Social Movement Activists Research Articles

Starting All Over. The politics of protest and the struggle for democratic consolidation in Albania

Experimenting with democracy in Albania has reached a quarter of a century, displaying that democratization is a complex project that begins with the transition but does not always end in consolidation. Therefore, novel approaches and theories that elucidate what occurred after the early transition as well as during it are considered necessary. In western democracies, one of the broadly accepted and well-practised forms of citizen engagement is protest participation. A plethora of authors deem that protest participation is a pivotal activity for the formation of a democratic public as well as an instrument for fostering democratic consolidation. Consequently, as on the one hand, we perceive an upsurge of protest activities in the western countries, hence, on the other, we see a gradual deterioration of protest participation in a Post- Communist country like Albania. Local studies on this topic are sporadic and not as much of participation trends is known of Post-Communist Albanian citizens. While, other sources of participation studies, which stems from western countries tend to construct their analyses based on broad formal questionnaires without analyzing the contrast between protest in democracies and protest in authoritarian regimes. Thus, in this article, we aim to shed light on the correlation between protest participation and state mobilization strategies. More concretely, how the state undertakes to mobilize measures to promote or prevent social movement activities? The answer to the aforesaid question will be in heart of this paper.

CRÍTICAS CÍVICAS AO REGIME ALIMENTAR CORPORATIVO: MERCADOS DA REFORMA AGRÁRIA EM PORTO ALEGRE, RS / CIVIC CRITICISM TO THE CORPORATE FOOD REGIME: MARKETS OF AGRARIAN REFORM IN PORTO ALEGRE, RS

As consequências da expansão do "regime alimentar corporativo" (McMichael, 2016) têm suscitado contramovimentos que conjugam uma crítica cívica, cujo fundamento encontra-se nas demandas societárias por equidade, justiça, participação social e sustentabilidade. Estes valores têm legitimado a ação de diferentes movimentos sociais que se orientam pelas bandeiras da agroecologia e da soberania alimentar. O presente artigo analisa as estratégias de construção de mercados alternativos pelo Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) no município de Porto Alegre, Brasil. A pesquisa foi realizada em 2016 e 2017, por meio de entrevistas e observação direta. Os resultados apontam, por um lado, para a expansão de inúmeras “redes alimentares cívicas” e, por outro, para a endogeneização desta crítica pelos atores dominantes, o que implica em uma complexa dinâmica de hibridização entre mercados convencionais e alternativos.

Ativismo feminista no Facebook: uma análise comparada das páginas Não me Kahlo (Brasil) e Capazes (Portugal)

Levando em consideração o feminismo como movimento social e ativismo digital, analisamos comparativamente as páginas feministas brasileira e portuguesa com maior número de seguidores no Facebook, respectivamente Não me Kahlo e Capazes. Neste estudo exploratório, utilizámos a ferramenta Netvizz para mapear os conteúdos publicados em março de 2016, numa análise quanti‑qualitativa. Os resultados sublinham semelhanças nas temáticas abordadas que apontam para um enlace identitário (Pereira, 2011) entre os dois perfis, mas também diferentes ‘nós’ feministas (Tomazetti, 2015) em função das características de cada página e do contexto dos países. Na página portuguesa prevalecem narrativas individuais e pessoais, num tom intimista e confessional, com posições político‑partidárias pouco explícitas, num feminismo em primeira pessoa, próximo ao que Galloway (1997) chama de ciberfeminismo conservador. Na página brasileira, os discursos são fortemente politizados, em tons reativos, reivindicativos ou de denúncias, que remetem para o feminismo como causa coletiva, no que Boix e Miguel (2013) chamam de ciberfeminismo social.

On the engagement with social theory in food studies: cultural symbols and social practices

ABSTRACTThis paper is based on a two-part argument. First, food studies should be more engaged in social theory. It is argued that a greater engagement with theoretical debates and developments, as well as clearer theoretical conflicts in the field, would increase both our empirical knowledge of food issues and the understanding of general social-theoretical problems. This will not reduce food to a simple means of “studying something else,” but, on the contrary, will highlight the exceptionality of food issues. Second, such a commitment is exemplified in a particular theoretical direction. It is contended that food studies has been skewed toward research on the communicative aspects of food and eating (identity, cultural symbolism, social movement action, etc.), while increased engagements with contemporary theories of practice would provide the field with a broader diversity where the inconspicuous, ordinary, unreflective, mundane, and (more or less) unnoticed are given as much attention as the conspicuous, special, reflexive, extraordinary, and symbolically loaded.

The Power of Queer History

From its initial engagement with questions about the emergence of sexual identity formation, community life, and social movement activism, LGBT/queer history has expanded to consider the ways in which sexual and gender nonconformity are imbricated in broad histories of power, politics, and the state. Rather than a bounded identity category, “queer” operates in some of this work as a powerful critical lens and mode of analysis, one that exposes and unsettles a range of taken-for-granted assumptions, institutions, and arrangements. This essay explores dynamic new work in the field of LGBT/queer history, most of it focused on the modern U.S., to consider historians’ efforts to render sexuality a “useful category of historical analysis,” illuminating the imbrication of sexuality and power across a broad range of historical narratives and fields.

World models as organizational models: global framing and transnational activism in the brazilian black movement

Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the appropriation that the Brazilian black movement makes of diasporic content. Throughout history the black diaspora has produced different interpretations of what it means to be black, of what racism is, and produced different ways to fight it. Among these visions is the Black Atlantic, which presents itself as a macrostructure capable of influencing the formation of several frames around the world. The frames are interpretative schemes, world views that serve as a guide for the action of social movements, forming microstructures that represent the diagnoses and prognoses developed during their activities and proposals for struggle, as well as in its organization, forms of action, and resource mobilization. The results show that all these dynamics are related to the alignment of black activism to what is called global framing, which is a process of transnational diffusion formed during local adaptation processes.

Hashtag activism and message frames among social movement organizations: Semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the #MeToo movement

During the #MeToo movement, social movement organizations (SMOs) played a crucial role in the online mobilization by utilizing various message frames and appealing hashtags during the social movement. Applying a co-creational approach and using framing as a theoretical framework, the study explored how SMOs use words and hashtags to participate in the #MeToo movement through Twitter. Based on both semantic network analysis and thematic analysis methods, findings of the study enhance literature of social movement organizations and activism as well as provide practical implications for effective social movement campaigns.

Prosociality in Business: A Human Empowerment Framework

This study introduces a human empowerment framework to better understand why some businesses are more socially oriented than others in their policies and activities. Building on Welzel’s theory of emancipation, we argue that human empowerment—comprised of four components: action resources, emancipative values, social movement activity, and civic entitlements—enables, motivates, and entitles individuals to pursue social goals for their businesses. Using a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs from 43 countries, we report strong empirical evidence for two ecological effects of the framework components on prosociality. We find that human empowerment (1) lifts entrepreneurs’ willingness to choose a social orientation for their business, and (2) reinforces the gender effect on prosociality in business activity. We discuss the human empowerment framework’s added value in understanding how modernization processes fully leverage the potential of social business activities for societies.

Targets, Grievances, and Social Movement Trajectories

Why do targets of social movement activities respond to movements in the ways they do? Many factors play a role in shaping targets’ responses to social movement activities. This article focuses on one particular factor: targets’ perceptions of social movement claims. The article argues that a target’s understanding of a social movement’s claims helps shape its response, which, in turn, shapes the evolution of the social movement. Two cases of social mobilization, one in response to water privatization in Bolivia and the other in response to rising corn prices in Mexico, serve as a lens through which to explore these issues. In each case, differences in how public authorities understood the movements’ claims help explain why they reacted in starkly different ways to the emerging movements. Where officials appreciated the symbolic value of the good at stake, they acted quickly to curtail resistance. Where officials failed to grasp those meanings, they dismissed the potential for widespread mobilization and inadvertently accelerated movement growth.

More‐than‐human planning: the agency of buildings and bodies in the post‐political city

AbstractThrough a comparative study of political activism in Millers Point, Dawes Point, and The Rocks in Sydney from 1971 to 1974 and from 2014 to 2017, this paper examines the more‐than‐human force of bodies and buildings in redemocratising cities. The paper brings theoretical insights from urban assemblage and Deleuzian scholarship into dialogue with post‐political theory. In doing so, it shifts the focus in urban political geography from a concern with diverse social groups to the political potential in more‐than‐human assemblages. Through a re‐reading of Sydney's Green Bans in Millers Point, Dawes Point, and The Rocks, the paper first shows how the withdrawal of labour and stilled building sites comprise informal pathways of planning rejection that centralise social and ecological concerns in decision‐making in urban development. That first case is then contrasted with the contemporary case of privatisation and displacement at the same sites, showing how aged bodies can energise latent deliberative spaces across diverse (if repressed) institutions in liberal democracies. Given the capacities of materials and bodies to produce planning outcomes, the paper conceptualises planning as a more‐than‐human process enhanced by immersion in the experimental materialism of political movements—and this materialism is inherently geographical. The paper concludes with my reflecting on whether the proximity of workers and residents to the materials of the built environment in social movement activism of the 1970s intensified the reach of the event compared with the uncertain struggle over Millers Point today.

Examining Alternative Knowledge Production

Transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) are alternative think tanks that mobilize knowledge into social movements and community action. These social movement actors may hold vast potential in correcting inequalities that have, arguably, been prominent during the recent wave of neoliberalism. However, the study of TAPGs is new and thus they are only recently emerging within academic literature. Here, the author contributes to literature on TAPGs, by comparing two TAPGs, from the Global North and South respectively, in order to explore their potential as social movement actors situated within a neoliberal hegemonic global system.

E-politics from the citizens’ perspective. The role of social networking tools in influencing citizens

The progress of civilization, supported by the development of new technologies, has led to a series of social, economic and political changes. The information society, in its expectations and through access to knowledge, has significantly affected a change in the model of democracy, causing a kind of return to the original forms of communication in citizen-government relations. This has been accompanied by a shift of social and civic activism from the real to the virtual world. In literature, the use of information and communication technologies in the democratic system is named electronic democracy. One of its forms is e-politics, which is implemented at several levels: institutional, system and civil. A good example of the last type are the new social movements that in recent years have had a significant impact on politics. The basic research problem in this paper concerns e-politics from the citizens’ perspective, through the activities of the new social movements, especially of a political nature. The main research goal is therefore to present the role of social networking tools in influencing citizens and their subsequent activities that have triggered changes in the political system. The methods used in the paper are case study and comparative analysis.

Десакрализация революции и антиреволюционный консенсус в современной России: юбилей 2017 года и его политическое использование/неиспользование

Борис Иванович Колоницкий – доктор исторических наук, профессор, Европейский университет в Санкт-Петербурге; ведущий научный сотрудник, Санкт-Петербургский институт истории ФНИСЦ РАН. Адрес: 191187, Санкт-Петербург, Гагаринская ул., д. 6/1а. E-mail: kolon@eu.spb.ru
 Мария Георгиевна Мацкевич – кандидат социологических наук, старший научный сотрудник, Социологический институт ФНИСЦ РАН. Адрес: 190005, Санкт-Петербург, 7-ая Красноармейская ул., д. 25/14. E-mail: m.matskevich@socinst.ru
 Цитирование: Колоницкий Б.И., Мацкевич М.Г. (2018) Дескарализация революции и антиреволюционный консенсус в современной России: юбилей 2017 года и его политическое использование/неиспользование // Мир России. Т. 27. № 4. С. 78–101. DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2018-27-4-78-101
 Авторы статьи рассматривают вопрос о соотношении российской символической политики и общественного мнения в год юбилея российской революции 2017 года, используя исследовательский подход case study. Результаты опросов общественного мнения и других источников позволяют сделать вывод о том, что столетие революции не стало важным событием года. Основные участники политического процесса – представители власти и те общественные силы, которые от власти дистанцируются, – незначительно использовали ресурс юбилея. Наряду с прочими причинами это было связано и с малым интересом граждан России к этому историческому событию. Важным фактором, влияющим на современный политический процесс, в том числе на политику памяти, является антиреволюционный консенсус: хотя отношение жителей России к событиям 1917 года и к современной политической ситуации существенно отличается, абсолютное большинство отрицают революцию как возможный сценарий развития страны. Это обстоятельство также оказало влияние и на деятельность различных акторов – политиков и писателей, режиссеров кино, общественных деятелей. Антиреволюционный консенсус ограничивает репертуар протестных действий, не позволяя опираться на российскую революционную политическую традицию.

A Lei 10.639/03 como instrumento político-pedagógico na perspectiva da Interculturalidade

O presente artigo trata sobre a Lei n 10.639/2003 como instrumento poltico-pedaggico na perspectiva da Interculturalidade. O estudo faz, primeiramente, uma breve trajetria histrica de algumas aes dos movimentos sociais negros no Brasil at a aprovao da Lei 10.639 de 2003. A discusso ancorou-se, basicamente, por meios da referida Lei e seus congneres, como: a Resoluo N 01/2003, O Parecer N 03/2004, O Plano Nacional de Implementao das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para Educao das Relaes tnico-Raciais e para o Ensino de Histria e Cultura Afro-brasileira e Africana e autores que tratam sobre a temtica das relaes tnico-raciais, tais como: Candau (2016; 2012), Fleuri (2005), Santos (2005), Siss (2003), Silva (2005) Rocha (2011), dentre outros. A pesquisa concluiu que a Lei 10.639/03 pode se constituir como um forte instrumento poltico e pedaggico para o combate do preconceito e discriminao racial no contexto do multiculturalismo crtico ou da interculturalidade.

“Subsidizing the State:” The political ecology and legal geography of social movements in Chilean water governance

Water conflicts are increasingly spilling into the streets in Chile, as communities struggle to make their voices heard in formal decision-making forums. However, these growing social movements are doing much more than just marching. Combining insights from political ecology and legal geography, this article approaches water governance as a complex field of struggle in which social movement resistance plays a crucial role. In the case of the Alto Maipo hydropower conflict in central Chile, social movement actors have taken on a wide range of roles that they feel should correspond to the state: monitoring the hydropower company, documenting citizen concerns, and demanding accountability from government agencies. Attention to the legal dimensions of this struggle reveals how this work of “subsidizing the state” was built into the new institutional order ushered in during the Pinochet dictatorship, and how the capacity of social movement actors to mold this space to their advantage has been restricted by the legal framework for water governance. While there has been considerable attention to the role of resistance from water user associations in reshaping neoliberal water reforms in other parts of Latin America, the Chilean case highlights the need to also consider social movement actors from outside of the conventional water sector who struggle to defend in-stream uses not recognized under the law. Faced with limited legal recourse in the courts and little legitimacy in decision-making forums, Chilean activists have pursued alternative strategies that have expanded the scope of their resistance and built broader political pressure for change.

Administrative Activists: The Role of State Actors in Organizational Change

An important barrier to organizational change is that, even when social movements influence the state to change policies, these new policies are often implemented in ways that do not facilitate the achievement of movement goals. In this twenty- month field study of organizational change in education systems in five states within the United States, we observed social movement actors in all of the states influence policy in line with movement goals. However, two states accomplished greater organizational change among schools involved in the education initiative than did the other four states. We demonstrate that administrative activists– state administrators who work in partnership with social movement actors and use administrative practices to specify and direct action within ambiguous implementation regimes– are critical to the change process. These findings have implications for social movement theorists’ understanding of organizational change.

Social protest and cultural factors in the adoption of fur in the global fashion industry

This study examines the interplay in markets between social movement activity and internal cultural dynamics using the case of fur in the high-end global fashion industry. The authors consider how the contested nature of fur, coupled with pressures for status distinction and differentiation within the fashion industry, is associated with whether fashion houses adopt fur in their collections from 2001-2010. Four hypotheses are tested using a unique data set based on online and print archives. Hazard models indicate patterns consistent with imitation of high-status fashion houses that use fur, and response to social movement activism based on the status of the targeted houses.

Karl Polanyi as a spatial theorist

ABSTRACT The ‘spatial’ turn in political economy has re-invigorated Marxian analysis, allowing for new research programmes into urbanization, geopolitics, and social movement activity amongst other topics. This tendency emerged through a critical re-reading of Marx and Gramsci, amongst others, uncovering spatial analyses embedded in the logic of their arguments. Conversely, Karl Polanyi’s interlocutors have tended to add geographical analysis as an additional layer of theory, reading space ‘in’ to the text. However, a close reading reveals that a concern with space permeates Polanyi’s analysis. As such, it is possible to read space ‘out’ of Polanyi, adding a level of theoretical rigour and logical consistency when applying his insights to geographic topics. This article carries out an exegesis of Karl Polanyi’s work, uncovering a theoretical framework that deals with space, place, scale, fixity, and motion. From this vantage point, the article considers the potential implications of this new geographical reading of Polanyi.

Fusion or replacement? Labour and the ‘new’ social movements

A neglected element of Rethinking Industrial Relations is its critique of postmodernism. This article argues that this is regrettable on three grounds. First, core claims that characterized the postmodern account of employment relations at the time that Kelly was writing continue to be made today; particularly with regard to the characteristics of ‘new’ social movements and their capacity to replace labour as the main dynamic force advancing employee interests. Second, Kelly’s critique of postmodernism remains relevant and his observations with regard to the multiple forms and modes of action of new social movements continue to have force. Third, Kelly suggested that rather than replacing labour, new social movements were natural allies of trade unions. His argument here anticipated much later work on union–community coalitions and the final purpose of the article is to update Kelly’s ‘fusion thesis’ by identifying the ways in which labour and new social movements work together.

Addressing Recognition Gaps: Destigmatization and the Reduction of Inequality

This Presidential Address offers elements for a systematic and cumulative study of destigmatization, or the process by which low-status groups gain recognition and worth. Contemporary sociologists tend to focus on inequality in the distribution of resources, such as occupations, education, and wealth. Complementing this research, this address draws attention to “recognition gaps,” defined as disparities in worth and cultural membership between groups in a society. I first describe how neoliberalism promotes growing recognition gaps. Then, drawing on research on stigmatized groups across several societies, I analyze how experiences of stigma and destigmatization are enabled and constrained by various contextual factors and actors, including institutions, cultural repertoires, knowledge workers, and social movement activists. I conclude by proposing a research agenda for the sociology of recognition and destigmatization, and by sketching how social scientists, policymakers, organizations, and citizens can contribute to the reduction of recognition gaps.