3. The Radical Possibilities of Protest
Amna Akbar
Abstract
This chapter raises four questions about the capacity of Candice Delmas’s uncivil disobedience framework to understand more radical possibilities of protest. First, protest is important not simply for its capacity to communicate with the broader public, but for its constitutive and expressive function. Second, individual acts of protest cannot be divorced from the larger organizing and social movements in which they operate. Third, a civil disobedience framework may not be compatible with movements that seek structural political, economic, and social transformation. Fourth, elevating a particular form of lawbreaking over others may pose challenges for understanding contemporary movements that seek to denaturalize criminalization altogether.