2025 UTokyo LAINAC Research Workshop “Transcontinental dialogue on social movements, popular protests, and contentious politics in Asia and Latin America”

September 29 (Monday)
Inamori Center, Kyoto University/ 京都大学稲盛財団記念館大会議室
Kyoto University, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Campus/ 京都大学薬学部構内
(University Map (look for #64))
(Google Map)
*No water bottles or coffee facilities will be provided, so please bring your bottles/cups to the site.

(Director of UTokyo LAINAC and Professor of Department of Area Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo/ 東京大学大学院総合文化研究科地域文化研究専攻教授・UTokyo LAINACセンター長)

Transcontinental dialogue on social movements, popular protests, and contentious politics in Asia and Latin America: An Introduction

(Abstract) This session serves as an introduction to this kickoff event. The genesis of this initiative dates back to the 2022 LASA/Asia workshop “Debating Social Movements, Protest and Contentious Dynamics across Asia and Latin America” in which Federico M. Rossi, Yoojin Koo, Nicolás Somma, and Takeshi Wada, among others, got together (see “017//INT-Workshop” on pages 18-19). I will explain the process that led to the organization of this workshop.
Following the introduction of the brief history of the project, I will outline the objectives and overview of this research. The aim of this workshop is to foster collaboration between researchers from Asia and Latin America while encouraging the participation of early-career researchers and graduate students. The specific goal of this project is to co-author research papers on various aspects of social movements, protests, and contentious politics in Asia and Latin America. I will present several ideas as a starting point for discussions on how we might achieve these objectives through this workshop.
Furthermore, participants who are not scheduled to present in this workshop will be asked to briefly introduce themselves. Some of them are expected to present their research findings at the forthcoming 2nd Japan-Latin America Academic Conference, which follows this workshop. Subsequently, I will introduce my research, which primarily focuses on popular protests in Mexico.
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(Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of São Paulo and Coordinator of the research group on Political Institutions and Social Movements at Cebrap (Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning), Brazil)

Contentious Politics in Brazil: Transnational Repertoires, Movement-Countermovement Dynamics and Political Violence

(Abstract) This presentation examines three interconnected research projects on Brazilian contentious politics: one on Brazil’s abolitionist movement (1868-1888), the second on the 2013 cycle of protest, and the third on contemporary political assassinations (2003-2023).
The first project resulted in a book arguing that the movement for the abolition of slavery was Brazil’s first national social movement, challenging conventional narratives that focus primarily on economic factors and elite politics as explanations for the end of slavery. Using a relational approach and a comprehensive dataset of 2,214 mobilization events across 246 cities, this research demonstrates how Brazilian abolitionists adapted Anglo-American repertoires to local conditions while producing transnational networks that resulted in “boomerang effects” on the national state. The movement’s strategies vary across five distinct phases, accordingly to shifts in the power balances between movements, countermovements, and the state. Crucially, the research shows how foreign repertoires were appropriated not only by movements but also by countermovements and state actors, creating complex dynamics of innovation and reaction.
The second project analyzes Brazil’s largest street protests since redemocratization in June 2013, arguing against explanations that focus solely on global connections or conservative backlash. Instead, it traces these protests’ origins to Workers’ Party reform policies, which created three conflict zones around redistribution, violence, and morality. The research identifies three distinct fields of activism—neo-socialism, autonomism, and patriotism—that organized simultaneously, disputing the country´s direction in each of these zones, among themselves and with the government. The field went to the streets in June 2013 at the same time, but not as a single movement. That´s why I named it a “mosaic cycle” of protest rather. This analysis reveals how government policy agendas shape the composition and demands of street politics, and how civic networks among social elites serve as recruitment infrastructure for social movements on the left and right sides of the political spectrum.
The ongoing third project addresses a significant gap in Brazilian political sociology by systematically studying political assassination from 2003 to 2023. Combining long-term processual approaches (drawing on Elias and Tilly) with short-term interactional frameworks (following Gould), this research challenges assumptions about Brazil’s supposed pacification through democratic transition. The project tests hypotheses about political assassination and political crisis correlation, division of violent labor between political entrepreneurs and specialists, and the role of social hierarchy ambiguity in motivating lethal violence.
The three methodologies combine quantitative event analysis with qualitative case studies, relying on newspapers as a source to build comprehensive databases while employing document analysis or interviews to understand mechanisms and meaning-making processes.
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(Part-time Lecturer, Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Dokkyo University/ 獨協大学国際教養学部非常勤講師)

Collective Memory and the Politics of Protest: Towards a Transcontinental Framework for Movement Analysis

(Abstract) This presentation proposes a comparative research project on social movements in South Korea and Latin America, with a particular focus on the relationship between collective memory and contentious mobilization. In existing scholarship on Korean social movements, comparative approaches have frequently centered on Japan or Taiwan—cases justified by shared cultural contexts within East Asia and common historical experiences of Japanese colonial rule. In contrast, comparisons with Latin America pose a significant intellectual challenge, due to marked differences in geopolitical positioning and historical trajectories.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of social movement theory, there are compelling grounds for comparison between the two regions. Both have undergone periods of severe repression and resistance under authoritarian regimes, have attributed moral and political legitimacy to collective mobilization, and have seen social movements play pivotal roles in the deepening of democracy during the post-authoritarian era. Moreover, in both regions today, we observe parallel phenomena: increasing political polarization, conflicts over historical memory, and the resurgence of authoritarian nostalgia.
Recent studies have drawn attention to the impact of collective memory on the mobilizing structures, organizational identities, and tactical repertoires of social movements. Two key analytical insights have emerged: (1) public or institutionalized memory interacts—often in complex and contested ways—with the internal memory cultures of movements; and (2) collective memory may exert both facilitative and constraining effects on activism.
This presentation examines these dual effects through a review of existing research on two emblematic cases: Chile’s Día del Joven Combatiente (Day of the Young Combatant) and South Korea’s Gwangju Uprising. Both events were marked by the deaths of symbolic figures during transitional moments toward democracy, and both have remained central to the memory cultures of post-authoritarian activism. Yet, when examined side by side—a comparison rarely undertaken—these cases reveal how institutional and grassroots memory have evolved in divergent ways, shaping the contemporary dynamics of social movements in each country.
By juxtaposing these two cases, this project seeks to revisit existing conceptual frameworks for understanding the memory–mobilization nexus, and to explore the possibilities for comparative analysis across distinct cultural and political contexts. Rather than offering a finalized comparative model, the presentation aims to articulate shared analytical questions methodological challenge that can be further developed through dialogue and collaboration—particularly with scholars of Latin American memory politics and social movements.
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(Assistant Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Temporalities of Protest: Memory, Space, and Social Movements in Post-Dictatorship Chile

(Abstract) This presentation outlines a research agenda centered on the intersections of collective memory, social movements, temporality, and urban space in Chile and Latin America. Drawing on collaborative, qualitative, and empirical studies, it examines how memories of recent political violence—particularly those linked to dictatorship and human rights struggles, as well as colonial legacies—are activated, contested, and reconfigured during moments of social unrest, such as Chile’s 2019 uprising. Within this framework, urban space emerges as a key protagonist in memory conflicts. Monuments, memorials, plazas, neighborhoods, and murals function as living devices that mobilize activists, communities, and institutions, generating, inspiring, or challenging repertoires of action that reflect the contentious dimensions of collective memory.
The contribution explores phenomena such as memorialicide, iconoclasm/iconophilia, feminist counter-monuments, and, more recently, narco-mausoleums—revealing how space becomes an essential component of contested memories. It also reflects on the dynamic interplay between memory and collective action, which remains active today and increasingly intertwined with new forms of violence, including structural inequality, urban insecurity, and criminal violence. The presentation concludes by addressing the methodological and political challenges of researching memory in contexts marked by exclusion and ongoing sociopolitical transformation in Asia and Latin America.
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(Assistant Professor, Division of Arts and Sciences, College of Liberal Arts,　International Christians University, Japan)

Right-Wing Politics in Divergent Contexts: Insights from Japan and Mexico

(Abstract) In recent years, the global resurgence of right-wing movements has become one of the most striking features of contemporary politics. Since the rise of neoliberalism at the turn of the millennium, diverse social issues have surfaced as key political and social challenges, yet few would deny that the reemergence of the right (radical right/far right) has been among the most consequential. This global phenomenon highlights the need for more systematic comparative research on right-wing movements. As Payne (2023)　observes, studies of right-wing movements have largely centered on Europe and the United States, with Latin America often excluded as a comparably relevant region, while scholarship on Asia has been approached primarily through the lens of regional particularism (Higuchi 2018). Against this background, a comparative inquiry into Japan and Mexico represents a “least similar cases” design that offers the potential to generate novel insights (George and Bennett 2005).
This presentation seeks to brainstorm possible research questions: Who are the actors organizing right-wing movements in Mexico and Japan (actor-related questions)? What issues drive their mobilization (issue-related questions)? And how are these movements shaped by their relationship to political parties (movement–party relationship)? By situating one recent “movement wave” in each context—Mexico (2019–2024) and Japan (2009–2020)—the analysis will trace how Mexican right-wing movements combined elite and mass mobilization, defended neoliberal order, and positioned themselves against a liberal government, whereas in Japan right-wing movements were characterized by elite-centered networks, the separation of street-based activism from institutional politics, a focus on constitutional revision grounded in historical revisionism, and close alignment with the ruling LDP. Juxtaposing these two cases aims not to propose a finalized framework but to open new analytical questions and pathways for understanding the comparative study of right-wing politics across regions.

References
Payne, Leigh A. 2023. “Right-Wing Movements in Latin America,” in Rossi ed. The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Social Movements. Oxford University Press.
Higuchi, Naoto. 2018. “Radical Right in Japan,” in Rydgren ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford University Press.
George, Alexander L. and Andrew Bennett. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. The MIT Press.
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(Professor, Departament of Sociology, Division of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco & Level 3 Member of the National System of Researchers (SNII) Social Sciences)

The Political Participation of the Mexican Right

(Abstract) The objective of the present work is to trace the trajectory of collective action that shaped a cycle of intensified protest within the right-wing opposition during the Obrador administration. Through this, I aim to demonstrate the political repositioning of the Right in the context of the Fourth Transformation (4T).
The starting assumption is that the electoral triumph of the Juntos Haremos Historia (together we will make history) coalition in 2018 dealt a severe blow to right-wing organizations within Mexico’s political spectrum, including parties, business associations, and segments of civil society. This outcome produced profound fragmentation in resource control and the exercise of hegemonic power. Not long thereafter, some analysts suggested that the party system was undergoing a severe crisis, with signs of transition toward a new configuration. The decisive defeat of the Right in the 2024 elections confirmed this perspective.
The organization of this study traces the trajectory of what we call the Right-Wing Opposition Movement (RWOM) through the phases of a protest cycle spanning six years, from 2019—the first year of the presidential term—through the early months of 2024, its final year.
The right-wing opposition is composed primarily of a movement rooted in the middle and upper-middle classes, though its leadership is associated with organizations of the economic elite, including large and medium-sized business actors, as well as political and civic organizations. This is a new movement in the sense that it emerged as a nascent state, fundamentally as a radical opposition to the institutional social state. President López Obrador represents a clear threat to the established neoliberal order, which he has sought to reform and gradually dismantle, thereby touching upon multiple vested interests—while leaving certain institutions and interests intact.
Right-wing organizations—including business elites, corporate media, civil associations, social organizations, and political actors (both clandestine and electoral)—attempted to construct a broad unity project following their electoral debacle in the 2018 presidential elections. Social practices that combined the experiences of business actors, parties, and civic associations with long-standing trajectories were brought together in this effort. These actions could be either individual or collective, depending on the context and their inescapable relation to political power.
This trajectory is analyzed here through the protest cycle of the right-wing movement in Mexico.
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(Associate Professor, Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University)

The Age of Leaderful Mobilizations

(Abstract) Recent mass mobilizations around the world have exhibited revolutionary ambitions through remarkably decentralized and leaderful organizational structures. This talk examines how these “leaderful mobilizations” – mass movements in which ordinary citizens play a prominent role – represent a significant evolution in both practice and theory, challenging conventional understandings of leadership and organization. Drawing on comparative analysis of protest movements around the world, I demonstrate how mass revolutions share five distinctive characteristics: (1) nationwide scope with sustained mobilization; (2) revolutionary aspirations that extend beyond policy changes to demand fundamental restructuring of power; (2) social inclusivity across demographic and ideological divides; (3) distributed leadership networks operating independently from traditional opposition organizations; and (4) digital infrastructure enabling tactical spontaneity and strategic coherence. I argue that these characteristics make leaderful mobilizations severe challenges to the prevailing political orders in which they occur, leaving regime incumbents little option but to increase repression, which often backfired and further bolstered mobilization. By examining these emerging dynamics, this paper sketches what mass mobilizations look like and what outcomes they might produce in an era of digital connectivity and rising authoritarianism.
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(Professor of Political Sociology, National University of Distance Education (UNED), Spain)

A Political Economy of Social Movements and Capitalist Dynamics

(Abstract) Capitalism and the dynamics of social movements are closely related, but they are also under-theorized in social movement studies. Although many of the struggles of social movements around the world are directly or indirectly related to a socioeconomic issue, scholars of social movements in the North Atlantic have largely ignored a comprehensive analysis of the political economy of movements. This oversight is particularly troubling given that the demands of movements often include calls for alternative political-economic models and social justice, broadly conceived. However, this path taken by North Atlantic literature has not been followed in the rest of the world, where most social conflicts occur. Thus, beyond the growing interest in the North and the sustained interest in the South, the discussion of capitalism and social movements is not yet organized as a political economy of social movements. I offer a theoretical alternative with the proposal to analyze capitalism as a relational process constituted by temporal, spatial, and phenomenological dimensions. The objective is to recouple these dimensions of capitalism and social movements in dynamic terms to bring together a political economy of social movements that goes beyond the functionalist notion of grievance construction and mobilization. After proposing a new and original perspective for the analysis of social movements and capitalism, I illustrate my theoretical proposal with a study of the dynamics of social movements through the capitalist models of development that prevailed in Latin America from independence from colonial rule to the early 21st century.
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(Full-time Lecturer, Department of Area Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan)

Political and Social Outcomes of the Korean Feminist Movement: A Mixed-Methods Exploration

(Abstract) This presentation outlines a research project on the outcomes of social movements, focusing on the case of South Korea’s feminist movement, and demonstrates the effectiveness of mixed methods, which have advanced particularly in political science. While much scholarship has addressed the mobilization and development of social movements, studies on their outcomes remain relatively scarce. This is partly due to the numerous confounding factors arising from the wide range of variables surrounding social movements. Moreover, researchers have often emphasized relatively positive outcomes, paying less attention to negative consequences such as polarization.
Against this backdrop, the project examines the political and social outcomes generated by the Korean feminist movement, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. A distinctive feature of South Korea is that while general participation in social movements remains relatively limited, the frequency of events is exceptionally high. The feminist movement reflects the broader tendencies of Korean civil society—centralized and advocacy-oriented—yet also reveals distinctive local movements and expressions of interest. These movements have produced both positive and negative outcomes: they have contributed to legislative change, but they have also influenced the recent rise of anti-feminist attitudes among young men.
By integrating inter-regional comparisons, large-scale datasets constructed with machine learning, qualitative case studies, and experimental approaches, this presentation deepens theoretical inquiry into social movement outcomes while leveraging the characteristics of the Korean case. In doing so, it highlights the value of mixed methods in social movement research and demonstrates the potential contributions and implications of this project.
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(Professor Titular at the Institute of Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and Associate Researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES), Chile)

Citizenship Pacts and Urban Revolts in Latin America

(Abstract) This presentation examines the relationship between “citizenship pacts” and the dynamics of urban revolts in Latin America over the past four decades. Drawing on a preliminary study of 38 revolts, I argue that recurrent waves of contention are linked to the erosion of implicit agreements between states and citizens regarding rights, obligations, and expectations (citizen pacts). I identify four key pacts established during the democratic transitions: redistributive, meritocratic, democratic honesty, and citizen security pacts. Each has structured political legitimacy in the region, but each has also fractured under conditions of heightened inequality visibility, frustrated mobility, corruption scandals, or state failure to provide security. Revolts in Chile (2019), Colombia (2021), Brazil (2015–16), Ecuador (2019), and others illustrate these ruptures. The framework highlights how moral transgressions by political authorities act as triggers for rebellion, and how varying trajectories of pact construction and breakdown account for cross-national differences. The analysis contributes to theories of legitimacy, contentious politics, and democratic stability. More fundamentally, it raises questions to ask in comparative perspective bewteen Asia and Latin America.
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(Assistant Professor, Social Sciences, National Law School of India University, India)

Civil mobilization, institutionalizing rights and democratizing the local state in India

(Abstract) I will present on two interconnected strands of my research, which will provide an account of an evolving landscape of the state and contentious politics in India with a focus on welfare reform. Over the past two decades, India has seen an unprecedented expansion of rights-based welfare, spanning education, employment, health, and poverty alleviation which has created a legislative shift from patronage-based welfare to a rights-based framework. While traditional welfare state literature emphasizes elite-driven reform or left-aligned party politics, in the Indian case where neither explains social policy expansion in its entirety, civil society played a critical role in both initiating and institutionalizing policy change.
The first part of the presentation will focus on the role of civil mobilization in institutionalizing rights-based welfare in the early 2000s in India. In the second part, I trace how civil mobilization has sought to hold the state accountable for sustaining social policies since, to varying degrees of success. Even in the face of growing state repression in India where large scale contentious mobilizations were scaled back, strategic interventions such as engaging the court, media and the state at different levels continued. Civil society actors mobilized co-developed accountability platforms and built “user publics” that defend and sustain welfare programs at the local level and increase the political costs of reversing reforms. By bridging scholarship on social movements, policy implementation, and institutional change, this work highlights the ongoing, dynamic role of activism in shaping policy durability and developmental outcomes in India and other Global South contexts.
This discussion will gain from comparative insights across Asia and Latin America in order to develop a new theoretical framework that a) identifies mechanisms and tactics through which social movements and civil society influence social policy b) the conditions under which civil society and civil mobilisation are able to find political legitimacy and forge expansive social policy agendas and c) examines why civil mobilization succeed in certain legislative and policy-reform arenas and not others.
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(Assistant Professor, Departamento de Sociología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Chile, Chile)

Bridging the divide: Institutional and non-institutional actors in Latin America
and their political implications

(Abstract) The conventional dichotomy between institutional and non-institutional politics is insufficient for understanding the distinctive dynamics of Latin America. In practice, the boundaries between these spheres are porous, with actors frequently moving across them or forging cooperative ties. During the region’s democratic transitions, alliances between political elites, parties, and state institutions, on one side, and social movements, grassroots organizations, and activist networks, on the other, played a decisive role in shaping political trajectories. These collaborations contributed not only to policy reforms –particularly in social rights– but also to the reconfiguration of electoral alignments and patterns of competition. They further spurred the creation of participatory practices and institutions that expanded opportunities for citizen engagement and accountability. Far from peripheral, these intersections have been central to Latin American political development.
The region has also nurtured movement-based political parties, such as Brazil’s Workers’ Party, Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo, and the Frente Amplio in Chile and Uruguay. Operating as hybrid actors, they blur the line between collective action and political representation, underscoring the need to trace actors’ trajectories across arenas to understand their evolving strategies. Scholarship also highlights the importance of institutional activism, whereby actors embedded in state institutions –feminist bureaucrats, indigenous representatives, environmental advocates– advance movement agendas from within. These dynamics reveal both opportunities and tensions inherent in pursuing social change through formal channels.
Public policy has likewise reshaped movements by fostering durable activist networks. Digital participation platforms, though originally designed to improve governance, have mobilized communities of digital activists. Similarly, policies on indigenous rights, gender equality, and environmental protection have opened new spaces for collaboration, at times enabling alliances across ideological divides.
This presentation examines how social movements engage with states, parties, elections, legislatures, and emerging forms of representation, and assesses their implications for democracy and political change in Latin America and beyond.
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(Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Ritsumeikan University/ 立命館大学産業社会学部現代社会学科准教授)

Repairing Autonomy: Everyday Maintenance and the Micropolitics of Space in Japanese Shelters and Social Centers

(Abstract) The paper investigates how activists realize prefiguration and horizontality in organizing shelters and social centers. Social centers, shelters squats and other alternative places are increasingly studied as prefigurative spaces of autonomy and horizontality, yet scholarship rarely follows how these qualities are maintained through the place’s daily material adjustments, repair and other maintenance processes. Based on participant observation and interviews with participants, this study analyses how internal autonomy is generated by focusing on spatial formation in the social center including a communal kitchen, meeting areas and shelter for people experiencing housing poverty. Through a trial-and-error process of transformation of the space in response to the needs of the participants, activists continuously try to foster commonality. Moreover, they seek to ensure psychological security and create non-hierarchical relationships in their social center.
　　This study revealed the process by which participants achieved openness of space through everyday routines such as tidying, cleaning and repairing thereby promoting psychological safety and horizontal participation. When power imbalances emerged between veterans and newcomers, minority and majority, and young and elderly participants, the rearrangement of chairs in the meeting room and tidying up the kitchen and shelves helped create less hierarchical relationships between participants.
By theorising prefiguration as an iterative practice of positioning, removing and caring for objects, the study shows that social center autonomy is not fixed at the moment of spatial design but continually produced through everyday acts of repair. The argument extends social center research beyond initial occupation towards the micropolitics of ongoing maintenance.
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(Lyn Crost Professor of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology and Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University)

Social movements, the state and transformations: Comparative lessons from India and Brazil

In this final session of the workshop, Patrick Heller will introduce an overview of his research first and then summarize the discussions and accomplishments of the whole workshop. Furthermore, the workshop participants will discuss potential matchups of co-authoring, possible topics of the papers, timeline of the future collaboration.

(Abstract) Over the past 4 decades, social movements in India and Brazil have profoundly transformed the nature of the democratic state. What lessons can we draw from comparing India and Brazil? In what ways have social movements configurations been similar and different? In what ways have they impacted the state and democracy differently? How can we explain these different trajectories? What does this tell us about the capacity of social movements to deepen democracy?
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To be updated after the completion of the conference/
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