Practices and Agencies in the Belarusian Protests of 2020: Perspectives of Protest Participants and Leaders

This article explores the roles of digital platforms, protesters and protest organisers in mobilising and coordinating prodemocratic protests in Belarus in summer 2020. Following the actors in the network of the Belarusian protests of August 2020, and drawing on Latour’s actor–network theory, I examine protest-related practices and types of agency in these protests by engaging with the opinions and reflections of protesters, activists, politicians and moderators of the leading Telegram channels who participated in the protests. I argue that these Belarusian protests produced multiple agencies and transformed Telegram into a mediator with agency rather than merely a tool in the hands of protesters.