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Introduction: Looking Backward to Move Forward—Why Appreciating Tradition Can Improve Our Understanding of Modern Protest

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Protest, Popular Culture and Tradition in Modern and Contemporary Western Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

Abstract

Favretto provides a much-needed critical discussion of the scholarship on popular culture and modern collective action, and analyses the conceptual and methodological reasons for the limited attention paid so far to the influence of folk traditions such as Carnival and the charivari on modern and contemporary forms of struggle. She suggests that it would be more productive to analyse protest practices in a wider historical perspective, and to abandon the conventional distinction between pre- and post-industrial forms of collective action. As she argues, some rituals and symbols used in today’s protest action date back to pre-modern times, and their historical origins, meanings and functions need to be better understood. Her introduction also makes a strong case for a transnational approach to the study of protest repertoires within the European space. The rituals and practices discussed in the book’s chapters point to a shared European repertoire of symbols, rituals and practices with origins in a time when national state borders had little relevance, which since then have retained a strong transnational dimension.

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  1. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University, London, UK

    Ilaria Favretto

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  1. Ilaria Favretto
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Correspondence to Ilaria Favretto .

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  1. School of Social and Behavioural, Sciences Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom

    Ilaria Favretto

  2. Centre Emile Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, Pessac, France

    Xabier Itcaina

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Favretto, I. (2017). Introduction: Looking Backward to Move Forward—Why Appreciating Tradition Can Improve Our Understanding of Modern Protest. In: Favretto, I., Itcaina, X. (eds) Protest, Popular Culture and Tradition in Modern and Contemporary Western Europe. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50737-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50737-2_1

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