Collective Mobilization Research Articles

The difficulties in spreading housing rights discourse in the face of ‘right now’ pragmatism on Twitter

Social movements work in various overlapping dynamics: in the short term, trying to mobilize the largest number of sympathizers in their actions and in the long term, in a battle to change meanings and cognitive frameworks in a society. This article investigates how the Platform for Those Affected by Mortgages (PAH) uses Twitter in the two spheres above mentioned. The literature referring to collective mobilization explains activism in two complementary logics. A first one, rational, where participants only think about a concrete benefit, and a second, focusing on challenging established beliefs. As complex societies, the media and, more recently, social networks have gained in importance as a space where the legitimacy of these claims are discussed. In this analysis, frame theory has been applied to tweets referring to evictions published at the official account @LA_PAH. Twitter, unlike other social networks, allows quick mobilization to gather activists and stop evictions, a valuable and positive asset. However, it ends up giving a limited image, focused on avoiding evictions, instead of a message to establish housing access as a good that must be guaranteed, outside the market. The extreme cases, those about families including children and elderly, predominate in the posts. This visibility certainly generates empathy but leads to the false feeling that only the most vulnerable citizens are affected.

Inferring land use from spatialtemporal taxi ride data

Different functions of urban spaces generate travel demand, and urban travel inversely influences urban spaces. Collective human mobility patterns can reveal land use patterns and urban structure although previous studies constrained the area around transportation stations. This paper explores the relationship between urban movements and land use patterns of a whole city using taxi ridership data in Seoul, South Korea. This study takes advantages of taxi datasets that are not bounded by routes and stations and contain more precise information in terms of space and time. In addition, we verify the connection between land use and travel patterns using a statistical method. To reveal the interaction between trip mobility patterns and land use, taxi ridership patterns are grouped by a clustering method. Each clustered pattern is then analyzed with the corresponding urban context. We also statistically verify the relationship between land use and the pattern clusters, and show that the seven obtained clusters can be categorized into four types and were significantly correlated with land use. Furthermore, more detailed land use can be classified using the spatiotemporal properties of taxi ridership patterns. The proposed method is expected to monitor change in land use development.

A Double-Edge Sword? Mass Media and Nonviolent Dissent in Autocracies

It is often assumed that nondemocratic regimes will control mass media and suppress independent information, but in many autocracies the media are partially free and imperfectly controlled. We argue that partial media freedom can increase the prospects for mass nonviolent dissent. We develop a theory emphasizing how even less than perfectly free media outlets can increase the ability of individuals to coordinate and mobilize, and provide an informational endowment that can help non-state actors overcome collective mobilization barriers. We further argue that this informational endowment amplifies the effect of other influences spurring mass protests in autocracies, in particular protest contagion and elections. We find empirical support for our argument in an analysis of all autocracies between 1955 and 2013. A case study of the Georgian Rose revolution provides further support for the postulated mechanisms.

The rhetoric of the Brazilian far‐right, built in the streets: The case of Rio de Janeiro

AbstractThis article is an ethnographic exploration of the construction of far‐right rhetoric in Brazil. It begins with a description of events on the final day of the 2018 election, when Jair Messias Bolsonaro won the presidency. To contextualise this scene, I analyse how far‐right rhetoric was articulated in the Brazilian public sphere from June 2013 until 2018, specifically in the state of Rio de Janeiro, through a series of key events that were fundamental in constructing far‐right identity claims and collective mobilisation into an anti‐corruption and militarised rhetoric in the electoral campaign. The article shows the importance of these specific events in developing what became the ‘Bolsonarist rhetoric’—or Bolsonarismo—as part of a broader international politics of disaffection.

Mobility as a Service and urban infrastructure: From concept to practice

The debate about how Mobility as a Service (MaaS) will revolutionize individual and collective mobility is gaining increasing attention from researchers, industries, and public sectors. MaaS is expected to create a techno-utopia with a new organization and operation of transport systems where residents have equal access to instant and ubiquitous mobility services. However, transport service is an artifact that is highly dependent on the construction of urban infrastructure. The success of MaaS requires the support of urban infrastructure that we categorize as (1) transport-flow infrastructure, (2) information-flow infrastructure, and (3) computing-flow infrastructure. The connotation of urban infrastructure here includes not only conventional concepts, such as transportation infrastructure, but also intelligent transportation concepts, such as high-speed communication networks and autonomous fleets. Moreover, travel behavior data collected by city sensors, communication networks, and intelligent vehicles require appropriate infrastructures to dynamically compute for fleet dispatch and demand-supply match. Based on the degree of integration of these infrastructures, MaaS projects will have different results in varying cities. From concept to practice, given that a vast disparity in infrastructure exists between cities, we need an inclusive, mobile, and global understanding of the MaaS concept to make it successful in different parts of the world.

Individual mobility prediction review: Data, problem, method and application

The ‘sharing’ business models and on-demand services have been altering city dwellers’ travel habits from buying the means of transport to buying mobility services based on needs. The capability to proactively provide personalized services (e.g., travel recommendations and dynamic pricing) is the future of smart multimodal mobility systems, in which the individual mobility prediction technique (predict where/when for a next trip) is a key enabler to achieve that. With the advancement of data collection and computing techniques, the individual mobility prediction problem has been gaining increasing interest, but yet receives little attention in applications and differs in problem definitions and methodologies developed given varied data sources and application contexts. In addition, there are many review studies on collective mobility predictions (e.g., travel demand/traffic flows), but no review study on the individual mobility prediction. To address these issues and fill the gap, the review synthesizes existing studies on individual mobility prediction in transport (data/problem/methodology/applications), identifies remaining research needs, as well as discusses methodological considerations and potential future transport applications. The review highlights the value of individual mobility prediction in driving proactive service provisions and mobility management in multimodal mobility systems. Methodologically, it is critical to pay more attention to data validation, data specification, and model interpretability in developing learning-based prediction models. Practically, it is of high value to study the individual mobility prediction with arbitrary prediction times (the time when the prediction is made) and prediction horizons (how far in the future).

Spatial reason of the state: the role of space in protest repression in Turkey

ABSTRACT Between 2007 and 2019 the Turkish regime used protest bans extensively in order to impede collective mobilization. In this paper, drawing on Michel Foucault’s discussion of raison d’état and an original dataset of protest bans, we examine these legal practices as part of the state’s repertoire of protest repression. We point to two limits against the indefinite extension of state regulation that Foucault identifies: an external limit posed by public law and regime of rights, and an internal limit that questions the effectiveness of ‘too much’ government. We argue that authorities use spatial control as a technology to negotiate these two limits. Specifically, authorities deploy the state’s prerogative of regulating public space as a ‘politically neutral’ legal technology to reconcile the banning of protests with the external limit posed by freedom of assembly. Spatial control also works as an effective form of government to negotiate the internal limits of raison d’état. We use illustrative examples to unpack the mechanisms of how spatial technologies neutralize protests to bolster an authoritarian regime. The study contributes to empirical research on protest repression as well as theoretical discussions on the rationalities of government by expanding the geographical scope of existing research to an autocratizing context.

“I Have Apostatized”: Self-Narratives of Catholic Apostasy as Resources for Collective Mobilization in Argentina

Since 2009, the Collective Apostasy Campaign in Argentina has mobilized some people who are opposed to the political interference of the Catholic Church through the formal act of apostatizing. The politicization of sexual and reproductive rights, and, especially, the fight for the legalization of abortion, led to the campaign that acquired great public repercussions between 2018 and 2020. This paper analyzes 13 self-narratives of apostasy publicly available since 2009, digging into its plot, motives to apostatize, and motivation for its publicizing. Through a thematic analysis, the diverse self-narratives show similar motivations (to promote social debate on political secularization in the country), although they differ in the centrality of their personal, sociopolitical, and procedural motives to apostatize. The stories that apostates tell are resources for social mobilization as they seek an increasingly broad audience and serve the pedagogical function of sharing arguments against the political role of the Catholic Church and in favor of personal ideological coherence.

Dave Chappelle’s Sticks and Stones as Black Radical Tragic comedy

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Dave Chappelle’s 2019 Netflix comedy special Sticks & Stones is a staging of the Black Radical Tragic in which Chappelle performs without resolving the tension between Black revolutionary leadership and the mass-based concerns necessary for collective mobilization. Chappelle maintains the tragic dialectic through two modes of performance: the inscription of Black men and ethopoeia, or impersonation, reserved for the Others. However, that dialectic fails in key points as Chappelle’s Others, particularly Black women, are simultaneously inscribed and impersonated, revealing the impossibility of inscribing Black men against threats to liberation.

Social media and diatopic tension: A psychosocial study with Haddad and Bolsonaro's voters in Brazil

AbstractThis paper aims at analyzing the communicational dynamics activated by the dissemination offake newson social media in moments of collective mobilization, in the frame of the dialogic approach of social representations. In order to establish a comparative analysis, three focus groups were created with voters of candidates Fernando Haddad and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who discussed the content of purposely selectedFacebookposts. The study extrapolated the conversational exercise to the dynamics of a social media, concluding that digital ecosystems, in moments of collective mobilization, behave as representational fields guided, from the psychosocial point of view, by relations of identity tension and, from a rhetorical or communicational point of view, by a phenomenon calleddiatopic tension, characterized by the coexistence of four interdependent variables: (1) topological divergence; (2) situational heteroglossy; (3) affective intensity and 4) apparent perception of factual control.

COMUNIDADE REMANESCENTE DE QUILOMBOLA ILHA DE SÃO VICENTE

Este estudo ocupa-se em discorrer a narrativa de resistência da comunidade remanescente de quilombo Ilha de São Vicente, em Araguatins/TO. Discorre-se a respeito de sua na luta pela reapropriação de seu território, bem como do processo de construção da identidade quilombola. Norteada pela metodologia da história oral, a pesquisa teve como objeto de estudo relatos orais de uma ativista social quilombola, que exerce papel de liderança em sua comunidade. O corpus da pesquisa compõe-se de depoimento biográfico único, o qual porta experiências e vivências de uma coletividade. A leitura analítica dos dados aponta ser a construção identitária quilombola um processo recente, que teve início a partir da certificação da área territorial do quilombo. A relação afetiva da comunidade com o território é tecida por meio de memórias de lutas, de resistências e militância, sobretudo na mobilização coletiva para comprovar a ligação com uma história portadora de uma ancestralidade comum: a descendência de escravizados.

Review of Literature on Social Movement

Social movement is a broad alliance of people whereby different actors work together to bring change in the existing social order. Sociologist Mario Diani considers informal network, shared beliefs, and collective action as features of social movements. This paper reviews Diani’s concept of social movement along with that of other scholars. Social movements are analyzed from the perspectives of collective behavior, resource mobilization, political process, and new social movement. Scholars strive to differentiate it from sporadic collective human endeavors such as riots, protests, strikes, and shutdowns. Social movements target to overthrow regimes where people's requirements are not fulfilled, which signal vulnerability of the state to collective action. Also, from a structural perspective, social movements are facilitated by larger international contexts that affect developments at home. The state response leads to new opportunities, and state organizations of old regimes break down and new, revolutionary ones are built.

Struggle for Substantive Justice and Community Development: Transgender Subjects in Contemporary India

This paper discusses the transgender community's fight for justice and developmental rights since 2014 and the response of the Indian Government toward this assertion. The point of choosing 2014 as the starting point is not because the fight for their justice actually begins in this year but because India witnessed an intensification and an increase in public visibility of transgenders’ mobilization following the recognition of members of transgender communities as legal citizens through the landmark Indian Supreme Court (Court) verdict called the National Legal Services Authority Union of India (NALSA). In documenting transgenders’ mobilization and the state's response, the author has substantially relied on secondary sources—newspaper articles and pieces in magazines, blogs, and other online community networks. The narratives of a few transgender activists and intellectuals reaffirm the critiques offered through the media and online community blogs and networks. It gives one the impression of a neoliberal state, which, while willing to protect the constitutional rights of many marginalized groups, finds it hard to fulfill promises that might require the allocation of substantial fiscal and monetary resources. The consistent collective mobilizations of the transgender communities, however, resulted in some concrete gains and developmental rights.

Assessment of effects of a Cemetery leachate on Groundwater Quality using an Integrated Approach

The dependency of residents in the vicinity of cemeteries on groundwater from hand-dug wells as an alternative source of water supply for their domestic use without cognisance of the quality of such water has been a concern. So, this research assesses the effects of a cemetery on groundwater quality using an integrated approach in Edunabon, South-western Nigeria. Thirty groundwater samples from available hand-dug wells were collected and analysed for various physicochemical parameters. GIS cloud data collection server and Mobile Data Collector (MDC) were used to obtain these hand-dug wells' locations and spatial distributions. The determination in variation in physicochemical concentration parameters was obtained using the curve fitting technique of ARCVIEW GIS software and digital map. Physicochemical results were used to calculate Water Quality Index (WQI) of each sample. Two Schlumberger Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) of 130.0m long were conducted at 10.0m intervals to the wall and the next VES, on each side of the cemetery. Current spacing (AB/2) and apparent resistivity (ρa) data were plotted on a double logarithm paper, curved matched and iterated using IPI2Win software for qualitative and quantitative interpretation. WQI results ranged from (107.37–173.64), (76.60–93.37), (54.94–71.53), (31.29–48.01), and (10.84–25.31) for fourteen, seven, three, four and two hand-dug wells respectively, an indication that the water from these wells was unfit for drinking, very poor, poor, good, and excellent respectively. VES results revealed that first, second and third layers were mainly clayey topsoil (46.7–96.8Ωm), lateritic soil (169.0–551.3Ωm), and weathered layer (3.21–27.4Ωm), which favourably enhances the migration of leachate from the cemetery to the surrounding soils and groundwater. The lowest resistivity values recorded in the second and third layers indicated leachate presence at these hand-dug wells. The integration of GIS and electrical resistivity methods would be useful tools to assess groundwater quality around cemeteries. Keywords: Groundwater quality, Mobile Data Collection, unfit for drinking, Vertical Electrical Sounding, Water Quality index

Rich kids of Europe? Social basis and strategic choices in the climate activism of Fridays for Future

AbstractIn 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg began a school strike that quickly spread across the globe. After a ritual strike every Friday by school pupils to call for urgent action against climate change had gone on for several months, what had become Fridays for Future (FFF) called for various global days of action throughout 2019, bringing millions of people out onto the streets in the largest climate protests in world history. Drawing on unique protest survey data on FFF events across European cities in 2019, this article explores the structural bases of organized collective mobilization for climate justice. Nuancing narratives that focus on either the privileged background of climate justice protesters or the environmentalism of the poor, our results show the heterogeneity of the social composition of the protests, suggesting the need for cross-class alliances for mass mobilizations. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the social background of protesters shaped their attitudes regarding what institutions and approaches can be relied upon to tackle climate and environmental challenges. This suggests an important and under-studied connection between social background and the strategic choices of environmental movements.

Naming Performativity on Twitter

This article examines naming as a discursive performance deployed by antiracist feminists in Brazil. I analyze tweets referencing the names of three Black Brazilian women intellectuals: Marielle Franco, Lélia González and Djamila Ribeiro, seeking to unearth the way in which their names help to build counterpublic spaces of resistance involving notions of citizenship, belonging and democracy. Using platform studies and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis as a theoretical frame, I perform different operations of computational textual analysis to map most frequent users referenced and hashtags used, as well as most relevant topics. I conclude that naming grants a powerful role in building counterpublics’ identities, helping to constitute alternative intellectual traditions in Brazil. Linking a social media post with a name to a collective mobilization serves to establish and maintain cultural identity, combining ephemerality with a continuing legacy.

Volunteerism and democratic learning in an authoritarian state: the case of China

ABSTRACT Extant literature on civic participation in Western democracies demonstrates a linear relationship between increased civic participation and a stronger democracy. In general, the scholarly debate revolves around the precise causal mechanisms for this relationship: holding government accountable; citizens learning “democratic skills”, such as collective mobilization and advocacy; and, building social capital and trust to overcome the dilemma of collective action. Given rapidly increasing volunteerism in China, this study tests these theories in a single-party authoritarian system using evidence from the 2020 Civic Participation in China Survey. The study finds that volunteers in China do learn “citizen skills”; however, these differ from those learned by volunteers in democracies. Foremost, while volunteering allows for authoritarian citizens to learn and differentiate channels most appropriate for addressing specific social problems, they generally do not try to directly hold their government accountable for poor performance. Additionally, the study finds limited support that volunteers are seeking to develop trust in other citizens, contra evidence from Western democracies. Finally, the results suggest that volunteers are participating as a means to send signals to the state that they are emerging local community leaders. These findings have important implications for increasing civic participation in authoritarian regimes.

‘Fight pandemics with protective masks or gender?’ Emerging collective identities and anti-gender movements on Twitter during the COVID-19 crisis in Sweden

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is the formation of collective identities and mobilization of grassroots anti-gender movement in Sweden in connection to the intensification of activities on Twitter during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. This loosely connected network understands itself as being outside of what is described as a dominant gender order in Sweden, where feminists, gender perspectives and work for LGBTQ-rights supposedly undermine the power of the state and its ability to protect the people during the pandemic. The network is also against Islam. The network does not necessarily have an ambition to come together and organize manifestations. Instead, an imagined collective identity has been formed through an interpellation of the state to implement the “core tasks” and not be governed by feminists. A political will is articulated, which threatens the centrality of equality and social justice for democracies. We found the performativity of digital technology to be of importance for how these network and identities come into being. Crisis periods produce a context of intensification of affects and emotions that, supposedly, have been there for a long time and mobilizes desire for an authoritarian state.

Discomforts in the academy: from ‘academic burnout’ to collective mobilisation

As part of a set of interventions on discomfort feminism, this article addresses how the politics of discomfort informs boundary work in the neoliberalized academic workplace in Switzerland. Departing from the authors’ engagements in a series of workshops on new forms of stress and pressure in academia and the effects of the deteriorating conditions of labor at their department, this article explores multiple and unevenly distributed emotions of discomfort generated by and through the workshops. We discuss discomfort as an affective orienting device that betrays the normative social space and the crossing of the personal-professional boundary in the academic workplace. This article explores the potentials and pitfalls of ‘staying with’ discomfort, rather than attempting to return within a comfort zone. We argue such affective politics can inform change in the neoliberalized workplace by reworking normative boundaries and helping mobilize different academic collectivities, ones based on care and shared vulnerability.

Episodes of contention, bonds of trust: the UGTT and ‘new’ trade union activism in post-Ben Ali Tunisia

ABSTRACT While labour unions in many places have been weakened by neoliberal policies and declining memberships, the continued importance of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) after the 2010–11 uprising is striking. Applying a strategic interactionist approach, this paper examines the UGTT's evolving role within this expanded political space, exploring how it has leveraged political openings and social crises to broaden its influence, and how Tunisia's new political landscape, marked by a surge in collective mobilization, has changed the goals and strategies of union leadership and activists. The executive branch has made the UGTT central to national governance, pressuring governments unresponsive to its demands, and positioning itself as an ever-present political actor fundamentally different from any the political parties. Meanwhile, militant unionists have enhanced horizontal cooperation, strengthened strategic interactions and engaged in joint collective action with other movements, adopting a more militant identity in support of their specific objectives.