Non-Participants’ Impact on Protesters Tracing the Forgotten Story of the Outsider Helpers
Description of Topic It is clearly established that relationships are an important mechanism for bringing individuals into a social movement (McAdam, 1986), but how they impact participation in protests has been debated, and arguably misunderstood. Previous research has mostly examined protest relationships in the context of how active protest participants use these relationships to recruit non-participants into protests. The literature has failed to investigate thoroughly these non-participants who, despite friendships or close ties to protestors, remain uninvolved. Although technically “non-participants”, they …show more content…
Yet while past literature has focused on how relationships galvanize non-participants to participate, it has largely ignored how these non-participants impact active participants. This research will attempt to fill that gap in the literature and dissect how non-participants affect protestors’ biographical availability. Specifically, I am looking to see if and how these non-participants can assist protestors by making protestors more biographically available. I will examine this potential phenomenon, of the non-participant supporting the protester, through three lenses.
1. Emotional support- Protests are stressful environments and emotionally draining. I believe that protestors will draw on their closest friends and family, whether or not they are protest participants, as resources for discussing and releasing general feelings around the protest. This will increase protestors’ BA by freeing them up emotionally to protest.
2. Aid with time-The hours spent protesting or organizing protests are hours lost doing something else. I expect that protestors will use their closest non-participant friends and family to fill those time gaps. For example, these outside the protest relationships could make a meal or babysit a protestor’s child, thus increasing the protestor’s
Description of Topic It is clearly established that relationships are an important mechanism for bringing individuals into a social movement (McAdam, 1986), but how they impact participation in protests has been debated, and arguably misunderstood. Previous research has mostly examined protest relationships in the context of how active protest participants use these relationships to recruit non-participants into protests. The literature has failed to investigate thoroughly these non-participants who, despite friendships or close ties to protestors, remain uninvolved. Although technically “non-participants”, they …show more content…
Yet while past literature has focused on how relationships galvanize non-participants to participate, it has largely ignored how these non-participants impact active participants. This research will attempt to fill that gap in the literature and dissect how non-participants affect protestors’ biographical availability. Specifically, I am looking to see if and how these non-participants can assist protestors by making protestors more biographically available. I will examine this potential phenomenon, of the non-participant supporting the protester, through three lenses.
1. Emotional support- Protests are stressful environments and emotionally draining. I believe that protestors will draw on their closest friends and family, whether or not they are protest participants, as resources for discussing and releasing general feelings around the protest. This will increase protestors’ BA by freeing them up emotionally to protest.
2. Aid with time-The hours spent protesting or organizing protests are hours lost doing something else. I expect that protestors will use their closest non-participant friends and family to fill those time gaps. For example, these outside the protest relationships could make a meal or babysit a protestor’s child, thus increasing the protestor’s