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Protest is vital form of collective work. Most, if not all, of the democratic rights that we enjoy—including democracy itself—are arguably the result of social protest. And yet it seems increasingly clear that contemporary protest is not working. This is a potentially dangerous situation: if protest is broken then positive social change is stymied. So why are protests failing? And how can we make protest work? This talk responds to these urgent questions from interdisciplinary activist perspective. I suggest both an explanation of contemporary protest failure and an alternative theory of the role of protest in the work of social change.
Micah White is a lifelong activist who co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global social movement that spread to 82 countries, while an editor of Adbusters magazine. He has been profiled by The New Yorker, The Guardian, NPR and Esquire. Micah is the author of The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution. Learn more at micahmwhite.com.