{"title":"Morocco's Hirak al-Rif Movement: \"Youths of the Neighbourhood\" as Innovative Protesters?","authors":"Ahmed Chapi","doi":"10.1285/I20356609V14I2P604","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how protesters produce new tactics by focusing specifically on Hirak Al-Rif, a protest movement which took place in Morocco in 2016–2017. Drawing on several sources (e.g. semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, live-streamed Facebook videos, and digital traces), the article shows how new tactics can derive from routine activities and, by focusing on the role of newcomers, suggests to go beyond a strictly top-down model of mobilisations. Newcomers relied on everyday routines at the neighbourhood level and amplified the dynamic of protests in a way that went beyond the initial expectations of core activists. Tactical innovations can thus be fostered through pressures and reappropriations enacted \"from below\", which bind core activists to the wider base of the movement through moral obligations. Biographical experiences, prior bonds, and the individuals' positions in the mobilisation networks also prove to be relevant matters in the plural and contingent making of tactical innovations.","PeriodicalId":45168,"journal":{"name":"Partecipazione e Conflitto","volume":"14 1","pages":"604-620"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Partecipazione e Conflitto","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I20356609V14I2P604","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article examines how protesters produce new tactics by focusing specifically on Hirak Al-Rif, a protest movement which took place in Morocco in 2016–2017. Drawing on several sources (e.g. semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, live-streamed Facebook videos, and digital traces), the article shows how new tactics can derive from routine activities and, by focusing on the role of newcomers, suggests to go beyond a strictly top-down model of mobilisations. Newcomers relied on everyday routines at the neighbourhood level and amplified the dynamic of protests in a way that went beyond the initial expectations of core activists. Tactical innovations can thus be fostered through pressures and reappropriations enacted "from below", which bind core activists to the wider base of the movement through moral obligations. Biographical experiences, prior bonds, and the individuals' positions in the mobilisation networks also prove to be relevant matters in the plural and contingent making of tactical innovations.
期刊介绍:
PArtecipazione e COnflitto [PArticipation and COnflict] is an International Journal based in Italy specialized in social and political studies. PACO houses research and studies on the transformations of politics and its key players (political parties, interest groups, social movements, associations, unions, etc.), focusing in particular on the dynamics of participation both by individuals acting in conventional ways, and by those who prefer protest-oriented repertoires of action. Special attention is also paid to the dynamics of transformation of contemporary political systems, with an eye fixed on the processes of democratization besides on the spaces opening to the new forms of governance both at local and sub-national, and supra-national level. All are inscribed in that complex phenomenon represented by the trans-nationalization of social, political and economic processes, without neglecting the nation-state dimension. The journal emphasizes innovative studies and research of high methodological rigor, treasuring of the most recent theoretical and empirical contributions in social and political sciences.