Creative Imaginaries and Action: Performing Dissent In Contemporary Social Movements

Contemporary social movements has been increasingly drawing on creative and performative forms and actions to articulate their claims, disrupt public order, and demand recognition. From climate activists gluing themselves to museum walls to feminist “die-ins” queer “kiss-ins” and staging of theatrical flash mobs, performative direct actions have become a distinctive feature of collective contention across the globe. These actions mobilize bodies, affect, and imagination alongside more conventional modes of political action. They are sociologically significant as they raise questions about the relationship between performance and political efficacy, between artistic practice and social movement strategy, and between individual biographical commitment and collective mobilization.

This panel invites contributions from diverse empirical and theoretical angles and from all world regions. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following questions: How do movements choose performative forms and what conditions shape that choice? How are creativity and artistic practice integrated into movement strategy and culture? How do audiences such as bystanders, media, institutions, opponents respond to performative direct actions, and with what consequences for the movement and its goals? What do these forms of action mean for activists themselves, in terms of identity, biography, and the experience of embodied political engagement? And how do digital environments amplify, transform, or constrain the reach and meaning of performative protest? The panel particularly welcomes comparative and cross-movement contributions, as well as work that bridges the sociology of social movements with the sociology of culture, the body, and the arts.