Coalition Work Research Articles

Repensar la insurgencia: movimientos sociales y vanguardias revolucionarias en América Central

A lo largo del siglo XX, las revoluciones sociales en América Latina fueron obra de amplias coaliciones revolucionarias urbano-rurales multiclasistas y multiétnicas que, en varios casos, fueron incapaces de derrotar a los regímenes que enfrentaban. Tal resistencia a los desafíos revolucionarios ha sido el aspecto focal de la literatura para explicar los diversos desenlaces. Este artículo explora la dinámica interna de las coaliciones revolucionarias, pero centrándose en la relación entre élites revolucionarias y movimientos sociales comparando tres casos con desenlaces diferentes: Nicaragua, El Salvador y Guatemala. Se argumenta que los distintos niveles de autonomía de los movimientos sociales respecto de las élites insurgentes constituyen un factor para la explicación de los triunfos o fracasos de las coaliciones revolucionarias.

4034 Can Connections IN Health become a research-based model to improve health outcomes through community health coalitions?

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Connections IN Health’s goal is to coordinate, integrate, and enrich health coalition work through extended connections among community and academic stakeholders within and across coalitions and geographies within Indiana. We aim to evaluate stakeholder connections to assess coalition effectiveness and the quality of partnership networks. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We will collect data longitudinally to evaluate Connections IN Health using a unique triangulation of effectiveness surveys, social network analysis, and health data. Cross-sectional functioning and social network analysis surveys were distributed to coalition members before the transition to Connections IN Health engagement (baseline) and will be distributed again each year thereafter to identify changes in coalition perceived effectiveness and changes in the structure/nature of partnership networks after implementation of the partnership. We plan to utilize publicly available health data to measure proximal changes in health outcomes at the neighborhood level and use Pearson’s correlations to check for associations between perceived coalition effectiveness and health outcomes. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We found low baseline scores in perceived effectiveness, especially in the areas of leadership, operational understanding, and satisfaction, from the coalition members. From our social network analysis, we found relatively low cohesion scores (measured as network density) among each of the coalition networks, and even lower scores for collaboration among coalition members. We expect to see positive increases in perceived coalition effectiveness, as well as an increase in the density and level of collaboration among coalition networks as Connections IN Health develops. Finally, we expect to see positive changes in proximal health outcomes associated with our measures of coalition effectiveness. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The results of our project will be distributed back to the coalition leaders and members in order to sustain and improve the coalitions. The visualization of the coalition member’s network can be used to demonstrate opportunities for enhanced partnerships and collaboration.

Tango Dancing with María Lugones

Tango Dancing with María Lugones

The Washtenaw ID Project: A Government-Issued ID Coalition Working Toward Social, Economic, and Racial Justice and Health Equity.

Introduction. The policing of identities through policies that restrict access to IDs issued by U.S. governmental entities disparately affects communities of color; communities who identify as low-income, immigrant, older, and/or transgender; and community members who experience chronic mental illness, housing instability, or incarceration. Yet government-issued IDs are increasingly needed to access health-promoting resources such as housing, banking, social services, and health care, and in interactions with law enforcement. Methods. Since 2012, the Washtenaw ID Project's coalition-building process has involved communities affected by restrictive ID policies, advocates, and institutional stakeholders to enact community and systems change regarding inequities in government-issued IDs. We discuss the coalition-building process that culminated in the implementation of a photo ID issued by Washtenaw County government as a policy change strategy. We also highlight the community-academic research partnership evaluating the effectiveness of the Washtenaw ID in order to ensure equity in Washtenaw ID access and acceptance. Results. In 2015, 77% of Washtenaw ID holders reported having no other locally accepted ID. At follow-up, Washtenaw ID holders reported favorable Washtenaw ID acceptance rates in several domains (e.g., health care, school), but not when accessing banking services and housing. Additionally, community discussions suggested racial inequities in carding and ID acceptance. We discuss next steps for policy improvement to ensure equitable impact of the ID. Conclusions. Without national policy reform instating access to government-issued IDs for all, the social movement to establish local IDs may improve access to health-related resources contingent on having an ID. Careful attention must be paid to community organizing processes, policy implementation, and evaluation to ensure equity.

Struggling for education: The dynamics of student protests in Chile and Quebec

This article aims at explaining the emergence and magnitude of student protests in Chile in 2011 and in Quebec in 2012. These two societies witnessed unprecedented levels of student mobilization that cannot be accounted for simply by pointing out existing resources and political cultures. Although the latter did play a role in shaping the mobilization – insofar as in both Chile and Quebec the student movement is well organized, is composed of dense networks of formal as well as informal organizations and has been characterized by contentious practices for a long time – they cannot alone explain the timing and the duration of the 2011–2012 protests. The authors thus propose to treat organizational resources and political culture as initial conditions and draw on the work of McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly to focus on three processes that were critical in determining the growth and trajectory of the conflict: (1) mediation, as a result of communication and coalition work among student organizations and the emergence of new collectives that redefined past lines of division; (2) polarization, as a result of both a closed structure of political opportunities and a radicalization of student demands; and (3) spillover, as student movements extended beyond initial issues and goals and fostered other mobilizations. These three processes did not evolve in sequence but instead in parallel, conditioning one another. By showing that similar mechanisms can generate relatively similar effects in different contexts, this study contributes to assessing their robustness. Furthermore, by comparing a case from the Global North with one from the Global South the study contributes to making social movement studies less parochial.

Assessing the Explanatory Power of Social Movement Theories across the Life Course of the Civil Rights Movement

Social movements are constantly evolving. Protest activity waxes and wanes as movements suffer through prolonged periods of frustration, win occasional gains, and turn to new goals and issues. While theoretical models of protest activity are often sensitive to this reality, empirical models typically treat these explanations as time-invariant, rather than situated in specific moments in movements’ histories. Quite simply, we suspect that the effect of important predictors of movement activity, notably access to resources, political opportunities, repression, and competition, varies depending on the specific moment in the movement’s life course. We explore this possibility through a detailed analysis of three main periods of the American Civil Rights movement: (1) the movement’s initial success (1960–1968), its subsequent demobilization (1968–1977), and its institutionalization (1978–1995). Our analysis builds on limited work arguing for greater sensitivity to a movement’s life course when explaining protest activity. We find that the type of organizational resources that shape mobilization varies across periods, and support for prior work showing that the concurrent push and pull of institutionalization and radicalization led to demobilization. Finally, we find that coalition work motivated protest during its period of institutionalization. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings.

Prioritizing Equity: Exploring Conditions Impacting Community Coalition Efforts

Purpose: There is a critical push toward addressing equity in health care. Community coalitions are uniquely situated to heed this call by tackling issues of equity and well-being that are the most relevant for their local context. This article analyzes internal and external contextual factors that may affect coalitions' prioritization of equity.Methods: Data were collected from 18 coalitions participating in a national, U.S.-based initiative aimed at strengthening community coalition work through the principles of equity and inclusion. A hybrid qualitative–quantitative method (qualitative comparative analysis [QCA]) was conducted using the direct method of calibration and fuzzy set QCA and to obtain casual sufficiency results.Results: Coalitions located in states that did not expand Medicaid after the Affordable Care Act were most likely to prioritize equity, as were coalitions who were both working with marginalized populations and had low organizational readiness for the initiative. However, only one case demonstrated the latter causal solution; the former accounts for greater coverage of the outcome.Conclusion: This study illustrates the use of QCA for evaluation and underscores the critical role of contextual factors for affecting meaningful community-level change. Coalitions are willing and able to prioritize tackling health inequities across settings, but those in settings with low state-level support may be more likely to emphasize inequities in their work.

The Pitfalls of Disentangling Women’s Agency from Accountability for Gender Equality Outcomes

The representation of Middle Eastern women in Western scholarship in particular has been critiqued in post colonialist and feminist scholarship for its racist underpinnings embedded in broader colonialist constructs. This rich body of scholarship has contributed to a paradigmatic shift in how the “woman question” is addressed in western academic engagement with women in the Middle East. This article, however, interrogates whether the counter-narratives have created new binary constructs in their representations of women’s agency whose impact has been detrimental to local feminist struggles for gender equality. It explores the problematics of using an analytical framing that disassociates expressions of women’s collective agency from the gender equality agenda and its implications for coalitional work by looking at examples from the early 20th century as well as in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.

Engaging Coalitions in Community-Based Childhood Obesity Prevention Interventions: A Mixed Methods Assessment.

Childhood obesity prevention interventions have engaged coalitions in study design, implementation, and/or evaluation to improve research outcomes; yet, no systematic reviews have been conducted on this topic. This mixed methods review aims to characterize the processes and dynamics of coalition engagement in community-based childhood obesity prevention interventions. Data Sources: Studies extracted from Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, and Web of Science; complementary original survey and interview data among researchers of included studies. Eligible Studies: Multisetting community-based obesity prevention interventions in high-income countries targeting children 0-12 years with anthropometric, behavioral, or environmental/policy outcomes. The Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Conceptual Model was used as an overarching framework. Thirteen studies met inclusion criteria. Elements of CBPR were evident across all studies with community engagement in problem identification (n = 7), design/planning (n = 11), implementation (n = 12), evaluation (n = 4), dissemination (n = 2), and sustainability (n = 10) phases. Five studies reported favorable intervention effects on anthropometric (n = 4), behavioral (n = 1), and/or policy (n = 1) outcomes; descriptive associations suggested that these studies tended to engage community members in a greater number of research phases. Researchers involved in 7 of 13 included studies completed a survey and interview. Respondents recalled the importance of group facilitation, leadership, and shared understanding to multisector coalition work. Perceived coalition impacts included community capacity building and intervention sustainability. This review contributes to a deeper understanding of intervention processes and dynamics within communities engaged in childhood obesity prevention. Future research should more rigorously assess and report on coalition involvement to assess the influence of coalitions on multiple outcomes, including child weight status.

Honouring the role of community in community health work with Cambodian Americans.

Despite surviving extreme forms of violence, torture and other traumas during the Khmer Rouge genocide and forced migration, Cambodian Americans experience devastating health inequities and barriers to health access in the United States (U.S.). From the perspective of Cambodian American community health workers (CHWs), we explored three aims in this community-based participatory research (CBPR), qualitative study: Cambodian Americans' understanding of health, community health work strategies that improve health access of Cambodian Americans, and action steps that improve health access for Cambodian Americans. From 2014 to 2016, our two-phased study spanned seven U.S. states, which included a focus group (n=5) and 16 semistructured interviews. Participants identified an indigenous concept of health, and micro-level (e.g. service navigation, peer education) and mezzo-level interventions (e.g. community building, coalition work) to improve health access. Finally, Khmer Health Advocates, a community-based health advocacy organisation, served as a vital study partner in this CBPR study.

"Healthy Sexuality": “It’s not gay or bad, it’s SSAD"

Many ex-gays claim to be part of a marginalized group: the disability community. They claim that their homoerotic desires are indicative of mental illness and thus make them disabled. This essay explores the implications of this claimed disability. Given the context of a growing desire for queer-crip coalition work, how does the existence of ex-gays affects our theorization of disability and sexuality, pushing us to be more aware of the messiness of identity politics?

Can state-supported interprofessional coalitions cure preceptor shortages?

The shortage of clinical preceptors compromises the current and future supply of healthcare providers and patient access to primary care. This article describes how an interprofessional coalition in South Carolina formed and sought government support to address the preceptor shortage. Some states have legislated preceptor tax credits and/or deductions to support the clinical education of future primary care healthcare providers. As a result of the coalition's work, a bill to establish similar incentives is pending in the South Carolina legislature.

Mobilizing Rural Communities to Prevent Childhood Obesity: A Tool Kit

The tool kit Mobilizing Rural Communities to Prevent Childhood Obesity is the product of a seven-state multidisciplinary research project focused on enhancing obesity prevention efforts by integrating community coaching into the work of rural community coalitions. The interactive tool kit is available at no cost both in print form and online, and it consists of five tutorials that present best practices and lessons learned throughout the research project. Extension professionals working within health promotion coalitions may wish to use or promote the tool kit. Coalition members can complete the activities contained in the tool kit individually or as a group.

Mobilizing Rural Communities to Prevent Childhood Obesity: A Tool Kit

The tool kit Mobilizing Rural Communities to Prevent Childhood Obesity is the product of a seven-state multidisciplinary research project focused on enhancing obesity prevention efforts by integrating community coaching into the work of rural community coalitions. The interactive tool kit is available at no cost both in print form and online, and it consists of five tutorials that present best practices and lessons learned throughout the research project. Extension professionals working within health promotion coalitions may wish to use or promote the tool kit. Coalition members can complete the activities contained in the tool kit individually or as a group.

Improving HPV Vaccination Through a Diverse Multi-state Coalition.

Rural and highly religious Intermountain West states demonstrate low levels of HPV vaccination uptake. The Intermountain West HPV Vaccination Coalition (IWHVC) was formed to improve HPV vaccination by enhancing collaborations between cancer centers, health departments, health clinics, religious groups, and community organizations. Coalition members' perceptions and experiences are described within. A cross-sectional online survey was distributed to the IWHVC. N = 86 responded to the online survey. Six subsequent focus groups were conducted (N = 36). Participant demographics, barriers, and facilitators of HPV vaccination were summarized. The first three focus groups were coded in an iterative manner based on a coding scheme.The final three focus groups were selectively coded for content related to five themes: barriers and facilitators to HPV vaccination, how the coalition has been useful, future directions of the coalition, and how to engage religious communities. Participants suggested that HPV vaccination should occur in a doctor's office (70.9%), public health clinic (64.0%), or at a community health fair (58.1%). Perceived barriers included a lack of education/low knowledge about the HPV vaccine (55.8%), concerns about sexuality/promiscuity (44.2%), and not knowing the vaccine is recommended for boys (38.4%). Participants stressed the importance of gaining buy-in from religious leaders, and felt the coalition helped them advocate for HPV vaccination through networking, idea and information sharing, and voicing their community's needs. Future goals emphasized targeted outreach, sustainable funding, expanded environmental scans, gaining religious support, and policy reforms. Targeted coalition work builds community capacity and coordinates HPV vaccination efforts. A community driven coalition approach could help improve HPV vaccination in other rural and highly religious regions.

TRANS ANIMISMS

This article examines a handful of recent creative works that reflect speculatively on transgender pasts. I argue that each of these creative texts uses ontological interventions to reimagine moments in trans activist history that scholars have narrated only in terms of the attenuation of sociality and of political participation. These works do this by ratifying trans activists’ relations of reciprocity with extraordinary entities that are not often supported by secular and anthropocentric historiographies. Instead of engaging accounts of coalition work with extraterrestrials, nonhuman animals, and magical powers mainly as sites of “subjugated knowledges” (a reading that negates the agency of nonhuman beings and analyzes them only as effects of human belief), these creative works all consider the political capacitations afforded by trans collaborations with other-than-human agencies. In order to make this argument, I draw from the recent body of anthropological scholarship known as the “new animism,” and consider the absence of commentary on religion and secularism within the Anglo-American posthuman turn. Ultimately, beyond offering alternatives to historical declension narratives about trans activism, these works urge scholars to consider how relations with “subaltern” agentive forces have become increasingly important to disenfranchised communities’ efforts to negotiate the political debilitations of a post-neoliberal world.

Tamar W. Carroll.Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism.

Tamar W. Carroll’s Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism chronicles several decades of leftist activism in New York City from the 1960s into the 1990s. It is an engagingly written book that makes major contributions to our understanding of various movements, such as the 1970s women’s movement and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). More broadly, however, Carroll’s provocative and persuasively argued work will be of interest to scholars of postwar U.S. politics and scholars of political activism in any period. Carroll makes two central arguments that help bind together the somewhat disparate activist stories she tells. First, she argues that looking at the interactions between different activist groups, as well as the dynamics among people of different backgrounds within single groups, alters our understanding of the function of identity politics in political mobilization and, especially, political effectiveness in the 1960s and beyond. Carroll writes that, contrary to the prevailing historical and political beliefs, examining individual activist groups highlights the fact that identity-based political mobilization and the building of multiethnic, multiracial groups, or doing coalition work across identity groups, were not mutually exclusive ideas. Her exploration of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women (NCNW), a Brooklyn-based organization that brought together working-class Italian American, Puerto Rican, and African American women in a feminist organization focused on empowering women and fighting city and private sector divestment in their neighborhood, shows the ways in which “identity-based consciousness-raising for the purpose of multiracial community organizing” could be a powerful and effective tool in grassroots political mobilization (104). Her book documents the structures the NCNW used to ensure that women from all racial backgrounds felt comfortable within the group and that everyone had opportunities for leadership. As Carroll states in the conclusion, uncovering both the existence of successful cross-race alliances that were grounded in acknowledging the unique background each group brought to the coalition, and the structures that enabled such an organization to thrive, provides a useful framework for activists seeking to make the same kinds of alliances today.

Building a Public Health Law and Policy Curriculum to Promote Skills and Community Engagement

This article describes implementation of a longitudinal curriculum in public health law, building on doctrinal coursework with skills-based coursework and opportunities for interdisciplinary, community-based engagement and service learning. It specifically describes development of a Policy Practicum, giving an example of how law students can learn policy skills and skills of effective community coalition work through a healthy homes partnership, highlighting areas where the curriculum can incorporate interdisciplinary education. It offers lessons learned during the curriculum-building process, and concludes with a more intensive service-learning strategy through the development of a Policy Lab.

Queering Gender [Identity] in International Law

ABSTRACTIn a growing number of countries, developments in domestic law concerning transgendered people are moving towards a more social approach to recognising and regulating gendered bodies. International developments – illustrated here by the Yogyakarta Principles - appear to be taking a different course in which (bio)logic and heteronormative family forms are uncritically embraced. This article provides examples from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which illustrate a reluctance to fully pursue the opportunities opened by new understandings of sex/gender and the related unwillingness to address gendered discrimination suffered by men and other genders. To counter the reinstatement of biology as foundational in gender, the article argues for more feminist and queer coalitional work and the adoption of a performative understanding of ‘sex’. A more liberatory and inclusive conception of gender should be pursued, without obscuring the specificity and diversity of the human rights abuses felt by those who are, or who are perceived as, transgendered.

Event Coalitions in the Pittsburgh G20 Protests

Protests at events such as the 2009 Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh frequently require activists to engage in some type of coalition work. This article examines two event coalitions created to organize the Pittsburgh G20 protests: the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project (PGRP), consisting of local anti-authoritarians, and a loose alliance of individuals and organizations brought together by the Thomas Merton Center (TMC), a local peace and justice movement center. I show how the organizational structure and early decisions of the PGRP made it more effective than the TMC alliance and how those choices were affected by preexisting network structures, social movement organizations, ideological alignments, and relationships in the local movement community. The experiences of activists in event coalitions, both positive and negative, then affect the shape of the movement community and subsequent coalitions and campaigns.