Abstract
Since the early 2000's, cultural sociologists have been developing theoretical understandings and empirical applications of social performance theory. This approach challenges the economic understanding of action developed by Marx as well as the action-theoretical approach that Weber initiated and Parsons continued. In this essay, I hope to demonstrate how social performance theory can illuminate the art of protest during China's communist revolution, the mid-century American civil rights movement, and the mostly African-American protest against police violence in American cities today. Between the black protest tradition of the mid-20th century and the conditions of poor black inhabitants of the inner cities in the early 21rst century, there loomed the enormous challenge of forging new action-oriented scripts. These scripts have to be made to walk and talk, informing dramatic scenes that could appeal to, energize, and perhaps even unify citizen-audiences fragmented by race and class and demoralized by political fatalism. Strong leaders with performative gift are necessary. Successfully fusing audience, script, and actors require, as well, access to the means of symbolic production; sympathetic interpretation of ongoing performances by critics; and sufficient leverage vis-a-vis material power to block state forces from exercising repression. These disparate elements have been brought into place by the black movement against police violence that has gathered force since 2012. . Deploying the newly digital means of symbolic production, its organizers projected compelling narratives, slogans, and gestures, triggering massive African-American protest and changing American public opinion regarding police violence and racism.
Keywords:
Social performance theory; Civil society; Protest; Social movements; Political power.