In the arena of national politics, there is a widespread moral expectation that citizens should be informed about politics and exert agency to “take part” rather than merely “standing by” apathetically. Especially in light of the recent (ethno-)nationalist shifts towards the right in Europe, there has been an increasing demand on people to not close their eyes to the right’s attempts to claim the streets … In ethnomethodological studies, the acquisition of “membership knowledge” is regarded as a prerequisite for being able to analyze the practices of the actors the researcher intends to study. But what kind of knowledge is there to be acquired if a crowd consists mostly of by-standers?

In this recent post for the new blog of Public Anthropologist, a journal devoted to providing a space “beyond the purely academic realm towards wider publics and counterpublics”, I reflect on having spent a Saturday in March 2019 in Paris, encountering three different types of manifestations in which I became involved as a by-stander. I argue that while the investigation of movements, resistance and direct action remains essential, we should not forget to “assume the perspectives of those on the side-lines. Because it is there that the majority of us become part of public politics.”

You can read the full blog post here.