“Changing themselves while changing the world”: Emotions and cultural change in struggles for the defense of territory. A view from below

Abstract

In this paper I will present a proposal of analysis that will allow highlighting the cultural and social change as an outcome of the struggle in defence of the territory. I will describe the approach from below and from the viewpoint of the subject, which allow seeing the resistances from a different standpoint from the predominant ones, in which people and cultural change that they experience during the resistance are in the centre of the analysis. I will also present how the individual change is connected with social change and the relevance to incorporate emotions in the study of protest. Finally, what I intend to demonstrate in this article is that focusing on the subjects who fight, it is possible to appreciate the great emancipatory potential of these experiences.