Undeterred: How Collective Nonviolent Identity Enables Persistence Amidst Surveillance and Infiltration among New York City Direct Action Activists
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v19n2p458-477Keywords:
Direct Action, New York City, Nonviolence, Surveillance, Collective IdentityAbstract
Scholars have debated whether state repression demobilizes or radicalizes social movements, but the conditions under which nonviolent direct action groups maintain confrontational tactics despite surveillance, particularly in the post-COINTELPRO era, remain underexplored. This paper addresses this gap through a 24-month ethnography of horizontalist direct action groups in New York City, complemented by interviews, oral histories, and internal documents from the New York City Police Department. Drawing on collective identity theory, it argues that nonviolent collective identity serves as a strategic shield against surveillance and infiltration. Through public visibility, transparent protocols, and collective discipline, this nonviolent collective identity protects groups from agents provocateurs, enables recruitment and retention, and counters soft repression – allowing activists to operate openly under surveillance while refusing to abandon confrontational tactics. The paper concludes that nonviolent collective identity constitutes an adaptive mechanism that sustains resistance within hostile surveillance environments, challenging prevailing demobilization theses. These insights expand our understanding of the repression-mobilization nexus by reconceptualizing nonviolence as a strategic adaptation that enables persistence rather than passivity.
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