From the streets and squares to social movement studies: What have we learned?

Abstract

In the editors’ introduction they noted how the various mobilizations starting in 2011 raised important questions for social movement scholars. The various articles in this issue have explored the emergence, dynamics, and significance of the social mobilizations, contestations, and confrontations that started with the Arab Spring mobilizations and continue to this day. This concluding article is focused on three main aspects that emerge from the editors’ dialogue with the different contributions. The first is the context, beginning with a political-economic account of neoliberalism, the various crises of legitimacy that it has fostered over the last three decades, and the role of new media (ICTs) in engendering these mobilizations, their coordination, and globalization. The second aspect focuses on some of the characteristics of this cycle of contention, mostly the actors and their networks, identities and the new practices of occupying public space. The third and last part represents an attempt to evaluate the general trajectory of these mobilizations over the last two years.