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Web End = The Gandhian Repertoire as Transformative Invention
Sean Chabot
How do people who want to fight oppression decide which protest methods to use? How do they know which strategies for interacting with authorities and wider publics will work? How do they know which organizational styles will allow for strong coalitions and mass mobilization? How do they know which forms of communication will resonate among fellow activists, bystanders, and rulers? Social movement scholars commonly employ the concept of contentious repertoire to respond to these questions. They suggest that people within specific contexts have access to a limited set of protest methods that they have learned from past struggles. This repertoire emerges from activities in everyday life and includes familiar ways of challenging powerful institutions, constraining what activists are capable of doing within particular circumstances. Although participants constantly improvise in the heat of contentious events, they follow shared scripts that prescribe their choices, expectations, and performances.
Most social movement scholars agree that major shifts in contentious repertoire are very rare. Charles Tilly, who introduced the concept, argues that the main transformation took place in Europe, especially in Great Britain and France, between the 1750s and 1830s. While the old repertoire generally produced sporadic localized actions like food seizures and attacks on property, the new repertoire enabled large-scale direct actions like national strikes and mass marches. According to Tilly, the latter set of protest methods continues to shape contemporary social movements
18, 3: 327367
DOI 10.1007/s11407-014-9165-7
International Journal of Hindu Studies 18, 3: 329369 2014 Springer
DOI
330 / Sean Chabot
across the world, although in diverse ways. While the specifics of current social movement repertoires varydue to the distinct characteristics of its causes, participants, and contextstheir basic dynamics are remarkably similar to those of repertoires that emerged during the nineteenth century.
The main purpose of this paper is to apply the contentious repertoire concept to the Gandhian protest methods that evolved in South Africa and India. I gratefully take advantage of Tillys groundbreaking work on this subject. But I also challenge him by arguing that...