People Take Over Places for Democracy—Protest Movements from 2011 to 2022: A Teaching Research Project with Students of Cultural Studies

This article presents the results of a collaborative methodological exercise conducted within a university seminar, developed as part of a teaching-research project in which students created a timeline of major protest movements of the early 2010s, including the Arab Spring (Tunisia 2010), Occupy Wall Street (USA 2011), the 15-M Movement (Spain 2011), the Hambach Forest protests (Germany 2012), the Gezi Park protests (Turkey 2013), the June Journeys (Brazil 2013), and the Umbrella Movement (Hong Kong 2014). Through this process, students gained a deeper understanding of the contexts of the protests and their interconnections. Although shaped by local contexts, these movements share global concerns, especially the intersection of traditional street protests with digital tools and social media. They questioned public policies, confronted the advance of capitalism, and challenged power structures, the traditional media and contested systems that claim to be democratic but operate in authoritarian ways, creating new protest territorialities and narratives. Using cartographic methods, this study explores how these movements mobilized physical, social, and digital spaces to express political demands and contest dominant narratives. Keywords: Global Protest Movements; Digital Activism; Social Media and Politics