Rude Awakening

Abstract

In-depth interviews of the Umbrella Movement’s “committed occupiers” show that many of them were not veteran activists that had prepared for civil disobedience. Many of them were provoked into action by what they perceived to be undue police violence. Their anger allowed them to overcome the threshold of participation. The spontaneous nature of their participation partly explains the amorphous form of the movement, which had little centralized leadership, and some of their ambivalent attitudes concerning the movement’s direction. However, the movement was a major experience of political awakening for many of these participants, which should create a new micro-cohort of participants for future movements.