Revisiting Repertoire Transition: Women's Nakedness as Potent Protests in Nigeria and Kenya*

Abstract

The influential work of Tilly and Tarrow on social movement repertoire transitions—moving from older, local, and episodic tactics to newer, national, and sustained tactics—has contributed significantly to the development of social movements theory. This article expands Tilly and Tarrow's theoretical framework by drawing on examples from Nigeria and Kenya. First, we examine the causal factors contributing to repertoire transitions in these postcolonial African countries, highlighting the importance of colonial state formation and social networks in changing repertoires. Second, we consider how the gravity and effectiveness of women's nakedness, used by mothers as a collective action tactic to shame those targeted, persisted and maintained its significance across tactical repertoire transitions, despite colonial repression. We argue that the continuance of tactics across repertoire transitions lies in their ability to maintain symbolic resonance, which simultaneously restricts the transmission of tactics to other locations.

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