https://theloop.ecpr.eu/feminism-in-protest-camps-toward-a-21st-century-feminist-democracy/

As Catherine Eschle writes, "encampments are often key to creating and renewing democratic institutions. This was a focus of the ‘movements of the squares’ which included the 2011 15M encampments in Spain, the worldwide Occupy movement and the 2013 Gezi Park uprising in Turkey."

Eschle goes on to explain that "[c]amps can also be sites of democratic experimentation and possibility, because of their spatial form and because activists live in them while organising collectively."

An aspect that I would like to highlight about protest camps - or protests generally (sans encampment) - is how they are often maligned by people who adhere to other understandings of democracy, such as liberal representative ones. Instead of trying to understand what the protest is about, and trying to reflect on whether they should be supportive or against the issue/s at hand, there is a rejection of it all due to inconvenience (say Extinction Rebellion roadblocks) or modality ("this is not how democracy is done", "you are too young", "go home", etc).

In my experience, which is primarily within Anglophone countries, it feels as if the sorts of democracy borne of protests are marginal in society and I do think this impoverishes the "democraticity" (Helene Landemore's wonderful term) of such English-language/worldview dominant places.

What do you think? And, if you do not live in English-dominant places, do you feel that it is the same/worse or are the sorts of democracies borne of protests taken up more readily in your society/ies?

https://theloop.ecpr.eu/feminism-in-protest-camps-toward-a-21st-century-feminist-democracy/