The bitter end: Emotions at a movement's conclusion

In Chile, not long after Pinochet stepped down, many shantytown women who had fought hard in the pro-democracy movement felt very bitter. What explains this despondence, despite the positive outcome of their movement? This article addresses a question the social movement literature neglects: the question of how people feel when a movement ends. In doing so, it contributes to the literatures on movement decline and emotions in movements. I use ethnographic data from a year's fieldwork in Chile to suggest that at the end of a movement, even when it has succeeded in terms of achieving its goals, activists can feel disillusioned, disconnected, and abandoned.