On September 12, 2024, Colin Wayne Leach, professor of psychology and Africana studies, published new research in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, alongside Barnard postdoctoral scholar Dr. Shaunette T. Ferguson and European collaborator Cátia P. Teixeira, titled “Protest now: A systems view of 21st century movements.”
Leach and his colleagues provide a comprehensive review of contemporary protests around the world. The researchers explain that protest in the 21st century spans all levels of society, from individual to collective, and social and cultural to political and economic. In light of this diverse range of protest modalities, Leach and his colleagues advocate for the importance of using a systems view when talking about contemporary movements.
To illustrate this systems view of protest, the authors analyze the scale and scope of specific 21st century protest movements, focusing on Black Lives Matter as an empirical example. They also explore the temporal trends of different international protests and attempt to conceptualize the many types and consequences of protests. Overall, Leach and his colleagues argue that applying this sort of systems perspective to the study of protest helps analyze the continuous evolution of shared visions of societal improvement.