Protest and the experience of time: Action as synchronizing temporalities

Abstract

This paper utilizes American pragmatism and phenomenology to illustrate that scholars must engage with both memories of the past and hopes for the future if we want to know how either influences activists’ actions in the present. A synthesis of these theoretical approaches highlights how, in the real experience of time, the past, present, and future are in constant flux and affect one another, shaping both our valuations of a moment and the actions we take. The Populist movement in the late 19th century USA illustrates how scholars should try to incorporate analyses of memories, contemporary context, and desired futures to fully understand the experiences and decisions of protesters. Engaging with time, both with the real experience of those we study and also how it affects our analyses, improves our understandings of social phenomena. By focusing on how actors attempt to synchronize disparate temporalities, we gain a clearer understanding both of the heterogeneity that composes a movement and what makes them unified into a singular social phenomenon.

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