Accademic Journal: Between Resilience and Resistance: Grassroots (Economic) Activism in Times of Crisis (original) (raw)

Looking at the history of social movements, we may identify periods during which these actors have prevalently opposed the dominant power structure directly by using protest actions (i.e. conflicting and resisting the dominant socioeconomic structure), and periods in which movements have prevalently proposed and sustained forms of self-help and self-productionmutualism, economic cooperativismi.e. developing their resilience through commoning. Like in the past, the mobilizing capacity of social movements to this day is conditioned by the environment within which these actors operate. The degree of openness/closedness of political, economic and cultural opportunities not only affects the action strategies adopted by these collective actors, but also their organizational structure. In the current economic crisis, social movements simultaneously face two types of challenge: firstly, they are confronting institutions which are less able (or willing) to mediate new demands for social justice and equity from various sectors of