From Protests to Progress: What Moves Us to Take Action? In Conversation with Dr. Dana Fisher

Taking It to the Streets

What drives people into the streets in protest? What motivates them to take their anger and frustration offline, out in the open? What triggers this unrest? 

Navigating social change in a polycrisis world requires a compass and a chart, some measure of the direction of popular sentiment, and where that direction might lead. This is the work of sociologists who conduct field research to gauge public attitudes. Their work helps us understand our moment in history, what motivates us, and helps define the catalyst that can create and maintain social movements and change. 

Executed with a self-satisfied, ham-handed incompetence, the Trump administration’s rising authoritarian brutality is dismantling vital government services, stoking needless economic uncertainty, abandoning due process and civil rights, attacking critical thinking, and ceaselessly waging a cultural war. How does climate change fit into this mix and the growing resistance movement? 

A Conversation with Dr. Dana Fisher

Speaking with me on the GlobalWarmingIsReal podcast, sociologist and author Dr. Dana Fisher lends her expertise on climate action in today’s political landscape and offers insight into the growing resistance to the threat of authoritarianism.

Dr. Fisher is a leading social scientist and one of the most innovative voices addressing the critical intersection of climate change, social movements, and collective action. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity and a Professor in the School of International Service at American University. She currently serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the Governance Program at the Brookings Institution. She is the chair of the Political Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. 

Dana Fisher has spent over two decades studying how societies respond to environmental challenges. She has been at the forefront of documenting large-scale social movements. Her detailed research tracks everything from climate protests to political resistance. The insights contribute significantly to our understanding of civic engagement, climate politics, and social transformation. Her work appears in numerous prestigious publications and has earned her recognition as a leading voice in understanding the dynamics of social change.

In her book American Resistance, Fisher documents the social mobilization during Trump’s first administration. In her latest book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action, Dr. Fisher introduces the concept of “apocalyptic optimism.” She expands upon the idea in her TED talk, “How to Be an Apocalyptic Optimist.” 

A Roadmap for Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times

Fisher brings a deeply human approach to her research, helping us understand our collective response to existential challenges—a roadmap of possibilities and steps forward.

I first interviewed Dr. Fisher last year for an article about the ideas expressed in her book, Saving Ourselves. The podcast picks up the conversation where we left off: Hoping that Donald Trump would not become president again, but knowing it may well come to pass. And it has. 

The discussion is thought-provoking, enlightening, sometimes frightening, sometimes inspirational. In the end, nobody is coming to save us. We must save ourselves. In our communities, with our neighbors. 

We can make the world we want, but only if we participate in its making. Dr. Fisher offers that compass and a map to help point us on the path ahead.

Thank you for listening — listen to more episodes here! 

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Featured Image: Geoff Livingston on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.