Why pro-Palestinian protests have been growing across the U.S.

Joining me now is Benjamin Abrams, deputy chair of the Sociology Network at the University College London, and he’s also a lecturer in sociology and the author of The Rise of the Masses, Spontaneous Mobilization, and Contentious Politics. Great to have you on about this. You know the war has been going on for for a long time now, so so why now? Why do you think the campus protests ignited when they did? Thank you very much, Kim. It’s great to be here. I think one of the key things to note is that this hasn’t been a single wave of protests all at the same time. Protesters are reacting to the actions of police and their campus administrations and the administrations of their student colleagues elsewhere. And they’re showing their determination to fight back against these kinds of clearances and and and the quite harsh treatment by police by digging in and protesting more. And in fact that repression has caused an increase in participation from people who maybe are not particularly radical on the issue of Palestinian solidarity but who object to seeing their fellow students brutalized or kicked out of their college spaces. But the the genesis of of this here psychologically what’s at play I I guess for many young people their sense of identity is closely related to collective action. Is that right? Absolutely. And in the context of student mobilizations, these students identify with their given campus communities. And so seeing their colleges in many senses roll back on on more friendly language, they have been using from October through to April and adopt This newly harsh stance, I think has caused the emergence of a student constituency which is being more readily mobilised by the protests and by the occupations. Students identifying as students of a university stepping out and joining those occupations. And students are of course very readily able to protest. They have a lot of what we sometimes call biographical availability. They don’t have the kind of constraints and obligations that many people have. And of course they’re located in the perfect position to go and protest on their campuses. And so when the student sorry, yeah yeah go ahead. So they they basically have the the the time to do it is what most of us are are are working. For example you know you’ve studied mass mobilizations. Are there factors that tend to make certain protest movements more or less successful that makes them sort of catch or or last? Absolutely. One of the key things when you look at the spontaneous participation of ordinary people who aren’t lifestyle activists, is that movements have to have this kind of affinity with their chosen participants. That’s to say, it’s not just about having compatible grievances or compatible political claims with a large number of people, but also fitting into those people’s life patterns, their social experiences, and also catering to their emotional needs and some of the things that drive them. And I think here these protests have really touched on that in the way that we haven’t seen in quite some time.