Direct action

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Direct action is a term for

behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a government's laws or actions) or to solve perceived problems (such as social inequality).

Direct action may include activities, often

.

It is not known when the term direct action first appeared. Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that the term and concept of direct action originated in fin de siècle France.^[2] The Industrial Workers of the World union first mentioned the term "direct action" in a publication about the 1910 Chicago strike.^[3] American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre wrote the essay "Direct Action" in 1912, offering historical examples such as the Boston Tea Party and the American anti-slavery movement, and writing that "direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it."^[4]

In his 1920 book Direct Action,

Canadian anarchist Ann Hansen, one of the Squamish Five, wrote in her book Direct Action that "the essence of direct action [...] is people fighting for themselves, rejecting those who claim to represent their true interests, whether they be revolutionaries or government officials".^[6]

Activist trainer and author Daniel Hunter states 'Nonviolent direct action are techniques outside of institutionalized behavior for waging conflict using methods of protest, noncooperation, and intervention without the use or threat of injurious force.^[7]

On April 28, 2009, Greenpeace activists, including Phil Radford, scaled a crane across the street from the Department of State, calling on world leaders to address climate change.^[9] Soon thereafter, they dropped a banner from Mount Rushmore, placing President Obama's face next to other historic presidents. The banner read: "History honors leaders. Stop global warming."^[10]

Human rights activists have used direct action in the campaign to close the

sentences.

In the United States, direct action is increasingly used to oppose the fossil fuel industry, oil drilling, pipelines, and gas power plant projects.^[12]

Direct action was taken at arms factories in the United States and the United Kingdom that supplied arms to Israel during the Gaza war.^[13][14]

Tactics

Direct action protestors may perform activities such as:

Some protestors dress in black bloc, wearing black clothing and face coverings to obscure their identities.^[22][23] Ende Gelände protestors wear matching white suits.^[24]

One of Greenpeace's tactics is to install banners in trees or at symbolic places like offices, statues, nuclear power plants.^[25]

Direct action protestors may also destroy property through actions such as

.

Some direct action groups form legal teams, addressing interactions with the law enforcement, judges, and courts.[26]^: 10, 11

Definitions of what constitutes violent or nonviolent direct action vary. Sociologist

American political scientist Gene Sharp defined nonviolent direct action as "those methods of protest, resistance, and intervention without physical violence in which the members of the nonviolent group do, or refuse to do, certain things."^[30] American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre wrote that violent direct action utilizes physical, injurious force against people or, occasionally, property.^[4]

Some activist groups, such as Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, use property destruction, arson, and sabotage and claim their acts are nonviolent as they believe that violence is harm directed toward living things.^[29]

Salt March

1930

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who used direct action tactics such as boycotts, felt that the goal of nonviolent direct action was to "create such a crisis and foster such a tension" as to demand a response.^[31]

Other terms for nonviolent direct action include civil resistance, people power, and positive action.^[38]

Fascism emphasizes direct action, including the legitimization of political violence, as a core part of its politics.^[41][42]

While radical activism has been effective as part of the civil rights movement,^[43] forceful or violent environmental sabotage (FVES) can have a "negative impact on voter attitudes toward all environmental organizations", though that effect is contingent on the organizations' prior record.^[44]

In polls conducted in the United Kingdom, two thirds of respondents supported non-violent environmental direct action, while a similar percentage believed defacing art or public monuments should be criminalized.^[45]

The question of engaging in radical protest is known as the "activist's dilemma": "activists must choose between moderate actions that are largely ignored and more extreme actions that succeed in gaining attention, but may be counterproductive to their aims as they tend to make people think less of the protesters."^[46]

• List of civil rights leaders
• List of peace activists
• Praxis (process) – Process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized
• Rebellion – Violent resistance against government
• Revolution – Rapid and fundamental political change
• Vigilantism – Civilian who undertakes law enforcement without legal authority

Bibliography

• Barry, Andrew (1999). "Demonstrations: sites and sights of direct action".
  doi:10.1080/03085149900000025
  .
• ISBN 0-7456-2936-9
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• S2CID 158569370
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• Franks, Benjamin (2003). "The Direct Action Ethic".
  ISSN 0967-3393. Archived
  from the original on 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
• LCCN 2007939198
  .
• Graham, Robert (2019). "Anarchism and the First International". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 325–342.
  S2CID 158605651
  .
• Grant, Wyn (2001). "Pressure Politics: From 'Insider' Politics to Direct Action?". Parliamentary Affairs. 54 (2): 337–348.
  doi:10.1093/parlij/54.2.337
  .
• ISBN 1-86189-122-9
  .
• Mattern, Mark (2019). "Anarchism and Art". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 589–602.
  S2CID 150145676
  .
• Ordóñez, Vicente (2018). "Direct Action". In Franks, Benjamin; Jun, Nathan; Williams, Leonard (eds.). Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach. pp. 74–85.
  ISBN 9781315683652
  .
• S2CID 158345658
  .
• Tracy, James (1996). Direct Action: Radical Pacifism from the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven.
  LCCN 96-12278. Archived
  from the original on 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
• Williams, Dana M. (2019). "Tactics: Conceptions of Social Change, Revolution, and Anarchist Organisation". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 107–124.
  S2CID 150249195
  .
• Wood, Lesley J. (2012). Direct Action, Deliberation, and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO Protests in Seattle.
  LCCN 2012003301. Archived
  from the original on 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
• Zimmer, Kenyon (2019). "Haymarket and the Rise of Syndicalism". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 353–370.
  S2CID 158225785
  .

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Direct action.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Direct action.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Direct Action

• Epstein, Barbara. Political protest and cultural revolution: Nonviolent direct action in the 1970s and 1980s. Univ of California Press, 1991.
• Graeber, David. Direct action: An ethnography. AK press, 2009.
• Kauffman, Leslie Anne. Direct action: Protest and the reinvention of American radicalism. Verso Books, 2017.
  ISBN 978-1-78478-409-6
• Hansen, Ann. Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2001.
  ISBN 978-1-902593-48-7