Devraj, Megha. The Role of Imagination in Protest
2025, Analysis 85 (1): 38–47
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Henry KrahnAbstract:
Recent literature on social movements assigns a central role to the imagination. One way for activists to further their aims is through dramatic, confrontational acts of protest. I argue that transcendent imagining is key to understanding what protest does qua act of speech. A common approach to protest sees it as a speech act of condemning some feature of the socio-political world and appealing for change. While this is a helpful general template for what vocal dissent is, it is insufficient to explain what gives protests their political power. Specifically, it overlooks the fact that effective protests usually create a theatrical spectacle of norm breaking. Displays of defiance lift a constraint on how we imagine our socio-political world, and so allow us to begin reshaping it.Comment: Offers a concise and extremely clear account of how political protests engage their audience's imagination. The paper is structured around evocative examples that could provide the backbone for a productive in-class discussion.
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