Temporal repertoires in contemporary activism: The cases of Fridays for Future, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and ‘It’s Thursday Again!’

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes the novel concept of ‘temporal activist repertoires’ (TAR) defined as the intentional and meaningful selection and use of temporal elements, such as time frame, timing, tempo, duration, and temporality in collective action’s tactics and frames. Collectives thereby draw on culturally resonant temporal references to interweave the symbolic and strategic choices in making their demands, organising political action and/or sustaining commitment to the political cause. To answer the question of how social movements use TAR and how these are positioned alongside other repertoires of contention, the paper analyses: the global Fridays for the Future and 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, and the Austrian ‘It’s Thursday Again!’. The paper shows that the innovative potential of TAR is linked to the use of technologically advanced media tools for the purposes of coordination, pressure, recruitment, mobilisation and visibility, as well as for the adaptations that these movements require, which include strategies to build on past traditions and/or to connect with currently existing allied movements.

KEYWORDS:

• Temporal activist repertoires
• temporality
• time
• social movements
• ‘Fridays for Future’
• ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’
• ‘It’s Thursday Again!’

Introduction

To protest against the ruling centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) coalition in 2017–2019, various opposition groups organised weekly Thursday demonstrations in Austrian cities. During this winter of 2018/2019, I lived between Graz and Budapest, and for each of my work visits to Graz, I expected weekly demonstrations in the city centre. On the one hand, this regularity and predictability allowed me to fit observations of the protests into the rest of my schedule. On the other hand, knowing that the protests would be repeated next week, I was inclined to postpone my visit, as I assume, other participants would do. So, as I watched these events unfold, I could not help but wonder about the leverage these protests have in being scheduled on a particular day of the week.

In describing the organisation of protest activities and the ‘set of means’ (della Porta, 2022) that a social movement, such as the aforementioned ‘It’s Thursday Again!’, has at its disposal to advance its claims, Charles Tilly (1986, p. 4) influentially proposed the use of the term ‘repertoires (of contention)’. Since then, scholars of social movements have widely adopted and developed the notion of ‘repertoires’ to describe ‘culturally encoded ways in which people interact in contentious politics’ (McAdam et al., 2001, p. 16) as well as to specify the type of means which activists employ. These means may concern, for instance, ‘associational and action repertoires’ (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015, p. 120), ‘tactical repertoires’ (Taylor & Van Dyke, 2007); ‘emotional repertoires’ (Goodwin et al., 2009), ‘repertoires of knowledge practices’ (della Porta & Pavan, 2017); or ‘electronic repertoires of contention’ (Rolfe, 2005).

Despite the central but implicit role of time as a dimension that cuts across all of the above repertoires, more general accounts of groups’ efforts to explicitly use temporal references and temporal arrangements as part of contentious politics have only recently begun to be elaborated. To advance our understanding of the more general use of time and temporality in political protest, this paper brings the existing literature on repertoires of contention into conversation with that on time and temporality in social movements. As a result, the paper proposes the concept of ‘temporal activist repertoires’ (TAR) defined as the intentional and meaningful selection and use of temporal elements, such as time frame, timing, tempo, duration, and temporality, in collective action’s tactics and frames.¹ Collectives thereby draw on culturally resonant temporal references to interweave the symbolic and strategic choices in making their demands, organising political action and/or sustaining commitment to the political cause. This contribution responds to Birgan Gokmenoglu’s (2022) call for the development of a ‘conceptual apparatus that takes time as an element of power’ and consequently, a political sociology of time.

To answer the question of how social movements use TAR and how they are positioned within other movements’ repertoires, this paper closely analyses three different social movements which make explicit references to time and temporality already in their titles: the global Fridays for Future (#FridaysforFuture, since 2018); the transnational 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (#16Days) (since 1991); and the Austrian-based ‘It’s Thursday Again!’, which originated in 2000 as the ‘Thursday Demonstrations’ and was reactivated between 2018 and 2019. In short, this study argues that movements use TAR in times of global and social media-fuelled activism for strategic purposes to synchronise the actions of geographically dispersed activists, achieve recognisability, exert pressure, mobilise and create a distinctive protest signature, but also to build a basis of affective attachment to the political cause by working at the symbolic and discursive levels.

The paper is structured to firstly, bring into conversation the literature on the repertoires of contention, on the one hand, and the literature that addresses questions of time and temporality in relation to social movements and collective action, on the other hand. Secondly, the paper illustrates three case studies – that of #FridaysForFuture, #16Days and ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ – first in their descriptive dimensions and then in their analytical dimensions in relation to the use of time and temporal repertoires. Thirdly, the paper compares the examples at two basic identified levels – those of tactics and frames – and in their respective subcategories, including coordination, pressure, and recognisability, as well as motivation and temporal positioning. Finally, the paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the findings in the context of current discussions on innovation and adaptability of contemporary social movements and protest politics.

Repertoires of contention, time and temporality in social movements

Repertoires of contention

‘Repertoires (of contention)’, according to Eitan Alimi (2015) implies, first, a stock of skills and activities that a group has at its disposal and chooses to use; second, a performative dimension that suggests the audience’s receptivity to the means used; and, finally, innovation through interaction with the audience, experimentation, and imitation of other performances. To these three dimensions could be added two others recognised by scholars (e.g. McAdam et al., 2001; Rolfe, 2005; Tilly, 1986), concerning the tendency of activists to use familiar repertoires and the diffusion of successful repertoires. Repertoires thus, as Alimi (2015) further importantly emphasises, change depending on the arenas of interaction. These can be arenas within the movement, arenas between the movement and the authorities, or arenas between the movement and the general public. Specifically addressing the lack of attention to temporality in repertoires of contention, Atef Said (2022) emphasises the means of protest as well as the knowledge of those means, and proposes to consider four dimensions in a given repertoire at different moments in time, including meaning; internal composition; relationality to the regime in relation to which the repertoire is practiced; and temporal momentum. Because it is a versatile yet specific enough term capable of capturing some of the most important dimensions of protest politics, scholars of social movements and contentious action have widely adopted and developed the notion of ‘repertoires’ to describe the means that groups use in making claims (e.g. ‘organizational repertoires’ (Shoshan, 2018), ‘associational and action repertoires’ (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015, p. 120), ‘tactical repertoires’ (Taylor & Van Dyke, 2007); ‘emotional repertoires’ (Goodwin et al., 2009); ‘repertoires of knowledge practices’ (della Porta & Pavan, 2017); or ‘electronic repertoires of contention’ (Rolfe, 2005)).

Time and temporality – strategic dimensions

Though ‘time – like place – is deeply embedded in the way we think about and analyze social movements’, as Gillan and Edwards (2020, p. 502) note, general accounts of groups’ efforts to use time arrangements and temporal references in making their claims similar to the above conceptualisation of other repertoires of contention, have only recently begun to be elaborated. In other words, time used to be an implicit aspect of how we think about collective action and social movements. Concretely, McAdam and Sewell (2001, p. 90) write how the implicit temporal logic in the study of political contestation fits into three strands. The first concerns long-term processes of change (e.g. the work of Charles Tilly (e.g. 1995), or the study of the civil rights movement); the second concerns the protest cycle or cycles of contention. The third concerns short, punctuated events or episodes of contention. Despite its importance to social movements which these concepts suggest, time, as Gillan and Edwards (2020, p. 511) write, used to be rarely² ‘the explicit subject’ of social movement studies – a gap these authors have addressed in a special issue of ‘Social Movements Studies’.

In this collection, scholars addressed time and temporality in relation to different movement arenas. Kevin Gillan (2020) proposed ‘vectors’ as a new conceptual terminology ‘designed to bring temporal sensitivity to our understanding of the interplay between movements and their socio-political environments’, in particular, to account for continuity and change in the content and form of social movements over longer periods. Gillan (2020) builds on Barbara Adam’s (1998, 2008) influential work on ‘timescapes’ – which as a concept recognises the interdependence of temporality, spatiality, materiality and contextuality. Adam (2008, p. 1) lists, among others, ‘time frame’, ‘timing’, ‘tempo’, ‘temporality’ as elements of timescapes that, when brought together, create patterns of rhythmicity, periodicity and cyclicality providing us with much-needed vocabulary for a temporal analysis.

Thomas Poell (2020) examined how the rise of social media affects the temporal relations of protest communication, concretely looking at how specific temporal regimes enable or complicate protestors’ efforts to gain public legitimacy. While these two studies focus on the arenas between the movements and the general public, Merrill and Lindgren (2020) focus on intra-movement arena. The authors examined the memory of Silvio Meier, a prominent member of Berlin’s radical left scene, to conclude how different rhythms/timings fulfil a strategic function, arguing that ‘fixed and regular rhythms may fit more easily with activists’ other temporal commitments, but perhaps at the cost of reduced disruptive potential, given their easier predictability’ (in Gillan & Edwards, 2020, p. 508). Indeed, one can agree that scheduling protests and campaigns on a particular day of the week or period of time provides the predictability of a regular schedule and familiar rhythm, and as such may have served a tactical and performative function for social movement organisers and participants.

Time and temporality – symbolic and discursive dimensions

In addition to these tactical uses of time and temporality in relation to movements and their environment, and the dynamics within movements, Gillan and Edwards (2020, p. 503) recognise how ‘[d]iscursively, movements may also refer to better pasts, perhaps nostalgically, creating, reinterpreting and contesting memories of past social arrangements and conflicts’. This symbolic and discursive dimension is particularly well explored, firstly, in studies that explore the link between memory and movement and, secondly, in studies that explore the reference to the future in movement frames.

Past, memory

Systematizing the research on the nexus memory-movements, Daphi and Zamponi (2019) organise existing literature as studies of memories of movements; studies of movements about memory; and studies of memories in movements. This latter strand examines ‘how memories of different pasts influence the way movements mobilize, shaping, for example, recruitment processes, identity building or strategic choices’. As a part of this research niche, scholars, for instance, have demonstrated the role of collective memory in creating, building and sustaining collective identity (e.g. Cheng & Yuen, 2019; Louis & Mielly, 2023; Whitlinger, 2019); have portrayed the process of creating alternative collective memories (e.g. Rajevic, 2019; and Iturriaga, 2019; cf. Guenther, 2012); and have illuminated the role of memory for mobilisation purposes (e.g. Vélez-Vélez’s, 2010). To sum it up, the research on the nexus of memory and movement has provided nuanced insights that help us understand otherwise complex links between crucial elements of collective action such as emotions, narratives, and identity building, on the one hand, and past references or the memory work, on the other hand.

Future, hope

While scholars studying the nexus of memory and movements have focused on the use of past references in movement frames and discourses, contemporary climate and environmental activist groups place notions of the future at the centre of their rhetorical strategies. Soler-i-Martí et al. (2022) analysed the discourse of ‘Fridays for Future’ and found that the idea of an endangered future is at the core of this collective’s ‘emergency discourse’. ‘Fridays for Future’ used this discourse to motivate the general public to act by showing that the ‘future’ (in particular the consequences of climate change and the ecological collapse) is not far away and to instil the idea that there is hope for positive change. Similar to Soler-i-Martí et al. (2022), Anna Friberg (2022) found that the discourse centred on the future can be read to contain acts of hope and even utopian impulses in her analyses of time and temporality of ‘Earth Uprising’, ‘Extinction Rebellion’, and ‘Fridays for Future’. Knops (2023) introduces the term ‘affective temporalities’ to account for these intersections of affectivity and time that are so prominent in contemporary climate activism. While studying the generation and maintenance of hope among activists in Scotland and Turkey, Birgan Gokmenoglu and Gabriela Manley (2023) identified the crucial role of not only ‘emotion work’ (Hochschild, 1979) but also ‘time work’ (Flaherty, 2003) – defined as the collective effort to relate to the past, present and future. Gokmenoglu and Manley (2023) identified ‘narratives of time’ and ‘collective acts of hope’ as the two modes of time work. In doing so, the authors have importantly recognised the collective, affective, political and conscious elements of groups’ use of time and temporality.

To conclude, a review of the literature on time and temporality in social movements shows how an explicit understanding of temporal arrangements and regimes is necessary, first, to better understand the interactions and adaptations of movements in relation to the external arenas or the environment (e.g. Gillan, 2020; Poell, 2020). Secondly, as Merrill and Lindgren (2020) show, temporal arrangements such as predictable rhythms and schedules play an equally important role in internal arenas, in particular in relation to the internal dynamics of the group and the sustainability of the action, similar to the role that memory can have for the collective identity of movements. In addition to these strategic functions, the discourse analyses of the role of past and future references in the frames and rhetorical patterns show that time and temporality can be the carriers of the affective (‘hope’) (e.g. Gokmenoglu & Manley, 2023) and ideational (‘vernacular eschatology’, ‘post-apocalyptic’, e.g. in Friberg, 2022) registers of political action.

In other words, this review shows that time and temporality play a similar role to the action, organisational, emotional, and ideational repertoires of movements, to name a few, but have not been theorised as such. Drawing on existing studies on repertoires of contention (e.g. Alimi, 2015; McAdam et al., 2001; Rolfe, 2005; Said, 2022; Tilly, 1986) on the one hand, and time and temporality (in social movements) (e.g. Adam, 1998, 2008; Daphi & Zamponi, 2019; Friberg, 2022; Gokmenoglu & Manley, 2023; Poell, 2020; Soler-i-Martí et al., 2022) on the other, this paper proposes the concept of ‘temporal activist repertoires’ (TAR) defined as the intentional and meaningful selection and use of temporal elements, such as time frame, timing, tempo, duration, and temporality in collective action’s tactics and frames. Collectives thereby draw on culturally resonant temporal references to interweave the symbolic and strategic choices in making their demands, organising political action and/or sustaining commitment to the political cause. The concept is significant because it makes explicit these commonly implicit assumptions about time and temporality, unpacking the role these dimensions play for social movements and how they interact with other, more elaborate repertoires of contention in different arenas of contemporary political landscapes.

Case selection and research approach

To examine how social movements use TAR and how TAR are positioned along with other repertoires in movements, the sample includes three examples of contemporary political activism: transnational #FridaysforFuture, which since 2018 organises protests on Fridays, but not consistently every week everywhere, as this depends on the location and the capacities of local collectives; also transnational #16Days, which has existed annually since 1991; and local ‘Thursdays Demonstrations’, which began in 2000 and lasted until 2002, to be reactivated as weekly demonstrations between 2018 and 2019 (‘It’s Thursday Again!’) across Austrian cities. All three examples explicitly include temporal signifiers in their names. However, they differ thematically (environmental, gender equality and leftist, anti-regime), in their scope (global/local) and in their use of temporal arrangements and temporal references: #FridaysforFuture and ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ plan protest activities for a specific day of the week or month, while #16 Days plans for a period of time. In addition to the naming, ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ and #16Days partly evoke the legacy and memory of successful tactics from the past for present and future purposes; while #FridaysforFuture makes an urgent call for immediate action for the sake of the future.

The idea to study the use of temporality in social movements arose during the participant observation of the #FridaysforFuture and ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ demonstrations in Graz, Austria in 2019. In this exploratory research stage, I took notes on how the fixed schedule of these protests affected the motivation to attend the events and the perception of the movement, based on informal conversations with other visitors and self-reflection. In the second, systematic research stage, guided by a clear research question, I used observational digital ethnography of the global and local movements’ online communities and their archive as available on their official websites and social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for the campaigns in 2019 and later. The data was primarily textual (the movements’ external communication, postings, reactions, slogans, etc.) and visual (images and videos) (detailed in Table 1).

Table 1. Cases selected, methods of data collection, and type of data used for the analysis.

	Methods of data collection	Type of data
Fridays for Future	Digital ethnography	Visuals and discourse used on the official website (fridaysforfuture.org) and social media (international and local (Graz) Instagram and international Twitter) for the campaigns 2019 and later
	Participant observation	Notes, self-reflection and informal conversations with supporters during one protest event in 2019 in Graz, Austria
16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence	Digital ethnography	Official websites of the organisations involved (primarily ‘UN Women’ and ‘Global Citizen’, as the official one for this campaign no longer works) and social media activity (Instagram and Facebook following the ‘#16daysofactivism’) for the campaigns in 2019 and later
‘It’s Thursday Again!’	Digital ethnography	Visuals and discourse used on social media (Facebook:/WiederDonnerstag/) including detailed photo and video documentation of the protests across different Austrian cities
	Participant observation	Notes, photos, self-reflection and informal conversations with activists and supporters during three demonstrations (two in Graz, one in Vienna) in 2019

To analyse the collected data, I have used thematic analysis. While the analysis was mainly deductive and targeted, i.e. related to the effects of the use of time and temporal references, it had also mapped the structure of the movements, campaigning styles and modes of communication, which was used for descriptive purposes of contextualisation. The qualitative data were organised around the recurrent themes summarised in Table 2. The empirical examples confirmed what the literature review and initial observations initially suggested about how TAR could be found at the level of tactics and framing processes. However, the data helped to specify three particular forms of tactics: coordination, pressure, and recognisability, and two forms of framing: motivational and temporal positioning. These are by no means exhaustive, and future research is needed to identify other uses and forms of TAR.

Table 2. Levels and forms of temporal activist repertoires.

	Temporal activist repertoires (levels and forms)
	Tactics			Framing
	Coordination	Pressure	Recognisability	Motivational	Temporal positioning
#FridaysforFuture	Transnational (horizontal)	Strong	Strong	Strong (hope, urgency)	Present–future
#16Days	Transnational (vertical and horizontal)	Weak	Moderate	Weak (commitment, outrage)	Past–present
‘It's Thursday Again!’	Local (horizontal)	Moderate	Strong	Strong (commitment, pride)	Past–present

#FridaysForFuture

#FridaysForFuture is a ‘youth-led and -organized’ (Fridays For Future, 2023a) movement that advocates for policies to prevent climate change and promote the transition to sustainable energy resources.³ The campaign began when the then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg used a school strike in 2018 and announced that she would continue to do so every Friday until her country of origin, Sweden, would follow the Paris Agreement.⁴ Thunberg – the initiator and public face of the campaign – is accredited to call the strike #FridaysforFuture. Her call for similar actions by youth around the world has been particularly resonant and has been positively received as similar strikes have spread around the world. To illustrate the scale of mobilisation, de Moor et al. (2020, p. 4) write that ‘in September 2019, the third global climate strike organized by the Fridays for Future (FFF) protest campaign mobilized 6000 protest events in 185 countries and brought 7.6 million participants to the streets’. Some scholars describe the inspiration and mobilisation effect that Thunberg has on young adults, especially women, to join the campaign (as they make up 60% of participants, more in de Moor et al. (2020)) as the ‘Greta effect’ (Sorce, 2022). The movement is ‘particularly interesting [for] the involvement of school children and students as initiators, organizers and participants in large-scale climate activism’ (de Moor et al., 2020, p. 4). #FridaysForFuture is one of the most visible and recognisable movements in contemporary contentious politics, and it is active globally. It is therefore not surprising that it has been well-researched in terms of framing strategies, collective identity or generational dimensions.⁵

In addition to skipping school on Fridays, the movement’s website suggests alternatives to going to school:

Drop-off strike. On Fridays, strike in front of your school during morning drop-off at a visible location. Your school may or may not allow climate striking on school grounds. Silent strike. On Fridays, do not speak for all or part of the day. Maybe use a portable whiteboard to carry your message, writing something like ‘Climate Silent Strike’. (Fridays for Future, 2023d)

The excerpts of the movement’s campaigning indicate how the ‘Fridays’ – as a particular moment of protest – works on several levels of mobilisation. First, at a tactical level, the slogan #FridaysforFuture has given the movement a distinctive signature and recognisability among otherwise broadly framed climate change and environmental activism campaigns. For example, de Moor et al. (2020, p. 15) write that in several countries, the third Global Climate Strike (as a closely related campaign in terms of content) ‘simply meant another event among the increasingly commonplace climate demonstrations’. In contrast, #FridaysforFuture was a simple but recognisable slogan, suitable for use on online media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or Instagram), which de Moor et al. (2020, p. 18) identified as the most important information channel for participants. Thus, ‘Fridays’, being easily remembered and ‘twitterable’, served as a mobilisation tactic and as a tactic for coordinating the transnational dissemination of the campaign.

Combined with interpersonal mobilisation as recruitment for strikes, ‘the FFF protests became generally known as ‘normal’, inclusive and routine events taking place in the city’ (Moor et al., 2020, p. 15). In other words, the sequencing of the protests on a particular day of the week created a sense of routine, rhythm and schedule, which, we may assume, led to a sense of familiarity, predictability and security for young participants. Such findings would be in line with Merrill and Lindgren’s (2020) conclusions about the comfort of a predictable schedule that comes from knowing when the protests would take place. In other words, TAR matched well with the tactical and action repertoires of the movement.

Second, symbolically, by skipping school on Fridays, Thunberg was proposing to her fellow students a strike as a tactic that has its roots in the labour movement and that we commonly associate with past and present struggles for workers’ rights. In Thunberg’s green twist, ‘Fridays’ came to symbolise an ultimatum, a sacrifice that the youth would make until policymakers acted on the protesters’ demands. In doing so, Thunberg and other activists challenged the unquestioned consensus on the importance of children’s education. Moreover, Friday’s school strike reversed the idea of education as a form of investment in the future, proposing a protest activity as an investment in the future to which, the activists argue, there is no alternative in the current climate. On their official website, #FridaysforFuture offer the following answer to the question of why they are striking:

The answer is simple: We strike because we have no choice. We are fighting for our future and for our children’s future. We strike because there is still time to change, but time is of the essence. The sooner we act, the better our shared future will be. (Fridays for Future, 2023c)

The organisers and activists of #FridaysforFuture use time and temporal references as their main mobilisation tactic, which, in the context of their broader collective action frames focused on the present-future nexus, serve to indicate agency (‘there is still time to change’), the urgency of the proposed action (‘time is of the essence. The sooner we act, the better our common future will be’), and what is at stake if the action fails (‘We are fighting for our future and our children’s future’). In this context, skipping school on Fridays, i.e. sacrificing one day in the week, seems negligible compared to the potential cost of not doing so – which is to jeopardise their future and that of their children. Moreover, Fridays can be interpreted as a concrete response to take the necessary action – and they propose to do it as soon as possible. The play with and the use of temporal repertoires and the discursive linking of the present and the future is particularly evident in the video entitled ‘Don’t worry? 35 seconds from now you might want to help save the climate’. In this official video of the international #FridaysforFuture, images of young people (either alone or in groups) alternate with images of environmental damage. The images are accompanied by the sound of a ticking clock and (adult) voices saying ‘you should be in school’, ‘don’t worry so much’, ‘let the adults decide what’s best’, ‘your education is more important’, ‘it’ll be fine’. Both the sound of the clock and the voice of the adults gradually accelerate, while the images of nature in distress become more dramatic. The symbolic play with temporality made up the crucial part of the #FridaysforFuture collective action frames and what Soler-i-Martí et al. (2022) identified as an ‘emergency discourse’ and movement’s emotional repertoires that related present action (current Fridays) as an investment to save the future.

Hence, the appeal of the Friday strike is that it is a tangible form of action, i.e. something concrete that individuals and groups can do in relation to a problem of almost unprecedented proportions. As such, this act is juxtaposed with the bleak scientific prospects for improvement and the political stalemate as policy makers, but also citizens, face a collective action problem. The ‘Fridays’ can therefore be interpreted to offer a source of positive effect, in particular of hope (cf. Friberg, 2022; Gokmenoglu & Manley, 2023), which would counterbalance the otherwise discouraging contextual factors on which the fulfilment of the movements’ demands depends.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international awareness-raising campaign that takes place between two other symbolic anniversaries: 25th of November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and 10th of December, Human Rights Day. The campaign was initiated by activists at the opening of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 (UN Women, 2023). Leah Rodriguez (2022) writes that since its beginnings more than 6000 organisations from some 187 countries have participated (along with numerous individuals), and ‘it’s the longest-running women’s rights campaign in the world’. The aims and objectives of the campaign include ‘[t]aking action to fight for sexual and reproductive health and rights and women’s economic empowerment – both of which are critical in the fight against gender-based violence’ (Mobe et al., 2022).

The 16-day period, as an example of TAR in this case, works on several levels. To begin with, online archives demonstrate that this global campaign gathers a striking variety of actors and tactics together. Namely, reactions and contributions under the banner of #16Days on social media came from individuals, local civil society groups, international agencies and governments; and thus include a myriad of organisational and action repertoires,⁶ ranging from volunteering, to education and recruitment, to participation in marches and demonstrations. Thus, firstly, on a tactical level, compressing the campaign into a 16-day period can be read as an innovative response to the challenge of coordinating a range of activities and actors globally. But it is more than just coordinating transnational actions; the 16-day period could reconcile what would otherwise be a trade-off in campaigning: on the one hand, demonstrating unity and commitment to the cause of ending gender-based violence; and on the other, bringing together not only geographically dispersed actors, but also activists and policy-makers with different ideological, generational and political approaches to the issue. In this way, in order to advance the overarching goals of the campaign, the organisers could once a year unite under a recognisable, yet broad, neutral and loose enough banner, a variety of actors and their approaches to tackling the pervasiveness of gender-based violence.

In addition, during the 16 days, not only has the issue of gender-based violence gained visibility and recognition, but so have many individuals, local movements, campaigns and groups that share the goal of ending gender-based violence and promoting gender equality. Women’s and feminist movements have been active around the world for more than a century, and today’s activist landscape is extremely diverse thematically, ideologically, generationally and geographically. Similarly to #FridaysforFuture, #16Days is a slogan that could easily be used on social media, which is the main tool of mobilisation today, and which could give visibility to the dispersed efforts of different groups. As a result, #16Days could help to raise awareness of the global existence of allied groups and the widespread nature of the issue they are addressing. For groups and individuals, it was also an opportunity to link their activities to this prominent campaign, promoting their own work, recruiting people, creating networks and new alliances.

Finally, on the symbolic level, the #16Days period is scheduled annually between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) and Human Rights Day (10 December). These two dates, symbolically linked and with global cultural resonance, mark one of the key achievements of the international women’s movement, namely the recognition and treatment of gender-based violence as a human rights issue (under the auspices of the United Nations). In this way, the organisers have included a reminder of the milestone in international efforts against gender-based violence in an otherwise random period. In this way, in addition to being a tactical innovation for coordination activities and visibility, the 16-day period also serves as a mnemonic tool, evoking past victories to motivate present and future activities.

Thursdays’ Demonstrations (‘It’s Thursday Again!’)

The first cycle of ‘Thursdays’ Demonstrations’ began in 2000 as a weekly protest campaign against the ruling coalition of the ÖVP & FPÖ. The protests were intended as resistance to what the demonstrators recognised as the FPÖ’s xenophobic and anti-Semitic stance, its position on the Nazi past and its conservative views on social policy and gender equality. The first cycle of Thursday demonstrations lasted until the end of the so-called ‘Black-Blue Coalition’ in 2002.

The protest campaign was reactivated under the slogan ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ after the ÖVP and FPÖ formed (again) the governing coalition in 2017. The second cycle of ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ demonstrations lasted from October 2018 until the collapse of the government and early elections in May 2019,⁷ as a result of the so-called ‘Ibiza Affair’. This secretly recorded video on the Spanish island of Ibiza revealed the corruption plans of Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the FPÖ, and Johann Gudenus, a deputy leader of the FPÖ.

Besides putting general pressure on the government to resign, the online archive shows how the weekly ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ demonstrations also focused on a different issue each week, such as racism, sexism, gender-based violence, care work, undocumented work, poverty, education or housing, utopias, children’s rights, or cultural work. Each protest would include speeches by experts on the weekly theme as well as testimonies from ordinary people directly affected by the issue. The demonstrations were organised by individuals and various left-wing groups. Sometimes a collective took over the organisation of the weekly protest, such as ‘Omas Gegen Rechts’ [Grannies against Right] or the satirical art collective ‘Hysteria’. Weekly protests were active in several Austrian cities and each event was announced on its social media platform (Facebook) or with flyers showing the route planned for the demonstrations that day. The cycle of ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ protests continued until the government collapsed. The end of the right-wing coalition coalition was celebrated with a mass rally and party in Vienna featuring the pop band Vengaboys, known for their hit song ‘We’re going to Ibiza’, which became a popular tune after the affair compromising Vice-Chancellor H.C. Strache and his FPÖ party was revealed.

Firstly, on the tactical side, the scheduling of the demonstrations on Thursday was a way of connecting the diverse opposition to the right and far-right government in Austrian cities, ranging from leftist, anti-fascist, ecological, queer, feminist and anti-racist collectives to left-liberal-leaning intellectuals and artists. The organisers’ intention to come together was succinctly summed up in the motto of the protests: ‘Fix zam [gegen Rechts]’ and ‘Wir sind jetzt zusammen’ – which could be translated as ‘definitely together’. ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ became a visible and recognisable banner to unite the broad opposition, including people of different generations, ethnic and class backgrounds and ideological profiles, making them aware of each other’s existence and encouraging them to organise and/or participate in demonstrations. In this sense, the scheduling of the protest activity on a particular day of the week provided a platform for an ad hoc collation of otherwise fragmented oppositional groups.

Moreover, the predictable timing gave the protest cycle a regularity, a schedule and a rhythm. This not only facilitated communication, public relations and mobilisation strategies, but also served as a way to demonstrate a united front against the politics represented and promoted by the political parties and to show commitment to the cause by showing up regularly. During the winter of 2018/2019, ‘It’s Thursday again!’ became a regular event, ‘almost a tradition’ in the urban life of Austrian cities such as Vienna, Graz or Linz. Ultimately, we can interpret ‘It’s Thursday again!’ to have served the function of a ‘counterpublic’ (Felski, 1989; Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2002) by scrutinising the government’s moves on a weekly basis, talking about the issues that counterbalance the government’s discourse and agenda-setting intentions, and also giving a voice to those directly affected.

Secondly, on the level of frames and at the symbolical level, ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ of 2018/2019 intentionally revived the memory of the successful anti-government demonstrations of 2000. By explicitly referring to the repetition of the action (‘again’), the latest campaign capitalised on the memory of the previous protest cycle, which also took place on Thursdays from the moment the Black-Blue Coalition came to power in 2000 until its end in 2002. In this sense, ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ functioned as a form of counterpublic to strengthen the public memory of these events, especially to make the younger generation aware of the past. This memory of the successful previous cycle also served as a mobilisation tool. In this case, the slogan ‘Borrowing the optimism from the past’⁸ can be used to describe the activists’ anchoring of the motivational framework in the past in order to inspire and encourage present and future activities (cf. Lazar’s (2014) work on historical narratives of action in social movements). As slogans of the moment indicate, e.g. ‘Kurz⁹ muss weg!’ [Kurz Must Leave!], ‘Widerstand!’ [Resistance!] ‘Nie wieder Schwarz-Blau’ [Never again Black-Blue Coalition], one understands that the emotional attachment to the movement’s cause was fuelled by indignation at the political programme and profile of the parties in power, or by fear of what might happen if their agendas were implemented.

However, by placing the slogan ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ at the centre of the demonstrations, the organisers channelled the emotional attachment to the feelings of pride and optimism that could have been drawn from the success and strength of the previous cycle of protests that had led to the overthrow of the right-wing government. In other words, TAR, which included the memory of the previous cycle and the planning of protest activities in a regular rhythm, added to the emotional repertoires that combined committed indignation with positive affect, such as fun, playfulness, wit and humour. The latter was evident in the concerts, performances and DJ sets that accompanied most of the events. The most illustrative example is the Vengaboys concert, where activists combined the playful and colourful aesthetics of glitter and confetti with a sarcastic reference to the beach, poking fun at the politicians involved in the ‘Ibiza Affair’.

Comparison of different dimensions of temporal activist repertoires

The cases of #FridaysforFuture, #16Day, ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ as examples of TAR for scheduling protest activities on a particular day, a period of days, and implying links with past and future events, show how the use of time and temporality has worked at the levels of collective action tactics and frames. We could see how hereby strategic and symbolic functions were intertwined and how TAR was combined with other repertoires of contention (action, emotional, ideational, etc.).

On the tactical side, the salient roles that TAR played in the movements studied concern pressure, coordination and recognisability. While these can be identified in all three examples, they differ in extent, quality and type. The use of TAR as a pressure tactic is very strong in the example of #FridaysforFuture, where ‘Friday ‘and ‘Future’ is used as a form of strike and pressure, as young people do not go to school on that day, but instead protest physically in organised marches, or if they stay in school, practice some other form of disobedience. The strike acts as a kind of ultimatum from the young people to the politicians to make the necessary changes to prevent future climate change. The impression of an ultimatum is reinforced by the prominent use of (future) time in the framing of the movement, in which the louder and faster sounds of a ticking clock warn of a bleak future if action is not taken immediately. The use of temporal windows of action in the #16Days example can be understood as a weak pressure tactic, at least for the analysed period. Rather, it is an opportunity to demonstrate the unity of different global actions for the same cause, which is raising awareness and creating solutions to prevent gender-based violence. ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ also used scheduling a protest on a particular day as a form of pressure, but less as an ultimatum or strike (as in #FridaysforFuture), and more to demonstrate the unity of opposition to the government and its commitment to resisting its policies and agenda.

All three examples used TAR as a coordination tactic. In the case of #FridaysforFuture, activists were able to coordinate transnational protest activities across different countries and cities. The coordination was done through the use of social media channels and was mostly horizontal – in the sense that it brought together collectives and individuals all over the world. In the case of #16Days, coordination also works to unite different activities and groups around the world under one banner, but it also implies vertical coordination – bringing together individuals, groups, policy agencies, and government bodies in action. In the case of ‘It’s Thursday Again!’, the organisers are using social media channels to coordinate local activities horizontally, i.e. across different Austrian cities. In other words, TAR helps synchronise the actions of geographically dispersed activists. This comes through clearly in all three cases and it is a finding particularly relevant for understanding social movement strategies in the era of global and social media-fuelled activism.

All three examples used TAR as an innovation in their protest repertoires, which primarily gave their campaign recognisability, a distinctive signature and a routine. In the case of #FridaysforFuture, ‘Friday’ became a distinctive signature that made the campaign stand out among the many similar existing examples of environmental activism. In a second step, it also created a possibility to gather similar activities under one umbrella. During this period, #16days would bring together under one banner countless groups, individuals and organisations working on gender-based violence through a variety of activities. In the case of ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ – this particular day of the week has served to gather the otherwise fragmented (ideological, generational, class and ethnic) opposition to the far-right government’s political programme in a form of ad hoc coalition that draws its strength from unity (‘Fix-zam!’).

On the symbolic level, dedicating a day/a period of days to a protest activity can be interpreted as collectives’ way to motivate and offer a sense of tangibility of action in the face of an otherwise overwhelming problem that is beyond the control of a single individual or group, and which as such can feel paralysing and prevent people from joining in the common action. This is present in all three cases but to different degrees. It is most salient in the case of #FridaysforFuture, where this one-day-a-week strike may have given participants a sense of hope that something can be done to change the threatening prospects of climate change. This dimension was less pronounced but still present in the case of ‘It’s Thursday Again!’. In the case of #16Days, this dimension was comparatively weak, as the time frame of 16 days tended to bring together already existing actions, rather than triggering entirely new ones.

Finally, these movements and campaigns have explicitly integrated the dimension of time into their discourse and collective action frames. ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ and, to a lesser extent, #16Days use TAR in their mnemonic function. Specifically, ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ evoked the pattern of the previous successful cycle and built on that memory to evoke the sense of optimism and hope of the action that motivated participants to join the protest, giving it a distinctive mix of affective repertoires (cf. ‘affective temporalities’ in Knops, 2023) that combine resolute outrage with humour and fun. #16Days, for placing the campaign period between two symbolic dates, also evokes pride and motivates the current action with the memory of the previous success, but this was less visible in the activists’ use of social media and generally in the framing of the campaign. #FridaysforFuture had strong future references, as this campaign primarily motivated people to act by urging them to act for a better/livable future for themselves and their children.

Conclusion

The cases of #FridaysForFuture, #16Days and ‘It’s Thursday Again!’ illustrate the ways in which activists have used TAR for the purposes of coordination, pressure, recognisability, mobilisation and motivation for political action. This paper argues that activists use TAR not only to contextualise contemporary action in relation to past and future dimensions but also to perform some of the essential functions for social movements. At the tactical level, TAR functioned to coordinate transnationally or locally, and vertically and/or horizontally; as tactics to exert pressure (on the targets of the movement’s demands), and to demonstrate commitment and unity. At the level of frames, TAR were used to create a sense of tangible contribution that an individual could make to the movement’s cause and motivate for doing so; and a way to evoke hope and optimism about the usefulness of action which would counterbalance the possible paralysis of action. Furthermore, at the symbolic level, the temporal repertoires have created emotional links to the past (‘It’s Thursday Again!’, #16Days) and/or the future (#FridaysForFuture). By situating the current actions within a broader ‘historical narrative’ (Lazar, 2014) of a movement, TAR laid the groundwork for the tactical and emotional repertoires – fear and urgency for the future (#FridaysForFuture), or pride in the previous cycle and determinism that things can be changed (‘It’s Thursday Again!’).

Paradoxically, despite using the generic reference to the regular day of the week in the name rather than some of the ideological or content-based markers, these campaigns have gained in recognisability and a distinctive signature. In understanding contemporary political action in times of hashtag activism, which often builds on existing traditions of the past, TAR can be used either to stand out among similar existing campaigns or to unite dispersed individuals, groups and actions. Thus, the innovative potential of TAR concerns not only the use of technologically advanced media tools for coordination, pressure, recruitment, mobilisation and visibility but also the adaptations that these movements require, which include strategies to build on past traditions and/or to connect with currently existing allied movements. This is all the more relevant when we consider the increasingly ‘glocal’ nature of contemporary movements, which implies the diffusion of global movements into local contexts and the coordination of activities taking place simultaneously in different geopolitical, cultural and linguistic contexts. Future studies are needed that test further forms and functions of TAR for other examples of collective action and social movements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Collective action frames are ‘action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization’, while framing refers to ‘signifying work or meaning construction’; it is an ‘active, processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 614).

2 An exception would be Misgav and Fenster’s (2018) study of the Mizrahi feminist movement, in which the authors identify ‘daily activism’ and ‘anecdotal activism’, which they recognise as part of what they call ‘temporal activism’. The former refers to socio-cultural activities (such as meetings, exhibitions, public lectures and parties), while the latter refers to protest encampment activities.

3 In the Lausanne Declaration of August 2019, 400 climate activists from 38 countries set out their demands: ‘Keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. Ensure climate justice and equity. Listen to the best united science currently available’ (Fridays For Future, 2023b). In other words, the movement’s demands relate to concrete policy measures as well as to a general change in attitudes and approaches to environmental issues. In formulating their demands, activists strongly appeal to scientific rigor.

4 ‘The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”’ (United Nations – Climate Change, 2023).

5 #FridaysforFuture has been studied in terms of framing (e.g. Buzogány & Scherhaufer, 2022; Huttunen, 2021; Svensson & Wahlström, 2023) and discourse on emergency and hope (Soler-i-Martí et al., 2022); the role of the leadership (Greta Thunberg) (Sorce, 2022) and collective identity formation (Brünker et al., 2019); in terms of social composions (della Porta & Portos, 2023) with the special focus on generational change/cohorts (de Moor et al., 2021; Huttunen, 2021; Sommer et al., 2019); as one of the signs of recent ‘repoliticisation’ trend (Blühdorn & Deflorian, 2021); for interdependency of online and offline activism (Soler i Martí et al., 2020); in terms of the campaign’s influence on the political attitudes of young Adults (Parth et al., 2020); and in terms of political party reactions to the campaign (Berker & Pollex, 2021).

6 Tshiamo Mobe et al. (2022), from the Global Citizen initiative, list the following ways to get involved in #16Days campaign: as a volunteer, be an advocate on social media, Join in Global Citizen’s #16Days journey of action, donate to an organization supporting survivors of GBV [Gender Based Violence], educate yourself on gender-based violence, spot the signs of GBV and know how to help, take action with Global Citizen, show up in person (demonstrations, marches, protests), get your friends and family involved too.

7 Same name protest continues occasionally as part of LGBTQ+ event or Fridays for Future.

8 The phrase is used as the title of the artist Sonja Gang’s exhibition ‘I borrowed optimism from the past’, which took place from 19 May to 18 June 2020 at the ‘Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst und Medien’, Graz, Austria.

9 Sebastian Kurz was a chancellor of Austria in the period 2017–2019, and 2020–2021.