Sociologists who study social movements note that the tactics available to activists are shaped by the activism that has proceeded them. We call this a “repertoire of contention,” or a set of tools available to any activist that most people in a society would recognize as “protest.” In most industrialized countries today, this repertoire includes things such as sit-ins, boycotts, strikes, and marches.
Repertoires of contention are shared and they pass from one social movement to another. The sit-in, for example, was invented by civil rights U.S. labor activists, but all types of activists use sit-ins today (perhaps most memorably by the civil rights movement). Sidney Tarrow calls this kind of tactic “modular.” It can be borrowed from one kind of activism and applied to many different causes. Similarly, protest tactics can in one country can be borrowed and applied in another, so long as the conditions for activism are similar.
I was reminded of this theory of modular protest tactics when fds and Mordicai K. sent us this link to photographs from a protest by the Alliance for Animal Rights in Russia. Like the protests PETA in the U.S. and Animals Awake in the Netherlands, this Russian protest personifies animals as (mostly) women and then displays them brutally murdered. I think the trio (Russia, the Netherlands, and the U.S.), together, is an interesting example of the way that a social movement tactic can travel transnationally.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 18
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist — August 21, 2009
PETA is only good for marching out naked, beautiful women for men to gaze at. PETA is only good for giving soft-core pornographic posters for little boys.
Oh yeah, PETA, good job for standing up for animals' rights! I'm sure the pigs, cows, and endangered animals really appreciate having naked, stupid women objectify themselves. Ohhh yeah, it's really helping the movement.
*rolls eyes*
Frowner — August 21, 2009
I dunno, I think this stuff is much more for people who get off on images of injured women than anything else. (Otherwise animals would occasionally be personified as, I don't know, old women, or non-lingerie-model women or something, since there are after all a diversity of animals in the world)
I don't particularly want to interfere in anyone's fantasy life--and the connection between people's fantasies, why those fantasies are powerful and what people actually want in real life is extremely complicated--but I object profoundly to the pretense that pictures like these are shot and distributed to advance a political cause. For pete's sake, people, be a little bit honest about why you look at the things you look at!
As far as "repertoires of contention" go, well, what I've learned in twenty years of both militant and policy-oriented activism is that "repertoires of contention" are precisely the things that politician and authorities learn to ignore/plan for/defeat pretty quickly.
maljax — August 21, 2009
It's pathetic that I have to say this, but at least there is a half naked man among all of the half naked women.
I also found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2z2lTUR5Ao&feature=fvhl
It's the Onion and it's related to the treatment of women during PETA protests, but it's sometimes a little hard to tell who exactly they are making fun of.
bork — August 21, 2009
man, these splosh fetishists are weird.
oh, wait, this is about animal rights?
meloukhia — August 21, 2009
I find it interesting to note that the women are dressed as bunnies (cute, cuddly, nonthreatening, sexualized thanks to the Playboy Bunny), while the man is dressed as a fox (cunning, savage, also sexualized, but in a very different way).
Sabriel — August 21, 2009
Headsup: the third picture comes up as the "photo" for this installment of posts in the summary of sociological images in google reader.
Not a lot you can do about that. Google probably picks a photo at random and uses it for illustration, and you did what you can hiding it behind the trigger warning tag. I wasn't triggered or anything. I just thought you should know.
People should be careful about calling the women who pose for these photo shoots "stupid." It's patronizing. Lets not assume that they don't know what they're doing. Maybe they see how it is problematic, but they have other priorities or they don't care. We don't have to think they're right, but it doesn't help to call them stupid.
It's kind of like how people treat sex workers. Patronizing. Criticize the work, not the workers.
Jay — August 21, 2009
Of course it's "much more for people who get off on images of injured women .." - that is, men - because 'social change' is a euphemism for 'change men's minds.' PETA spend tens of millions of dollars each year on non-sexist stuff, but stories like this get a disproportionate amount of coverage for what seem to be pretty obvious reasons.
Anyway, in juxtaposing sexuality (that is, women) and slaughter, PETA and the like are only borrowing tactics long present in the "marketing" of pro-meat and anti-[women|Black|Semitic] messages from the mainstream. See, for example, The Pornography of Meat (and others by Carol Adams) or Eternal Treblinka.
Village Idiot — August 21, 2009
I wonder what a counter-PETA protest would look like if the counter-protesters used PETA's tactics?
Probably like this, I'm guessing (and yes, it's weird and involves chainsaws; this kinda thing only happens in Berzerkeley):
PETA vs the Veget Aryans
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJYWHd5Cok
"By laughing you endorse the carnage!" is my favorite quote.
Liz — August 22, 2009
I love this site, but what Soc Images and the commenters never seem to remember is that PETA is just one organization within a large spectrum of animal rights activism. They're not the radical flank of the AR movement by any means, but they do use more attention-getting tactics than other AR groups. That's their thing--media attention. So sure, knock PETA for their sexist tactics. They do have a lot of them. But if I hear one more "sociologist" making sweeping generalizations about the animal rights movement or vegetarianism based on one PETA protest, I'm gonna tell Bourdieu to come back from the grave and take away your sociology membership card. ;)
Luai_lashire — August 22, 2009
I would just like to point out that this post isn't actually about a PETA protest. It's about a protest from a Russian activist group, using similar tactics to PETA's. Lisa mentioned PETA only to point out the way in which this protest illustrates the concept of repertoires of contention.
Lisa Wade, PhD — August 22, 2009
Liz,
Point taken. Fixed in the text.
Woz — August 24, 2009
Not exactly on topic, but the sit-in was most definitely NOT invented by the civil rights movements. Though many people trace it back to William Benbow, also widely credited as the originator of the general strike idea, it was popularized in the U.S. during labor struggles of the 1920s and 30s, most notably the Flint sit-down strike that created the UAW and spawned a thousands Michael Moore montage sequences.
Obviously the civil rights movement then used the tactic quite effectively, but credit where credit is due and all that...
Lisa Wade, PhD — August 24, 2009
Thanks Woz, fixed!
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