‘Social movement theories’ in solidarity or simply as legitimization, pacification and counterinsurgent narratives?

By reviewing the current trajectories of social movement theory (SMT) and scholarship, this piece exposes three specific dangers that exist by theorizing (progressive) social movements. The first recognizes how SMT can produce legitimizing narratives that sanitize contentious politics, reinforce liberal assumptions of ‘legitimate’ protest and render dissent legible through neat analytical categories. Second, it examines ‘scholar-activism’ within academia, considering the repercussions of professionalization of activism and the institutional incentives that reward production of movement knowledge. Third, it reviews how social movement research risks producing and enriching surveillance, open-source intelligence and counterinsurgency from state and corporate geographies, undermining movements and exposing them to (increasing) repression. Through this review, possible avenues emerge for methodological and politically engaged forms of geographical research that pursue engaged, enraged and insurgent knowledges, capable of enabling, rather than endangering, political struggles.