Paper short abstract:

The proposed presentation reflects on connections between perceived failure to achieve desired political changes and activists' stories of disengagement from a movement. To do so I address to the ethnographic data collected in Minsk (Belarus) in 2015-2017 in the framework of my doctoral research.

Paper long abstract:

My research concerns with emotionality of political protests and is focused on street actions occurred in Minsk in 2015-17. Because of the apparent stability of 24-year presidency of Lukashenka's and seemingly unsuccessful and rather small protests, the Belarusian case opens a number of theoretically interesting challenges, such as a chance to reflect on emotional work associated with participation in protests that are seen as bound to fail in achieving their goals.

Indeed, scholarships on Belarusian nation, protests and political situation are saturated with the language of historical failures and deficiency. The dominant explanatory framework connects failure of Belarusians to become a "proper nation" (e.g. develop a strong national sentiment, speak Belarusian language, etc.) with unsuccessful democratization and absence of mass mobilization of opposition (e.g. Silitski 2012). These are just some examples of concepts used to define contemporary Belarus: "national failure" (Snyder 2004), "failure of democratization" (Marples 2009), "failed revolution" (Kalandadze and Orenstein 2009), and "a failure to sustain the development of social movement" (Kulakevich 2014). Moreover, my interviews with political activists in Belarus echo the presented academic narrative.

But instead of joining my voice to this perception, I would like to reflects on an emotionally charged idea of failure and inquire on how it is experienced by activists. I show that "failure" manifests itself as "burnout", "withdrawal", and "alienation" from activism and politics, it also leads to construction of a protest subject as a victim that in turn makes social and political changes unimaginable.