Introduction: genesis of social movement theory and Southern movements

Abstract

Southern social movements have played an important role in shaping world history and politics. Nevertheless, the global North has remained the major site of social movement analysis and theoretical production. Although the paradigms and theories which were developed by social movement theory in the North are partially applicable in the global South, these societies have remained little more than laboratories for testing the theories which were developed in the North. In other words, Southern movements have rarely been studied independent of Northern theory and much of their uniqueness and complexity has been overlooked. Hence, social movement theory fails to provide a thorough analysis of Southern movements because it does not situate them in the context of their own historical backgrounds, cultures, socio-economic and political structures. The reason that social movement theory and analysis has geographically remained limited to the North is obviously not because their movements are more significant. Indeed, in many instances social movements and struggles in the South are characterized by a much larger scale and function in much more challenging circumstances. As movements are reflections of particular processes in a country or a region, any systematic effort to renew our understanding of the complex processes involved in evolution of social movements in the South must reflect the complexity of these societies. The global South and the groundbreaking struggles of people in Southern countries are important not only because the majority of the world’s population resides in these countries, but because these societies and their movements have historically been an indissoluble and integral part of global modernity (Bringel and Domingues 2015). Thus, in order to understand the significance of Southern movements, they must be situated in political, cultural and social transformations of their own countries and regions as well as a wider social and historical background. Hence, it is necessary to take the Southern countries into account in ways that will lead to a new understanding and theorization of the world and global dynamics. Since its emergence as a scholarly field social movement studies has gone through different paradigm shifts between North Amer ican and European approaches (including collective behaviorism, heterodox Marxism, New Social Movement Theory, Resource Mobilization Theory and Political OpportunityStructures, etc.). By the 1990s the political opportunity approach called for fusing the US and European approaches of social movement studies. In Dynamics of Contention (2001) McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly launched a research program which shifted the paradigm of contentious politics from looking at causes and effects of movements to mechanisms and processes that happen in movements and lead to different results in different contexts. They also included case studies from different regions of the world in their research agenda. Although this approach had a more inclusive outlook and was applied in the South, as Bringel and Domingues (2015: 9) argued, “the extension of the comparison to non-Western areas has not always meant paying attention to the experiences and social practices of social actors of non-Western countries.” In sum, social movement studies remains Northern-centric because it does not focus on Southern movements on their own terms. What is urgently needed is a paradigm shift in the way that Southern movements are understood and researched. Many scholars have embraced transnational approaches since the 1990s, due to the emergence of highly visible social struggles on the international stage (e.g., the anti-/alter-globalization movement and other global justice struggles). These approaches focus on the emergence of heterogeneous groups of activists and diffusion of the local and the global. While the significance of the global-local nexus and the ever increasing scale of transnational movements remains important, we cannot deny the dominance of Northern social movements and organizations in these transnational networks and mobilizations. In many instances the issues and demands of Northern societies become the source of the so-called global solidarity (see Steady 2002; Thompson and Tapscott 2010). Examples of underrepresentation of the South in such transnational mobilizations can be seen in the dominance of “white feminism” in contrast to “postcolonial feminism” within the women’s movement, and the preeminence of “conservation issues” in contrast to “survival issues” in the environmental movement. This volume aims to engage with social movements by going beyond a conventional Northern genealogy. It aims to shift the focus on the North as center of theory building and social movement analysis to the South. Hence, on the one hand it brings into focus Southern movements, their history, culture and structures. On the other hand, it argues for systematic inclusion of these movements within social movement theory. Therefore, it seeks to generate a discussion among scholars of social movements by encouraging them not only to incorporate the struggles of people from the global South into theory and scientific approaches but also to embrace their realities as an inseparable part of world history and transformative global processes. This could encourage comparative analysis of Southern and Northern movements, which could ultimately open up the horizon of social movement theory and lead to the generation of theories which are truly global rather than simply Northern. In order to take a step towards these goals, this volume has brought together scholars researching a geographically diverse range of places which are often excluded from social movement studies. The cases cover a wide but not necessarily representative range of social movements in the South. However, they capture thediversity of the Southern movements, their complexity and their uniqueness, but also their similarities to the Northern movements. The original data presented from these countries not only enrich social movement scholarship but broaden the scope of social sciences in general. The chapters address diverse theoretical and empirical starting points. While some are more theoretical in nature, others emphasize empirical data and first-hand knowledge of under-researched movements. Combining the empirical cases with ongoing theoretical debates on social movements provides a basis for further developments and dialogue with the existing literature on movements in the global South. Moreover, it fosters a global dialogue in sociology in general and in social movement studies in particular.