The feeling of injustice is a powerful resource for hunger strikes. Prisoners of authoritarian regimes, activists in liberation movements, moral consciences committed to a ‘great cause’, there are so many different individuals involved in hunger strikes, so many different ways of fighting. Yet all are small and isolated in the face of the all-powerful machine of an institution or a private enterprise. These strikes can be played out in different ways, in ideal-typical forms around the link between the protestor, his or her cause and the means of action.

‘Little people’ confronting the machine

Whether faced with the justice system, the administration or the bosses, hunger strikes generally involve an image of individuals fighting alone against an unseeing machine. Victims demanding the right to be recognised as interlocutors, people fighting to preserve their social identity and for the respect of their status – or to access a status denied them.

Victims

Undertaking an analysis of daily media at the regional level is a good way of avoiding international comparisons that are often too macro and which overlook the finer details of these events because they use national-level databases. At the regional level, the press often document hunger strikes, most often by individuals or small groups. These are the ‘little people’, from poor or lower-class backgrounds, who rise up against a decision or a situation that appears unjust or inextricable. Not all these cases lead to actual hunger strikes, however, the local press often describes a desire to ‘undertake a hunger strike if necessary’ whether this final step was actually taken or not.

This compendium of anonymous miseries can be seen in our overview of the Factiva database, consulted in 2007 (see Chapter 2). There are stories of divorced fathers demanding custody of their children (or even grandparents who have been separated from their grandchildren); women begging for a divorce that is bogged down in the courts; handicapped or unemployed people demanding access to decent housing; a person involved in a complex housing affair lasting over 30 years;