Repertoires of Contention and Tactical Diversity in the UK Psychiatric Survivors Movement: The question of appropriation

This paper seeks to advance our understanding of the processes whereby particular techniques of protest are selected from societal 'repertoires of contention'. Empirically, it focuses upon data which have been gathered on activists within mental health movements in the UK. Theoretically, it seeks to make a case for use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, specifically his concepts of 'habitus', 'capital' and 'field'. The paper is exploratory, and acknowledged to be such. It is argued, however, that the evidence from the mental health movements is sufficiently persuasive to merit further investigation of the usefulness of Bourdieu's approach for analysing processes of repertoire selection.