Protesting/Mobilizing/Not Consenting. On Some Avatars of the Sociology of Mobilizations Applied to the African Continent

This article examines the recent development of research inspired by the sociology of mobilizations on the African continent. In contrast to the new celebration of the “opening up” of African studies, and despite the interest in mobilizations, the article underlines some pitfalls of this literature, which neglects more ethnographic and historical approaches, such as “politics from below” or works on resistance. It highlights the importance of clearly distinguishing between protest, mobilization and “dissent” and of firmly linking the forms of mobilization to their social substratum. In a highly productive way for those who wish to understand transitions from below, the observers of authoritarianism and their compromises have perhaps been better placed to treat with caution the spread of the revolts like those in North Africa since the beginning of 2010.