1. Eppur Si Muove: Thinking ‘The Social Movement’

Abstract

Social movement studies has become a minor, but familiar, field of academia, routinely included in general textbooks. This paper steps back from this situation to explore a wide history of ideas and an alternative, usage of phrase 'social movement', grounded in a broader awareness of historical possibility and a more dialectical sense of social development than contemporary 'social movement studies' usage. It then explores one way this figure of thought has been developed, in E.P. Thompson's Making of the English Working Class . Here the alternative understanding is deployed to great effect, covering a wide range of historical phenomena, their interconnections and transformations. The paper uses this alternative understanding to think aspects of contemporary working-class self-organisation in Ireland. The author wants to provoke some discussion of whether as researchers or participants it is wise to allow the routine academic processes of field construction to define the limits of our own understanding. Keywords:E.P. Thompson; English working-class; Eppur Si Muove; social development; Social Movement