Ethnographic Study

This article ethnographically analyzes the use of direct action, or “jail solidarity”, behind bars, during mass protest episodes. The global justice movement has been the most recent inheritors of this historical tactic, and it has been utilized since the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. Unjust arrests are countered with noncooperation behind bars, to pressure for charges to be reduced or dropped. Ethnography is appropriate for obtaining information on this high-risk, concealed behavior. Based on fieldwork, participant observation, and in-depth interviewing, the perspectives, self-reflexivity, and sociolinguistic construction of jail solidarity is presented in the participants’ own words.