Creating the Impossible: The Invisible Network of Britain’s Activist Subculture

How do eco-activists in the UK manage to carry out their actions despite efforts to infiltrate them and shut down their activities?

In this piece, scholar Avery Oslo provides us with some insights. She examines the reasons that the loose-knit organization of activists is so hard to infiltrate and so capable of carrying out actions in support of its cause. She discusses their decision-making procedures and the long process of gaining consensus.

Oslo writes:

The network is invisible. The protestors operate under shared yet tacit assumptions that are blatantly obvious to anyone who lives with them for more than a month, but virtually impossible for authoritarian forces to comprehend or understand. These are the unspoken rules of protesting, and can range from something as obvious as “don’t tag another protestor on a facebook picture” to something more abstract like “borders are a state construct irrelevant to our own lives, and therefore we do not respect visas, and we protect those who are in violation of theirs.” The norms stem from a shared understanding and culture that comes from the intimacy protestors feel with one another due to confined and extraordinary living situations during an action or on a protest site.

There’s more over at the Civil Society Zine. Read the full article…