La Mob in Motion: An Ethnography of Leftist Organizing in Massachusetts and Strasbourg

Author

• Audrey E. McConnell, College of the Holy CrossFollow

Date of Creation

5-13-2026

Degree Type

Restricted Access

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Carmen Jarrín

Abstract

What does it take to build communal political inertia under conditions of repression? This thesis is an autoethnography of leftist political organizing in Massachusetts, conducted during the summer and fall of 2025 at a moment of escalating political pressures. Drawing on participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and digital fieldwork, it examines the emotional cultures, structural roadblocks, and protest aesthetics of resistance within a political culture that treats collective action as futile or embarrassing. A year spent participating in a student blockade in Strasbourg, France provides the comparative frame through an encounter with la mob, a social form in which disruptive political action feels genuinely ordinary and against which the specific difficulties of organizing in Massachusetts become newly visible.

Comments

Reader: Sarah Ihmoud

Recommended Citation

McConnell, Audrey E., "La Mob in Motion: An Ethnography of Leftist Organizing in Massachusetts and Strasbourg" (2026). College Honors Program. 831.
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/honors/831