Geographies of Resistance and Direct Action

This chapter explores direct action as the most obvious and visible forms of resistance. Direct action refers to the use of strikes, demonstrations, or other public forms of protest rather than negotiation (or other indirect methods like voting or lobbying politicians) to achieve one’s demands. It is a category of activism in which participants act directly, ignoring established (or institutionalised) political and social procedures. We specifically focus on public protest and social unrest. In its broadest terms, protest can be defined as an expression of dissent or discontent (Fox & Bell, 2016). For the purposes of this chapter, we pay particular attention to public demonstrations and occupations as examples of protest. Protest is often regarded in geography as a more radical form of political action; however we do not seek to romanticise it, as some scholarship in this field ostensibly does. Meanwhile, social unrest is a more violent, unruly, volatile, and disoriented form of defiance and disobedience, including riots, arson, and looting. These acts have been used as more desperate efforts to demand change but are sometimes co-opted and used by more powerful interests (e.g. the far right) as vigilantism, raising questions of legitimacy in how they fit within the politics of social justice.