by dispositions but also by shifting relations, spatial settings, and emotional intensities. Beyond the French case, the paper offers a transferable approach to studying biographical consequences in decentralized, anti-representative mobilizations.

Authors

• Alexandre Dafflon

• Olivier Fillieule, University of Lausanne

• Davide Morselli, University of Lausanne