Exploring doing activism as a means for political action and social transformation in Germany

ABSTRACT

Activism is what people do to bring about social transformation. Yet, there is scarce research on activism and its shaping of everyday life in occupational science. Understanding activism as a product of collective doing in specific contexts can contribute to current debates about the political nature of occupation and processes of social transformation through occupation. Therefore, the aim of this study was explore the doing of activism by people in Germany who identify as activists and the ways it influences their everyday lives. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze data from semi-structured interviews with six individuals living in Germany who self-identify as activists. The analysis focussed on the doing, experiences, and tensions resulting from engagement in activism. The findings are presented through three themes: ‘Doing activism together’, ‘Doing activism versus personal/family obligations’, and ‘Doing activism around the clock’. Together, the findings present a more nuanced understanding of occupations oriented towards social transformation by illustrating how activism can raise awareness of important social issues but also take over participants’ everyday lives and create tensions with their family/work/study priorities and responsibilities. This study enriches current understandings of occupation for individual and society’s social transformation by illustrating how occupation can be used as political expression and action. The findings also contribute to debates about a tendency to focus on the positive nature of occupations, neglecting tensions and potential risks for participants and others.

激进主义是人们为实现社会转变所做的事情。然而，在生活活动科学中，很少有关于激进主义及其对日常生活造成影响的研究。将激进主义理解为特定背景下集体行动的产物，有助于当前关于生活活动的政治性质以及关于通过生活活动进行社会转变的过程的辩论。因此，本研究的目的是探索德国人的激进主义行为，以及这样的行为如何影响他们的日常生活。用解释性现象学分析 (IPA) 来分析来自对生活在德国的六名自称为激进者的个人半结构化访谈的数据。分析的重点是参与激进主义所导致的行为、经历和紧张关系。调查结果通过三个主题呈现：“一起行动”、“行动与个人/家庭义务”和“全天候行动”。总之，研究结果通过说明激进主义如何提请人们对重要社会问题的关注，但同时又占据参与者的日常生活，并导致他们的家庭/工作/学习的优先和责任方面的紧张关系，从而对以社会转型为方向的生活活动提供了更深入的理解。本研究通过说明生活活动如何被用于政治表达和行动，丰富了当前对导致个人和社会的社会转型的生活活动的理解。研究结果还会丰富倾向于关注生活活动的积极性质的辩论，而忽视参与者和其他人的紧张关系和潜在风险。

RESUME

L’activisme est ce que les gens font pour provoquer une transformation sociale. Pourtant, les recherches sur l’activisme et son influence sur la vie quotidienne sont rares dans la science de l’occupation. Comprendre l’activisme comme un produit de l'action collective dans des contextes spécifiques peut contribuer aux débats actuels sur la nature politique de l’occupation et les processus de transformation sociale par l’occupation. Par conséquent, l'objectif de cette étude était d'explorer la pratique de l'activisme par des personnes en Allemagne qui s'identifient comme activistes et la manière dont elle influence leur vie quotidienne. Une analyse phénoménologique interprétative a été utilisée pour analyser les données des entretiens semi-structurés avec six personnes vivant en Allemagne et s'identifiant comme des activistes. L'analyse s'est concentrée sur les actions, les expériences et les tensions résultant de l'engagement dans l'activisme. Les résultats sont présentés à travers trois thèmes : "faire de l’activisme ensemble" ; "faire de l’activisme par opposition aux obligations personnelles/familiales" et "faire de l’activisme 24 heures sur 24". Ensemble, les résultats présentent une compréhension plus nuancée des occupations orientées vers la transformation sociale en illustrant comment l’activisme peut sensibiliser les participant·es à d'importantes questions sociales mais aussi prendre le dessus sur leur vie quotidienne et créer des tensions avec leurs priorités et responsabilités familiales/professionnelles/étudiantes. Cette étude enrichit les compréhensions actuelles de l'occupation pour la transformation sociale de l'individu et de la société en illustrant comment l'occupation peut être utilisée comme expression et action politiques. Les résultats contribuent également aux débats sur la tendance à se concentrer sur la nature positive des occupations, en négligeant les tensions et les risques potentiels pour les participant·es et les autres.

Las personas participan en el activismo para lograr la transformación social. Sin embargo, en la ciencia ocupacional, la investigación sobre el activismo y cómo moldea la vida cotidiana es escasa. Comprender el activismo como un producto del hacer colectivo en contextos específicos puede aportar elementos a los debates actuales sobre la naturaleza política de la ocupación y los procesos de transformación social a través de la ocupación. El presente estudio se propuso explorar el hacer del activismo de personas que se identifican como activistas en Alemania y las formas en que ese hacer influyen en su vida cotidiana. Para examinar la información aportada por entrevistas semiestructuradas con seis personas que residen en Alemania y se autoidentifican como activistas se utilizó el análisis fenomenológico interpretativo (IPA). Este se centró en el hacer, las experiencias y las tensiones resultantes de la participación en el activismo. Las conclusiones se presentan a través de tres temas: “hacer activismo juntos”; “hacer activismo versus las obligaciones personales/familiares”; y “hacer activismo a todas horas”. En conjunto, los hallazgos presentan una comprensión matizada de las ocupaciones orientadas a la transformación social, en tanto ilustran cómo el activismo puede concientizar sobre cuestiones sociales importantes y cómo se apodera de la vida cotidiana de los participantes, creando tensiones con sus prioridades y responsabilidades familiares/laborales/de estudio. Esta investigación enriquece la comprensión actual de la ocupación para la transformación social del individuo y la sociedad, mostrando la manera en que puede utilizarse como expresión y acción políticas. Los resultados también ayudan a profundizar los debates sobre la tendencia existente a centrarse en la naturaleza positiva de las ocupaciones, descuidando las tensiones y los riesgos potenciales para los participantes y los demás.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational science
• Political expression
• Collective occupations
• Non-sanctioned occupations
• Interpretative phenomenological analysis

MOTS CLÉS:

• Science de l’occupation
• expression politique
• occupations collectives
• occupations critiquées
• analyse phénoménologique interprétative

This paper is about social and political activism, understood as actions in the social field where political struggles take place (della Porta & Diani, 2020; Ekman & Amnå, 2012). These struggles are often related to the unfair distribution or misuse of resources that privilege some groups while disadvantaging others (i.e., within and across diverse societies and generations). This type of activism often promotes goals like social justice, social transformation, and preserving the environment (i.e., climate justice) (Vecchione et al., 2015). Hence, activism is about what people do to bring about change that supports processes of personal and social transformation, justice, and solidarity among individuals, communities, and/or countries (Ekman & Amnå, 2012; Svensson et al., 2012). This act/performative dimension of activism (i.e., form of social action that has the effect of change) makes it relevant to the study of occupation, especially in relation to recent debates about the political nature of occupation and social transformation through occupation (e.g., Cunningham et al., 2020; Farias & Laliberte Rudman, 2016; Laliberte Rudman et al., 2019: Pollard et al., 2008; Schiller et al., 2022).

Grounded in qualitative analysis and an interpretative phenomenological approach (Smith et al., 2009), we explored the doing of activism by people in Germany who identify as activists and the ways it influences their everyday lives. It is worth noticing that Germany has a long history of political engagement and activism. Yet, during the national socialist regime between 1933-1945, an assembling and demonstrating prohibition took place in the Federal Republic (also known as West Germany). This prohibition was removed in 1949, presenting a unique opportunity for members of civil society to express political concerns and engage in policy-making. Although voting was limited to those aged 21 and older until 1972, young people in the Federal Republic had a significant influence on politics. For example, during the 1950s through the Count Me Out and Peace movements, and during the 1960s and 1970s through the student movement in 1968, rejecting nationalism and German political authority related to the former regime (Gassert, 2018).

Although the prohibition of political expression remained in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (also known as East Germany), strike actions, mass demonstrations, and political protests characterized the 1950’s worker’s uprising. More recently, activism in Germany has reflected the polarisation dynamics and political crisis that civil society has faced at least since the financial crisis in 2008 and the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in the summer of 2015 (Hutter & Weisskircher, 2022). For instance, the rise of the first successful far-right party since the Second World War (i.e., Alternative for Germany) has mobilised and engaged groups for and against migration and a new cultural ‘integration-demarcation’. Other groups that dominate the German activist landscape are, for example, those in favour of climate-justice and against COVID-19 regulations and international trade agreements (Hutter & Schäfer, 2021; Hutter & Weisskircher, 2022).

Occupation as Political and Collective Action

Scholars have put forward an understanding of occupation as embedded within power relations (Angell, 2014; Laliberte Rudman, 2015; Pollard et al., 2008). This is important because exploring activism can offer multiple understandings of how occupations related to political struggles can be used to enact, for instance, collective resistance and/or social cohesion. Using the concept of collective occupation (Ramugondo & Kronenberg, 2015), Simaan (2017) explored olive growing as a way to express collective resistance to the military occupation of Palestine. Ramugondo and Kronenberg (2015) defined collective occupation as being “engaged in by individuals, groups, communities and/or societies in everyday contexts”; that “may reflect an intention towards social cohesion or dysfunction, and/or advancement of or aversion to a common good” (p. 10). As such, collective occupation is a concept that offers an understanding of doing that can be used to resist power structures and prompt action towards transformative goals. This concept is relevant in this study because activism is associated with engagement in political activities by individuals, groups, and communities that share common intentions or goals (Ekman & Amnå, 2012).

A key component of engaging in collective occupations that seek to advance social transformation is occupational consciousness (Ramugondo, 2015). Ramugondo and Kronenberg (2015) referred to consciousness as “the responsibility of both individuals and communities to allow meaningful existence for all” (p. 12). This implies that communities need to take responsibility for the way society is organized and how the goods are produced and distributed. In other words, activism can be seen as reflecting individuals’ and communities’ efforts to ‘make it up’ by enacting acts of consciousness intended to maintain collective occupational well-being (Ramugondo, 2015).

Based on this understanding, collective occupation can make visible the process of socio-political awareness that shapes and is shaped by ‘doing’ activism. For example, individuals in a certain community may be urged to act (e.g., avoiding buying or boycotting certain companies) when the precarious work conditions of certain groups are made evident (e.g., child labour, extreme work conditions, illegal work). A community may be made conscious of climate change and how individual actions may impact their future and future generations when being the host of a climate-justice demonstration. As such, the doing of activism can illustrate the dynamics between the individual and the community and the privileging of the community or societal goals over the individual. This is relevant because the doing related to activism has the potential to enact individual and social transformation through engagement with others sharing common goals and intentions for a more just society.

Activism in Occupation-Based Scholarship

There are very few examples of occupational science literature that explicitly explore activism as different than advocacy. While both seek social and political change, and can overlap, advocacy often refers to the use of mechanisms related to knowledge dissemination such as holding information sessions and the development of informational material to influence policy making (e.g., Trentham & Neysmith, 2018). Activism on the other hand often refers to the use of direct action to create change, such as protests, strikes, and boycotting (stop shopping) certain labels/products (Fuller & McCauley, 2016).

For instance, there is only one study published in English that explores activism as an occupation. This study investigated how Irish adults aged 65 and older enacted activism as resistance against oppressive attitudes toward their age (Fox & Quinn, 2012). Moreover, the theoretical framework of occupational reconstructions (Frank & Muriithi, 2015) briefly mentions “how political activism functions occupationally” (p. 11) and how people’s doing contributes to social transformation within their everyday living conditions. Although these examples support the notion of activism as occupation, how doing activism may influence the everyday lives of those engaging in these occupations is underexplored. The fact that there are only two examples that explicitly explore/theorize activism may reflect the difficulty in capturing categories of occupation that may encompass doing things deemed as illegal and/or risky. This is especially important since occupational scientists have argued for the need to explore non-sanctioned occupations that may be declared illegal, risky, or unacceptable by governing bodies within specific contexts (Kiepek et al., 2019). Addressing this gap, this study aimed to explore the doing of activism by people in Germany who identified as activists and the ways it influences their everyday lives.

Methods

In this study, an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2009) was chosen based on the epistemological belief that people make sense of their personal and social world through an interpretative process (Smith & Osborn, 2008). IPA was also chosen because it allows interpretation of the complex experiences and doing (Smith et al., 2009).

Researchers’ positionality

We (the authors) do not self-identify as activists, although our work has been related in diverse ways to issues of health equity, social participation, and art-based forms of expression. We are all occupational therapists living in different countries in Europe (i.e., Germany, Denmark, and Sweden). The first author, who conducted the recruitment and interviews, had a personal interest in exploring activism but assumed that multiple perspectives of activism would emerge and was aware of providing participants with time to express diverse experiences and opinions about activism. Systematic debriefing sessions about pre-assumptions and previous experiences, recruitment, data collection, and challenges were conducted between the first and last authors to strengthen the quality and trustworthiness of the data in real-time (McMahon & Winch, 2018).

Participants

For recruitment, an information flyer was sent to several German activist groups and distributed through the first author’s professional network and social media. The selection criteria included being 18 years or older, considering oneself as an activist, and participating in at least three legal or illegal demonstrations, campaigns, or other political activities related to social transformation. These criteria were determined to ensure that participants had actively engaged in activism. Eleven persons responded to the flyer and contacted the first author. Purposive sampling was used to select participants (Liamputtong, 2013; Smith et al., 2009). This was done by sending written information to all potential participants about the study (i.e., the aim of the study, requirements of involvement, confidentiality, and anonymity assurances) and asking them to fill in a pre-interview questionnaire to check whether they met the study criteria. After reviewing the responses, five were ineligible to participate (one did not meet all the criteria, three did not complete the questionnaire) and a further person had concerns about anonymity. Six people, three women and three men, consented to be interviewed and coordinated a time and place that was convenient for them to be interviewed by the first author. See Table 1 for participants’ demographics.

Table 1. Participant demographics

Participant	Lia	Katharina	Dorothea	Frieder	Tom	Lutz
Age	19	34	49	38	56	44
Gender	Female	Female	Female	Male	Male	Male
Profession	Student	Health professional	Teacher & Musician	Social scientist	Entrepreneur	Health professional
Years as activist	3	7	30	12	5	4
Topic of activism	Climate justice	Antiracism	Education & Social inequalities	Climate justice	Energy-transition	Professional policy
Hours per week spent on activism	40-60	10-30	5-10	2-10	8-15	10-30

Ethical process

The study followed the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2018). To ensure compliance with the ethical standards, all participants received verbal and written information about the study aim, voluntary participation, potential risks, confidentiality, and anonymity. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before starting the study. To ensure privacy and confidentiality, identifying characteristics of participants and places were anonymized, and pseudonyms were used (Meyermann & Porzelt, 2014). Data were kept secure in a locked, and password-protected computer, and only the first author had access to the transcripts and recordings.

Data collection

Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews that followed IPA recommendations (Eatough & Smith, 2008; Smith, 2011; Smith et al., 2009; Smith & Osborn, 2008). The interview guide was developed using an interview protocol refinement framework (Castillo-Montoya, 2016) to focus on specific themes related to the research question (Pietkeiwicz & Smith, 2012). Examples of questions are: ‘Can you please tell me more about how being activist influences what you do in your everyday life?’ and ‘Can you tell me about things you do/not do regularly to maintain your identity as an activist?’ A pilot interview with a person from the first author’s social network who met the inclusion criteria was conducted. The interview guide was revised based on the feedback received from the pilot interviewee about the clarity of the questions and the way that the interview was conducted.

All interviews were conducted by the first author who focused on allowing participants to share their ideas, feelings, thoughts, and reflections concerning the research topic (Smith et al., 2009). Follow-up questions were also used to gain more details about participants’ experiences (e.g., ‘Can you tell me more about these specific things you do /don’t do?’). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all interviews were conducted online. Interviews lasted between 46 and 90 minutes, were conducted in German (the language of preference of the participants and first language of the interviewer) and were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim by the first author.

Data analysis

The focus of the analysis was the occupational aspects of activism, that is, its doing, purpose/significance, and influence on the everyday lives of participants. Following Smith et al.’s (2009) recommendations for IPA, the analysis was conducted by: (1) reading through the transcription of each participant multiple times, (2) inserting notes (descriptive, idiographic, conceptual) on each transcript, (3) developing emerging themes, (4) searching for connections between the emerging topics within each transcript, (5) moving to the next transcript, and (6) identifying patterns across the different transcripts and building superordinate themes. The analysis was conducted primarily by the first author. The first author systematically discussed the emerging themes and patterns with the third author and then received feedback from the second author. The second and third authors are not German speakers, and they contributed to the analysis by discussing and challenging the first author’s interpretations and development of the themes. After completing the analysis, selected quotes were translated into English by the first author, who is a native German speaker. The translation process followed the recommendations of van Nes and colleagues (2010).

Findings

The phenomenon of doing activism held similar meanings for the participants of this study. It was described encompassing occupations such as organizing demonstrations or campaigns, using social media to promote boycotts of certain brands, gathering and delivering letters to politicians, illegally occupying buildings and placing labels on food packages, starting commuting by bicycle, and stopping consuming meat and flying/driving a car. From the analysis, three recurrent themes were identified. These illustrate how activism influenced the participants’ everyday lives and the tensions that engagement in this type of doing creates. The first theme, ‘Doing activism together’, illustrates how participants described their doing as a means of raising consciousness and enabling social cohesion, even when some of the things they did implied being involved in risky or illegal occupations. The second theme, ‘Doing activism versus personal/family obligations’, describes tensions experienced by participants whose commitment to activism sometimes worked against their roles and priorities as students, friends, and parents. The third theme, ‘Doing activism around the clock’, exemplifies how participants experience activism as an occupation that extends over all aspects of their life, connecting their social goals with their doing. Together, the findings provide an understanding of activism as a complex occupation that shapes and is shaped by participants’ moral commitment, roles, and families’ wishes and priorities.

Doing activism together

The participants expressed that doing activism included planning, organizing, and preparing for occupations such as demonstrations or campaigns. Planning to do things that would gather people who shared the same intentions towards advancing social transformation was described as ‘doing together’, although these occupations were mostly conducted individually. These individually performed occupations were also described as essential to raising social consciousness and contributing to shaping participants’ role as activists. As such, participants voluntarily engaged in the planning or conducting of occupations such as advertising protests or writing letters to the government. For example, Lia, who became a member of a youth-movement during her adolescence, stressed that activism can be planned individually but needs to be enacted by many people who may not know each other, using their networks to make things happen:

Ich habe diese große Demo bevor ich überhaupt wusste, dass ich Aktivistin bin. Ich habe die internationale Kommunikation betrieben und die Presse mit anderen … dann habe ich verstanden: Das ist nicht etwas, was jemand alleine machen kann!

I was organizing this big ‘demo’ before I realized that I was an activist. I did international communication, and press coordination with others … then I understood that this is not something that someone could do alone!

Participants also described that doing activism became more meaningful when others joined the things they organized (e.g., re-tweeted their messages, boycotted certain brands, sent letters of support). Realizing that there was a collective ‘out there’ supporting the same cause and that they were not the only ones aware of an issue helped participants transform their frustration into concrete actions. For example, when Lutz realized that others started joining him in writing letters of support, describing their experiences of unjust working conditions, he felt motivated. He created an extensive campaign to send letters to politicians:

Und dann schrieb ich diesen Brandbrief und schickte ihn an über hundert Politiker … , und mein Gedanke war - es wird sowieso nichts passieren - … viele Kollegen hatten mich aus dem ganzen Land kontaktiert … Sie schrieben mir fast 2000 Briefe … , und ich erhielt einen Anruf von einem Kollegen und sagte zu ihm: “Diese Briefe müssen an die Regierung gehen. Ich würde nach [Stadt] radeln, um die Briefe dorthin zu bringen” - eine Viertelstunde später kam der Anruf: ,Ich habe Sponsoren, du kannst losfahren.

And then I wrote this confrontational letter and sent it to over a hundred politicians, and my thought was – nothing will happen anyway– [but] many people contacted me from all over the country. They wrote almost 2000 letters. I told a colleague: ‘These letters must be sent to the government. I could take my bicycle to [city] to bring the letters’. And then, 15 minutes [later], someone called me: ‘I have sponsors, you can go’.

Doing activism together with others was also expressed by the participants as helping them to feel motivated and take more risky actions. These actions ranged from non-violent civil disobedience and participating in disorderly conduct. For example, participants mentioned illegally occupying buildings, chaining themselves to places, or labelling food packages in supermarkets to raise consumers’ awareness of what they buy. Participants described that engaging in these occupations was meaningful because these actions were more effective in raising social and political awareness than engaging in more acceptable or legal forms of activism, like demonstrations and online/offline campaigns. Tom described:

Wir gehen in die Läden, um ablösbare Aufkleber auf Billigfleisch zu kleben, bis wir rausgeschmissen werden, … Das ist etwas, wo man mit seinem Körper für etwas einsteht, das kann auch bedeuten, dass man einen Ort betritt, den man nicht betreten darf, das ist noch unmittelbarer, das hat eine andere Wirkung, und das ist andere Sache.

We go into the shops and put stickers on cheap meat packages until we are thrown out. It [activism] is something where you stand up for something with your body. It can also entail trespassing –you go onto a site where you are not allowed. It is even more immediate, it has a different impact, it is a different way [of doing activism].

Although some things can be organized individually, engaging in risky occupations implies having to act together with others. The participants described these types of risky or illegal actions as ‘central’ to activism. For example, Frieder said:

Wir können dann [in einer Gruppe] in solchen Grauzonen besser agieren und mehr Leute erreichen, als wenn wir nur in der Fußgängerzone stehen und Unterschriften sammeln, vor allem, wenn die Aktion nicht angemeldet ist … und was für mich eigentlich so ein Kernaktivismus ist, ist z.B. sich irgendwo anzuketten oder etwas zu besetzen.

We then [in a group] are better able to take risks and reach more people than if we just stand in the pedestrian areas and collect signatures, especially when the campaign is not registered. The actual core of activism for me is, for example, to [illegally] chain oneself somewhere or to occupy something.

Doing activism versus personal/family obligations

The participants often described activism as a duty, that is, as a commitment to which they feel morally bound and that extended beyond their personal/family obligations. For example, Lia explained that her commitment to actively contribute to the protection of living conditions of groups affected by climate change (i.e., children, older people, low-income communities) was meaningfully fulfilled by taking administrative or leading roles within an activism movement. She also described how she felt responsible for engaging in these things and roles on behalf of others’ well-being:

Ich habe viele Freunde in anderen Ländern, die bereits von der Klimakrise bedroht sind … Es ist nicht so, dass ich mich zurücklehnen kann und sagen könnte: ‘Ach ja, sollen doch die anderen etwas tun. Wir haben eine große Verantwortung gegenüber den anderen Ländern!

I have lots of friends in other countries who are already threatened by the climate crisis. It is not as if I could lean back and say: ‘Oh yes, let the others do something’. We have a huge responsibility towards the other countries!

Tom described climate change as a problem that should call everyone to action, regardless of whether they are more or less affected by it. He stressed that he feels responsible for participating in as many activist occupations as possible to help raise awareness of climate issues. He also mentioned that continuing doing activism was not a choice anymore for him but a necessity:

Ich finde es einfach wichtig, nicht nur auf dem Sofa zu sitzen, wenn ich weiß, dass es fünftausend–meist sehr junge - Menschen gibt, die irgendwie irgendwo in eine Kohlengrube gehen–dann finde ich es einfach anmaßend, zu Hause auf dem Sofa zu sitzen, das geht mir einfach nicht aus dem Kopf!

I just think it’s essential to not just sit on the sofa when I know that there are 5,000 –mostly very young people who somehow go into a coal mine somewhere – then I think it’s just presumptuous to sit on the sofa at home, I just can’t get over that!

Participants described that activism felt like something that they needed to do. This doing was enacted, for example, by using social media, giving workshops, and publishing articles in journals to create awareness of various social injustices. For example, Katharina explained that educating others via social media was meaningful since this allowed her to reach as many people as possible:

Bei mir läuft das viel über Instagram, und es gibt auch viele, die mir folgen, die keine Aktivisten sind. Also poste ich dort regelmäßig Inhalte und informiere auch darüber, wie man zum Beispiel Dimensionen der Diskriminierung abbauen kann.

For me, I work a lot with Instagram, and there are many [people] who follow me who are not activists. So, I post content there regularly and provide information on how to, for example, break down dimensions of discrimination.

Dorothea explained that activism has expanded her personal relations and created tensions with her roles as wife and friend, since she used her everyday life to educate others about discriminatory language. In this way, she felt that her everyday doing contributed to enacting social change by affecting others:

Mein Mann zum Beispiel kriegt manchmal einen Krampf, weil ich auch nicht loslassen kann. Wir sitzen zum Beispiel mit Freunden beim Abendessen. Wir essen, und es gibt ein Thema … Dann kann ich nicht anders, und es kann manchmal eine Stunde oder zwei dauern, bis ich wenigstens dafür gesorgt habe, dass jemand eine etwas andere Perspektive einnehmen kann.

So, my husband, for example, sometimes gets mad at me because I can’t let it [activism] go. For instance, we sit with friends over dinner. We eat, and there is a topic. Then I can’t help it, and it can sometimes take an hour or two until I’ve at least made sure that someone can see the issue from a different perspective.

Participants also recognized that activism creates tensions with their roles and family obligations. For example, some participants struggled between wanting to participate in as many activist occupations as possible or spending time with their families or friends and adapting their lifestyle to live more sustainably or respecting their families’ lifestyles. Some described that they prioritized activism at the expense of their roles as students, friends, and parents. For example, Frieder said he wanted to teach his 6-year-old son as much as possible about living a climate-sensitive everyday life. Due to his decision, they do not use his car anymore and do all their commuting by bicycle. He described a situation in which he reflected in retrospect on whether this decision might affect his son’s well-being:

Letztes Wochenende waren wir Schlittenfahren und sind mit den Fahrrädern so weit gefahren, bis der Berg anfing. Dann sind wir hochgelaufen, … und später wieder mit den Fahrrädern nach Hause gefahren. Als wir zurückfuhren, war die Sonne schon weg, und er hat midestens mindestens die Hälfte der Fahrradfahrt an den Fingern gefroren, und ich hab’ echt gezweifelt, ob es richtig war, das zu tun; vielleicht war es zu viel für ihn.

Last weekend, we went sledging and took our bikes as far as we could into the mountains. Then we walked up, then later rode our bikes back home again. When we went back, the sun was already gone, and my son had frozen fingers for at least half of the bike ride, and I doubted whether it was the right thing to do [to use our bikes in winter]; maybe it was too much for him.

Further, Tom described how his activism had influenced his occupational choices and decisions, such as ceasing meaningful occupations such as travelling, eating meat, and driving, which also influenced his family members’ possibilities to engage in these occupations:

Oh, ich bin gerne in den Urlaub geflogen–auch auf Langstrecken–und ich bin auch gerne Auto gefahren. Jetzt habe ich kein Auto mehr, wir fliegen schon seit Jahren nicht mehr, und ich bin von vegetarischer auf vegane Ernährung umgestiegen, was natürlich auf die Familie abfärbt.

Oh, I liked flying on holiday –even long-distance trips –I also liked driving a car. Now I don’t have a car anymore, we haven’t flown for years, and I switched from eating vegetarian to vegan, which of course, rubs off on the family.

He also described how difficult it is to balance his choices with his daughter’s wishes to travel long distances by plane:

Meine Tochter möchte reisen–kann ich ihr das verwehren? Also kann ich ihr nur sagenbitte flieg nicht dreimal im Jahr, flieg einmal alle drei Jahre oder bleib sechs Monate weg um ihren Blick zu schärfen.

My daughter wants to travel [by plane] –can I deny that? So, I can only tell her –please don’t fly three times a year, fly once every three years or stay away for six months to sharpen her eye.

Doing activism around the clock

Participants described that the doing of activism is not limited to occupations conducted during the weekend or with activist groups/movements. For instance, Dorothea explained that doing activism takes over her job as a teacher and singer-songwriter. She described that her job had become an arena of activism by teaching others to question and critically reflect on what is presented as ‘the truth’ (e.g., social media saying that climate change is an invention). Dorothea mentioned that activism meant constantly aligning her thinking and everyday doing toward social change. She said:

Ich denke, Aktivistin zu sein ist etwas, das sich durch das ganze Leben eines Menschen zieht, in allem, was ich denke und tue … Es spielt keine Rolle, ob ich meine Schüler in der Schule unterrichte, ob ich meine Lieder aufführe oder ob ich meine Kinder erziehe, es ist immer irgendwie Aktivismus dabei

I think being an activist is something that runs through a person’s whole life in all I think and all I do. It doesn’t matter if I teach my students at school, if I perform my songs or whether I raise my children. There is always activism in it somehow.

Most participants explained that doing activism is not a hobby or something separated from their everyday occupations or roles (i.e., student, worker, family member). Activism was described as connecting participants’ minds and doing, and taking over their private life, job, and social life. For example, Lia experienced that activism influenced every minute of her day and even prevented her from engaging in occupations related to student life: “Ich normalerweise nicht zu meinen Vorlesungen (lacht) –und dann sitze ich den ganzen Tag an meinem Handy, an meinem Laptop und mache Telefonkonferenzen und arbeite an meinen Sachen für (Name der Bewegung) [I don’t go to my lectures usually (laughs) –and then I sit on my cell phone, on my laptop all day long and make conference calls and work on my things for [name of movement]”]. Similarly, Tom described; “Es bestimmt meinen Alltag und auch meine Freizeit, ich würde sagen, dass es keine wirkliche Grenze mehr gibt zwischen Aktivismus, Privatleben, Beruf, und Freizeit. [It [activism] determines my everyday life and also my free time, I would say that there is no longer a real boundary between private life, job, and free time]”.

Discussion

This study aimed to explore the doing of activism and how it influences the everyday lives of people living in Germany who identify as activists. The findings illustrate how doing activism create tensions between their activist goals and occupations and their work/study/family roles and responsibilities. To discuss the findings, two aspects related to the concepts of collective occupations (Ramugondo & Kronenberg, 2015) and non-sanctioned occupations (Kiepek et al., 2019) are chosen: (1) raising consciousness through everyday doing and (2) the paradox of activism.

Raising consciousness through everyday doing

The findings of this study illustrate how the ‘intentionality’ of activism is experienced by the participants as dominating their everyday life (i.e., family, work, and social life). According to Ramugondo and Kronenberg (2015), intentionality can be linked to acts of consciousness that bring about the responsibility of both individuals and communities for creating meaningful co-existence for all. This is consistent with the theory of occupational reconstructions by Frank and Muriithi (2015) which stresses how people’s actions/doing can prompt social transformations (e.g., better living conditions for all). Ramugondo and Kronenberg (2015) described intentionality as an “intentional stance” (p. 10), implying that thoughts or the mind are always intentional and therefore predictive, containing the object to which actions will be directed. It seems that doing activism involves an ongoing intentional stance or intention-action engagement characterized by constant adaptation of participants’ everyday doing towards an intention that they identify for themselves. For example, participants adapted their doing to contribute to collective occupational well-being by using public transport or a bicycle to commute instead of using a car, consuming climate-friendly products, or using anti-discriminatory language in everyday communication with others. Therefore, activism becomes more than the actual doing, highlighting a moral obligation or commitment to the collective that involves more than participants’ friends, families, and/or co-workers.

The ongoing intentional stance (Ramugondo & Kronenberg, 2015) that activism seems to generate involves a conscious dimension of occupational engagement that becomes implicit or acknowledged when people engage in occupations related to activism. Thus, engagement in activism seems to facilitate raising occupational consciousness of how the collective is doing (i.e., enacting discrimination, marginalizing certain groups) and positioning oneself within that doing. In the case of the participants of this study, it could be argued that they represent a group with certain privileges and status within German society that allow them to engage in occupations that are valued as activism and even risky occupations. Yet, participants’ engagement in activism and consequently awareness of their privilege supported the use of their power and status to visualize issues of injustices within their close collective (e.g., family, colleagues, and fellow activists) and wider groups of people. This engagement and visualization may have been possible because of the status that participants have, that is, being able to reduce their working/studying hours to dedicate more time to activism.

Further, since activism seems to enact a process of occupational consciousness, it is relevant to explore this concept in light of the findings of this study, even though this construct has been predominantly associated with historical patterns of Western-led colonialism (Ramugondo, 2015, 2018; Simaan, 2017). As such, occupational consciousness can illuminate how individuals living in developed Westernized countries, such as Germany, engage in activism to enact awareness of how the neoliberal global market economy affects mainstream society in the form of consumerism and climate change (e.g., greater consumption implies greater emission of greenhouse gases that come from producing fabrics). As such, Ramugondo’s occupational consciousness (2015) linked to collective occupations (Ramugondo & Kronenberg, 2015) facilitates an understanding of how activism can bridge the individual and the collective through the intentionality behind it, in places that have been framed primarily as individualistic in orientation (i.e., West/North countries, such as Germany).

This interconnectedness between the individual and collective (doing) and collective (goals) was evident in how participants, for example, described their everyday doing. Participants in this study expressed a belief that even small acts enacted in their private life or with friends, such as correcting someone’s language at the dinner table, could prompt awareness of the power of language and the importance of using gender-sensitive, inclusive, and anti-discriminatory language in all situations. As such, the findings of this study align with Ramugondo and Kronenberg’s (2015) description of intentionality in human occupations as central to collective occupations. The concept of collective occupation provides individuals and groups space for transforming predominant social values and (re)configuring relationships with others. In the case of this study, how people’s everyday doing affects the climate, other’s living conditions, and the environment prompted values of collectivism and social transformation. As proposed by Núñez et al. (2019), collective occupations are “a possibility of collective, community, collaborative, political articulation that allows transforming unfavourable social conditions, conditions of oppression … with actions concrete and objective in the field of daily life” (p. 14).

The paradox of activism

The doing of activism can create social cohesion while producing tensions with participants’ roles and obligations. This paradox can be understood by using the concept of non-sanctioned occupations (Kiepek et al., 2019), which forwards an understanding of occupations that goes beyond dichotomies between good and bad or positive and negative effects of occupation on people’s lives. Although the participants of this study often described doing activism as a positive experience, the findings demonstrate that it is an occupation that can create inevitable frictions in their everyday lives. Similar to findings from a study with older activist adults in Ireland (Fox & Quinn, 2012), the participants in this study experienced activism as improving others’ everyday lives, thereby generating a sense of pride, satisfaction, and a feeling of being connected to others.

In particular, the participants in this study portrayed their commitment to doing activism as a moral commitment or responsibility that could not be avoided or unprioritized by all means (i.e., work, study, or family commitments). This moral obligation to activism created tensions with participants’ families, co-workers, and other people involved in their life. Coordinating doing activism with other important roles like being a parent, employee, or student often exposed themselves or others to risky situations (Vecchione et al., 2015). This was a paradox, implying that although activism aims to counter oppression and injustice, its doing may negatively affect the health or well-being of those engaging in risky but meaningful occupations. In this way, it challenges the dominant assumption of a positive relationship between health and well-being, achieved through engagement in meaningful and purposeful occupation (Kiepek et al., 2019).

The negative effects of activism on participants’ lives were evident when they gave up meaningful occupations (e.g., sports, work, studies) due to their ongoing and time-consuming activist efforts. Further, they needed to negotiate the value of some occupations over their family priorities. Participants, for instance, described their struggles navigating their son/daughter’s wishes when clashing with their plans for a more sustainable or environment-friendly family lifestyle. As such, the findings in this study reflect the contested nature of occupations such as activism by illustrating that its doing cannot be defined exclusively as meaningful and purposeful or illegal and risky. It is relevant to consider that activism has different connotations depending on the context in which it is studied and can evoke different meanings, tensions, and doings.

Limitations

Limitations of this study include the risk of idealizing activism as a ‘heroic’ occupation based on its orientation towards social transformation. Throughout the analytical process, we realized that participants tended to talk about activism positively, unconsciously neglecting/silencing the tensions that activism created with their work/study/family. This idealization may be understood in different ways; for example, activism has been socially encouraged in recent years due to movements oriented towards social transformation such as ‘Black lives matters’ or ‘Fridays for Future’, which have resulted in an increased engagement in issues related to racism and climate change. Another explanation is that the group of participants belong to a certain group in society (i.e., well-educated and living in high-income and urban areas of Germany) that can afford to be activists even when that means reducing their working hours and thereby income. Therefore, they tended to stress the positive aspects of activism, although tensions were evident in their examples. More risky occupations or negative consequences of activism could have emerged if the study included a group of activists who were exclusively dedicated to activism and extremist groups such as extreme right or anti-vaccine movements.

Furthermore, the fact that the first author, who lives in Germany, had personal contacts that are activists could be seen as a limitation since she belongs to a well-educated group of people. To avoid relying on the first author’s pre-assumptions and/or activism experiences, the first and last author worked with systematic debriefing (McMahon & Winch, 2018) and conducted member checking to ensure that participants’ experiences were well portrayed in the findings (i.e., credibility). The first author also kept a reflective research diary and a trail consisting of notes to enhance the transparency of her decisions throughout the research process (Smith et al., 2009).

Implications for further research

The implications of the study for research include the potential benefits of exploring activism with other groups (e.g., exclusively dedicated to activism or exclusively using social media as activism) and contexts with different sociohistorical and political processes than Germany. For instance, exploring activism in countries in South America, where examples of activism may have also originated from violations of human rights and abuse of political power and corruption, but that may be enacted and experienced in different ways (e.g., use of capuchas/hoods to avoid been identified as an activist in public). The exploration of activism that seeks to provoke change and address issues affecting a group (e.g., LGBTQIA2S rights) could provide a more nuanced understanding of the doing of activism related to historical oppression of particular groups in society. Further, research on unacceptable or risky forms of activism could contribute to current debates about non-sanctioned occupations.

Conclusion

This study contributes to literature related to collective occupations and non-sanctioned occupations by bringing a nuanced understanding of activism as political occupations that bridge individual and collective doing and collective goals. Exploring occupations in a way that avoids applying dualistic thinking in dichotomies such as individual/collective, acceptable/unacceptable, and meaningful/unmeaningful are needed within occupational science. Engagement in activism has the potential to connect intention and action/doing and thereby enhance personal and social meaning. Further, activism can be seen as a paradox that prompts social cohesion and critical awareness needed for social transformation while creating tensions with people’s other roles (i.e., student, friend, parent) and everyday obligations.

Acknowledgements

We thank all the participants for sharing their experiences and time. This article is based on the first author’s European Master of Science in Occupational Therapy thesis, and a special thank you is therefore extended to colleagues and examiners that have reviewed the work.

Disclosure Statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.