Mobilizing the Past in Revolutionary Times: Memory, Counter‐Memory, and Nostalgia During the Lebanese Uprising

What is the role of civic norms for social change after traumatic events, and how do those norms shape collective resistance? The present study seeks to address this urgent query by examining Sicilians' culture war against the mafia. Based on rigorous ethnographic research over a period of 7 years (2016–2023), an extensive database was created, which included 77 commemorative events, a guided city tour, 54 interviews with antimafia activists, and 89 audio–visual recordings totaling 1768 min. I introduce two analytical concepts, “informative rituals” and “transmissive rituals,” that offer a new perspective on how activists leverage the civic norms of social bonds to realize their objectives. I argue that shifting civic norms in a post‐traumatic society is not only driven by collective resistance but also requires significant time in the presence of an oppressive force. This study proposes that, for a socially traumatized community attempting to shift civic norms, prolonged and strenuous endeavors are required in order to thoroughly permeate those norms among the general public. The findings demonstrate that the consolidation of civic norms within post‐traumatic societies is highly contingent upon its temporal context and sustainability, which explains why culture wars frequently necessitate a long‐term communal investment.

Section: Theorizing Civic Norms and Collective Resistance In Post‐tra...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why temporality matters in collective resistance: Shifting civic norms in a post‐traumatic society

Cayli Messina

2024

“…Consequently, social movements have been investigated in relation to their role as actors that instigate emotions (Flam 2005). Other scholars have focused on the role of emotions in driving personal decisions to join or support movements (Goodwin et al 2004), and have explored how emotions circulate and accumulate over time among protesters (Ahmed 2004(Ahmed , 2014della Porta and Tufaro 2022). With regard to refugee solidarity activism, previous scholarship has investigated the emotions and values that motivate individuals to engage in solidarity action (Milan 2018(Milan , 2019, while other studies have explored how external factors such as "soft repression" can lead to the depoliticization of the narratives of participants relating to their engagement (Maestri and Monforte 2022).…”

Section: Emotions In Collective Action: a Conceptual Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions in Action: The Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism¹^,²

Milan

2023

This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances. By bringing together scholarship on collective action with the literature on emotions, the article delves into the emotional response of sustained engagement in refugee solidarity activism. The study is based on the analysis of 40 in‐depth interviews with solidarity activists and volunteers involved in grassroots refugee solidarity initiatives along the Western Balkans route between 2015 and 2021, as well as on participant observation conducted between 2016 and 2021 in North Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The diachronic perspective presented in the article suggests that contrasting reactive emotions emerged during the initial stage of mobilization, while moral emotions were activated at a later stage. In the long run enduring affective bonds that had been formed with both solidarity peers and people on the move proved decisive for keeping individuals involved in action.

“…Della Porta and Tufaro (2022) explore the emotional work performed around protest events in the recent uprising in 2019 Lebanon, where different moments of the country's history and symbolic meanings were attributed to these and strategically used by different actors simultaneously for mobilizations and countermobilizations. The nostalgia of pre‐war Beirut (the thuwar ) and the revivification of Downtown as the vibrant social and cultural heart of the capital were part of a larger process of claim‐making about a Lebanon of the future against its segregating neoliberal urban politics forming an alternative counter‐society.…”

Section: The Golden Age and Nostalgiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Nationalism and the Politics of Nostalgia¹

Elgenius

Rydgren

2022

This article contributes to the analysis of the politics of nostalgia by focusing on its content, conditions, and mechanisms. Frame theory is used to understand the contested nature of nostalgia through the central framing of the past. We explore ways in which nostalgia relates to ethnic nationalism and populism and its close relationship to the rhetoric of the populist radical right. Components of nostalgia that stand out as particularly significant is the history of decline and loss. Whereas nostalgia is utilized by proponents of both civic and ethnic nationalism, we are particularly occupied with the ethnic substance of nationalist nostalgia. Nationalist nostalgia capitalizes on loss, idealization, and resentment and its contested nature may be brought out through diagnostic and anti-migrant frames. A central mechanism is the juxtaposition and unfavorable comparison between an idealized glorious past, a decaying present, and the creation of a utopian future, that in many ways resemble Christian narratives of fall and redemption. We therefore expect an increasing appeal of nostalgia as an orienting mechanism during unsettling times, rapid changes, and uncertain conditions. We draw upon critical cases of the radical right in Europe, and case studies from the Balkans, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United States.