The Solidarity Sing-Along and the Ineptitude of Repression

Abstract

One of the longest running protests in recent American history was a Sing-Along in the Wisconsin State Capitol Building. This daily informal gathering to sing protest songs began in 2011, then prompted a sudden wave of arrests beginning in 2013. Instead of dwindling, the protest grew in response as participants celebrated resistance, treating arrest as a local in-group status symbol. This chapter uses extended participant observation, a methodological approach rarely found in the social movement literature on repression, to study the attempted repression of this Solidarity Sing-Along. To a remarkable extent, arrests and court prosecutions were ineptly executed. This ineptitude had consequences for the protest's development. This repression was also generally mild. Examining mild repression, less often studied than severe forms, helps elaborate the range of repression's potential consequences. By showing mild repression in ethnographic detail, this chapter reveals an underappreciated messiness on the part of both repressors and repressed. The movement evolved in a messy way in response to messy repression, an evolution that is not well captured with dichotomous categories of increase versus decrease or failure versus success.

Citation

Kearney, M. (2024), "The Solidarity Sing-Along and the Ineptitude of Repression", Leitz, L. (Ed.) Strategies and Outcomes (Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Vol. 48), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-786X20240000048007