Grassroots Mobilisation against the Politics of Hate: The Case of Sardine in Italy

The chapter explores the emergence of the Sardine movement throughout Italy and its rise to prominence just prior to and during the pandemic as a credible alternative to right-wing hegemony. The authors observe the novel repertoires of protest employed by the Sardines with regards to the reclamation of public spaces (especially the digital, during the pandemic) and the revision of dominant narratives to evade fake news, disinformation and state propaganda. Here the authors employ multimodal discourse analysis (via Wodak and Fairclough) and borrow from the European tradition of critique via figures such as Gramsci and Althusser, before delving into various aspects of surveillance studies and social movement theory as per Fuchs, Harbisher and Price. The chapter's main contribution is an overall account for how the Sardines have transformed from a relatively low-key grassroots movement almost to the status of a credible political force during Italy's national lockdowns by innovating the repertoire of action into "creative participation" activities that the authors detail and discuss.