It's a wintry day in February 2020 and I am attending a teach-out on unruly politics organized as part of the ongoing faculty strike at Sussex University. In contrast to the grey weather outside, the atmosphere in the room in the student union building, where about 50 people are sitting in a large circle and chatting, is warm and animated. After a brief introduction of teach-outs as disruptive educational spaces, a colleague from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) explains that unruly politics are recent forms of direct political engagement that are located outside formal political and institutional structures. They often involve collective prefigurative actions that enact in the here and now changes that people want to make happen. He also talks about the contradictions of research and writing on unruly politics being a site of resistance, one that is located within the academic (and in the case of IDS, development) machinery. This is an ambivalent location with which I can identify. We then turn to our neighbours to discuss our own involvement in collective action, and share these experiences with the larger group, which mainly consists of students. They talk about their participation in movements such as the #Yosoy132 student protests in Mexico against unfair election coverage and for freedom of expression; participation in Occupy and Extinction Rebellion protests; the 2015 referendum in Colombia on the peace agreements; and fighting gentrification in East London. The speakers explain how most of these experiences have made them more committed to the various causes and changed their perceptions of authority.

This leads into a more tricky and contentious discussion of the current strike, which begins with staff members again explaining the reasons for the strike, but also what their experiences of standing on the picket lines have been. Some students describe the strike as “a political reeducation”, while others discuss the question of students’ multiple and sometimes contradictory identities as citizens and consumers. Can they both ask for refunds and support striking staff? How effective is it to be striking again when the first two strikes have not been successful? Could the union do more to acknowledge students’ missed learning and to bring them along in building solidarity?