From the Student Movement to the Paro Nacional: opportunities, bases and frameworks for social mobilization in Colombia

Abstract

This article analyzes the cycle of social mobilization in Colombia between 2011 and 2021, inquiring for the changes that occurred in their actors, agendas and repertoires. It states that during this period there was an expansion of the base of social mobilization, a diversification of the demands and grievances of the protesters, and a transformation in their protest repertoires. The theoretical framework for this analysis comes from the political process and collective frames, two tools that allow us to understand the processes of creating political opportunities and the expansion of frame alignments. The information collected is based on the author’s participant observation work in different demonstrations, protests, concentrations in public squares, assemblies and debates during the period 2019-2021, and is complemented with data from the Social Struggles database of the Center for Research and Popular Education-CINEP and the Latin American Public Opinion Project of Vanderbilt University.