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My new article examines Unarmed Militancy: fierce, confrontational, property-destroying and property-repurposing forms of mass action that coexist within a larger strategy of mass mobilization. Just published in American Anthropologist. woborders.blog/unarmed-militancy/Permalink On twitter.com
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I define unarmed militancy as the use of forceful, combative tactics—such as barricades, property destruction, hands-on pushes, and thrown projectiles—in political mobilization to serve symbolic, tactical, and strategic goals.Permalink On twitter.com
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By using unarmed militant means, protesters create tactical encounters in which numerically greater but qualitatively lesser force can outlast or physically overcome a movement’s adversaries.Permalink On twitter.com
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Instead of escalating the violence of their actions, they prolonged and extended the confrontation while remaining less violent than their state adversaries. Victory came through a combination of tactical and moral advantage.Permalink On twitter.com
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The emergent civil-resistance literature has minimized or overlooked the role of combative demonstrators, including in Bolivia.Permalink On twitter.com
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Civil resistance scholars like @EricaChenoweth, @MariaJStephan conclude that armed insurgency tends to discourage participation, limit involvement based on gender and age, and erode the moral advantage unarmed protesters have in the face of government repression.Permalink On twitter.com
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CR scholars have coded unarmed militancy as "nonviolent" in their databases, but claimed publicly that it suffers from the same disadvantages as armed insurgency.Permalink On twitter.com
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My research shows that, instead, unarmed militancy is compatible w/ broad, diverse participation, and can maintain the moral high ground.Permalink On twitter.com
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Collective participation in Latin American mass protest involves collaboration across lines of class, race, and gender.Permalink On twitter.com
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And an interchange of support between unarmed militant and mass demonstration tactics.Permalink On twitter.com
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Unarmed militants claims the moral purity of nonviolence and of those victimized by state repression. They ground this moral purity not on a refusal to do harm to property and persons but on the asymmetry that exists between them and the state in the means to do harm.Permalink On twitter.com
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The contrast, for example, between stones and bullets, or between firing tear gas canister and throwing it back, is core to this moral legitimacy.Permalink On twitter.com
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Meanwhile, confrontations between unarmed militant crowds and security forces both dramatically illustrate the social conflict and inspire feelings of collective solidarity in the streets.Permalink On twitter.com
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In the melee, unlike in the meeting or even the march, each body shares the same vulnerability, has the same needs, and must engage with others on a one-to-one basis.Permalink On twitter.com
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As community leader Ángel Hurtado described it: "There, there were no left, right, or center parties, no tall or ugly, no Indian or gringo, nothing at all. All of us were one. That is what we learned as well."Permalink On twitter.com
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Such experience is “undifferentiated, egalitarian, direct, spontaneous, concrete, and unmediated,” precisely the nature of the bonds created through communitas (E. Turner 2012).Permalink On twitter.com
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Confrontational militancy is not separate from the central work of mobilizing in large numbers & demonstrating broad popular support. The bodies of unarmed militants, whether defiant, wounded, or memorialized after their death, are potent political symbols of larger collectives.On twitter.com
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That is why the symbols of many recent movements are unarmed militants fighting back. It's time for researchers on tactics to catch up and describe how this works.Permalink On twitter.com
