The role of emotions during the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in light of repertoires

Abstract

This article examines the role of emotions during the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in the context of collective level emotions in mobilizations. Emotions are understood as a catalyst whose mechanism of action is performed through repertories. This article seeks to answer how emotions, having a triggering role, are performed through repertoires while accelerating mobilization against authoritarian orders, creating the intersection of individual and collective level emotions in public spheres of Tunisia and Egypt, and thus affecting the transnational diffusion of emotions. The significant reason to address emotions is to explain what stimulated the Arab Spring and how it spread over the region starting from Tunisia and Egypt. This article synthesizes two literatures: International Relations (IR) and social movements studies in light of emotions and components of repertoires which are as follows: collective action, collective identity, symbolic politics, network society and information politics.

Sustaining motivation: post-revolutionary oppositional consciousness among young Egyptian feminists

“…Another central concept that motivated feminists' oppositional consciousness, in particular the element in which members identified with members of the movement, was the feminists' narratives of the emotion of disappointment. Many scholars have explored the role of emotions in social movement mobilisation Polletta 2007, 2009;Hutchison and Bleiker 2014;Jasper 2011;Yang 2000), and emotions have been the focus in recent analyses of the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath (Allam 2018b;Coşkun 2019;Jumet 2017;Matthies-Boon 2017;Pearlman 2013). Allam (2018b) argues that, contrary to expectations, emotions of disappointment, guilt, and desperation can lead to resistance activists turning emotions of disappointment over the political context into action.…”

“It gave us a thrill”: Emotions, exile, and narratives of (dis)engagement among activists from Syria

“…Emotions were a recognizable part of the Arab uprisings as mass demonstrations reflected anger, joy, and pride (Ayata and Harders, 2018;Coşkun, 2019;Pearlman, 2013). In Syria, emotions did not just play a marginal role but are argued to have been one of the main drivers of the uprising (Pearlman, 2013(Pearlman, , 2016).…”