Navigating identity dilemmas in protest: Everyday discursive strategies of engagement in the Catalan independence movement

Abstract

Over the past decade, large-scale protests have been pivotal in shaping institutional dynamics and triggering societal change. Despite increased academic attention, the understanding of participants' experiences remains limited. This paper argues for adopting an actor-centered perspective to gain novel insights into protest dynamics. Specifically, we focus on the everyday dilemmas of protest participation. We present the Catalan pro-independence protest cycle (2012–2020) as an instrumental case illustrating lay participants' engagement in mass demonstrations. Drawing on 30 open-ended interviews with ordinary actors, we conducted a discursive and rhetorical analysis. Our results show that, when faced with dilemmatic experiences, ordinary participants adopt various discursive strategies that allow them to both engage with and distance themselves from (part of) the movement's collective identity. Four main patterns were identified: avoiding identification with independentism, rejecting the stigmatized characterization of pro-independence participants, framing participation as non-political, and engaging in heterodox participation. Finally, we discuss the role of dilemmas in protest involvement.