Week 9
Written on October 6th, 2023 by Laura Weller
For de 9th week van dit project ben ik in diepteinterviews gedoken waarin ik heb geprobeerd de behoeftes van rebellen tijdens een XR protest in kaart te brengen. Dit heb ik gedaan door de volgende vragen te stellen.
- How long have you been an XR member?
- How often have you participated in actions?
- What were your reasons to join XR?
- Can you tell me in your own words how a day of a blockade passes by?
- How do you prepare yourself beforehand?
- Are there specific things you pack beforehand?
- Why do you pack these things?
- How do you dress beforehand?
- Why do you dress like that?
- Do you sometimes miss functionality in the clothing that you wear?
- What did you bring with you today and why?
- Is there anything else that we missed that you would still like to share with me?
I need to keep the interviewers anonymous. Therefore I cannot not record any of the interviews of their specific answers. What I will do is make an overview of the most interesting answers I got, with pictures of what people take along.
1. How long have you been an XR member?
All of the people that I have interviewed were a members from XR since 2020 or before.
2. How often have you participated in actions?
All of the people that I have interviewed have participated in countless actions. However, some have been more on the disruptive side, while other have been more on the background of the actions or have been part of more performative actions.
3. What were your reasons to join XR?
The reasons for people to join XR are very diverse. Some had the feeling the government was not doing enough to protect its citizens for climate change, others felt lonely and felt the need for comfort in a warm social group, while others felt the need to emotionally express their anger and fear and felt they could do this in the movement.
4. Can you tell me in your own words how a day of a blockade passes by?
How the blockade happens is often different for many people. This is also what I found back in my interviews. Generally spoken, the moment before the blockade is always very tense and the moment of arrest is very intense. The moments in between are moments of tension release. However, this is not for everyone the same.
5. How do you prepare yourself beforehand?
Preparation is done also very differently. Some already have a buddy a week before, pack their bags the night before, while others do everything last minute. Depending on their emotional status before the action, they change preparation tactics.
6. Are there specific things you pack beforehand?
People pack very different things, but a few I have seen with all of them: waterbottle, food, warm clothing + dry clothing, a phone (unless anonymous), identification + ov (unless anonymous), hoodies without strings in the hood (for cell arrest purposes), cup, signage or colorful stuff, something to use while easing the time.
7. Why do you pack these things?
There are different reasons why people pack things. Most used reasons are: comfort, practicality, imaging/esthetics, distraction/time-passing
8. How do you dress beforehand?
These answers were very different. Some people dress for good camera shots for in the media, while others dress very casual so that the police won’t follow them, while others dress very official so the police will take them serious and uses less violence, while again others dress very practical to survive for a long time on the blockade, while other go for pure comfort and warmth because the blockade is for them heavy enough as it is. Furthermore, the place/time/reason of the blockade is very decisive in what to wear. Do you want to block a company at the Zuidas in Amsterdam? Then you should wear official looking clothing, otherwise the company would not let you get into the building. Is the actions also a performative actions while blocking? Then you need to consider more esthetics or themed clothing. Do you know that there will be a watercanon during the blockade? Then you need to dress more practical with water resistant clothing.
In sum, the dressing beforehand gets effected by 2 things: first the place, time and reason of the blockade shapes what the activist wears. Second the persons vision on what he/she/they feels is their style of activism shapes what the activist wears.
9. Why do you dress like that?
As already noted in the previous question, people dress for various resons: media visibility, comfort, practicality, themes, warmth, etc.
10. Do you sometimes miss functionality in the clothing that you wear?
Almost all activist asked for more combined functionality. So for example casual clothing that can change into statement pieces. Or clothing with multiple layers, so you can be warm and cold at the same time by just changing or adding layers.
11. What did you bring with you today and why?
See here below all the items people brought with them and what their purpose was:
