Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance

This book focuses on small-scale mobilisation and everyday social movements that take the form of grassroots resistance and solidarity initiatives. Through a series of case studies drawn from the UK, Europe, India, and Latin America, it examines the dynamics and role of micro-acts of resistance, with attention to a range of themes including organisational issues, the construction of collective identity, strategies, tactics and participation, and media representations and public perception of small-scale social movements. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, media and communication and politics with interests in social movements, political mobilisation and activism.

"This edited collection is exceptional compared to what is usually published in the social movements’ scholarship, because it focuses on everyday micro-acts of offline and online resistance and solidarity initiatives rather than on mass mobilizations and protests".Athina Karatzogianni, Professor in Media and Communication, University of Leicester, UK"Far from the dazzling lights of global protests, a much-needed book that casts light on the myriads of practices of prefigurative politics that animate small-scale social movements across the world. Relying on a wide array of exciting case studies from both the Global North and the South, this volume reignites hope in the power of solidarity and social change in the face of uncertainty". Dr Emiliano Treré, Reader in Data Agency and Media Ecologies, Cardiff University, UK. Author of "Hybrid Media Activism" (2019), winner of the Outstanding Book Award of the ICA Interest Group ‘Activism, Communication and Social Justice’"This edited collection offers a fascinating account of everyday politics of resistance, of experiments in alternative ways of doing, working and living that receive less attention in the academic literature than spectacular protests and demonstrations. Bringing together case studies of solidarity clinics, workers’ cooperatives, metal music stores and social media activism from countries as diverse as Greece, Italy, Argentina, India, Latin America, Syria and the UK, this book shows the enduring impact of social movements when their alternative visions are applied in practice in their participants’ everyday lived experience."Dr. Anastasia Kavada, Reader in Media and Politics, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster

Stamatis Poulakidakos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Digital Media, University of Western Macedonia (UOWM). He is specialised in media monitoring, propaganda, and quantitative content analysis. He has taken part in many research projects and in various Greek and international conferences. He has authored the book Propaganda and Public Discourse. The Presentation of the MoU by the Greek Media and co-edited Media Events: A Critical Contemporary Approach. In addition, he has published papers on political communication, propaganda, refugees/immigrants, social media and the public sphere, political advertisements, social movements, and other media-related issues.Anastasia Veneti is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University. Her research lays at the intersection of media and politics, including (visual) political communication, digital political campaigning, media framing of protests and social movements, and photojournalism. Her work has been published in edited volumes and academic journals. Recent works include the co-edited collections: The Edward Elgar Handbook of Researching Visual Politics (2023), The Handbook of Digital Media in Greece. Political Communication and Journalism in Times of Crisis (2020), and Visual Political Communication (2019). She is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Media Research at Bournemouth University.Maria Rovisco is Associate Professor in Sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. She was previously a lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester. She has research interests in cosmopolitanism, new activisms, citizenship, migrant and refugee arts, and visual culture. Among her books are the co-edited volumes: Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupations of Public Space (2016), Cosmopolitanism, Religion and the Public Sphere (Routledge, 2014), and The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2017).