Grassroots Mobilization Research Articles

Conviviality and phatic communion?

The focus on ‘unimportant’ language in this collection is driven by major contemporary questions. In conditions of superdiversity, the old binaries—minority/majority, migrant/host etc.—can no longer account for the splits and alignments emerging in globalised environments and in response, social scientists have turned their attention to informal processes, seeking new principles for social cohesion in low-key local ‘conviviality’ (Gilroy 2006; Vertovec 2007; Wetherell 2009). Along similar lines, commentators point to the decline of traditional party politics and look instead to social media and digital communication as new resources for grassroots mobilisation. So does the communication of apparently trivial matters really hold the seeds to social renewal, or are such ideas romantically over-inflated?

Street-level and government-level Islamophobia in the Visegrád Four countries

ABSTRACTIslamophobic mobilization has become a crucial aspect of right-wing populist mobilization. Hafez’s article focuses on the case of the Visegrád Four countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Based on reportedly widespread hostility against Muslims among the population in this region, one would assume a large potential for street-level activism analogous to the German Pegida. Yet, attempts to organize grassroots Islamophobic movements have not been particularly successful in the Visegrád Four. Using social movement theory, Hafez explains this by the fact that the issue of Muslim migration has been appropriated by the ruling parties, leaving little opportunity for independent grassroots mobilization.

A political geography of ‘waste wars’ in Campania (Italy): Competing territorialisations and socio-environmental conflicts

In this article, I propose a novel analytical framework to inquire into the spatial and socioecological antagonisms of socio-environmental conflicts based on the integration of Urban Political Ecology (UPE) with two approaches to territorialisation. While UPE’s authors customarily deploy territorialisation, the field lacks engagement with recent theorizations of territorial dynamics of environmental projects and grassroots mobilizations. To address this gap, I turn to conceptualizations of territories as strategic phenomena and political projects of control, on the one hand, and as relational entities and lived realities, on the other. On this basis, I develop the framework of competing territorialisations and apply it to the ‘waste wars’ of Campania. By focusing on the spatial practices and the imaginaries of the government agency, the organized crime and the grassroots movements, I provide a political geography of Campania that unveils the spatial and socioecological relations through which waste metabolisms have been organized and contested. This perspective shows how extraction of rents and profits from waste hinged on the production of spaces of management and disposal that stem from previous territorialisations, depend on unequal power relations and shape future socioecological configurations. Campania’s movements resisted waste occupation and self-organized their own territorial project, realising that territorialisation is key to influence broader socioecological dynamics. My contention is that an UPE of competing territorialisations allows reading historically and dialectically the ways in which metabolic flows are spatialized in specific contexts, how and why they give rise to conflicts and what are the drivers of place remaking from below.

Conceptualizing subsistence as a response to capitalist violence against African indigenous women

abstractAfrica, a continent whose economy is constrained by state and capital, fails to meet the basic needs of the population amidst worsening inequalities and violence. Subsistence producers globally, including indigenous small-scale farmers, pastoralists and hunter gathers, meet the basic needs for the majority. Two-thirds of these producers are women who work autonomously of the state and the market using relations of commoning. These are systems of sharing, collective labour and equal access to and care over nature. ‘Commoning’ is important to indigenous livelihoods, identity and survival, reflecting a strong relationship with the land. Resource-rich indigenous lands are as crucial to capitalist production as they are to anti-capitalist alternatives found in subsistence, and to life itself. African indigenous claims represent grassroots mobilisation for cultural self-determination in the wake of recent enclosures. Enclosures are turning commons into militarised zones, threatening the existence of indigenous peoples. These zones reflect a deliberate cultural packaging of misogynistic violence. Women are an important socio-ecological medium through which corporate-state violence impacts indigenous lives, livelihoods and bodies. As their reproduction and care responsibilities are land-dependent, ecological destruction harms women first. Using indigenous knowledge and practices, women are at the forefront of defending relationality with the land from capitalist destruction. They symbolise both an alternative and a threat to capitalism. As this article demonstrates, violence on the land and violence on women’s bodies are linked. Hence, feminist Lierre Keith contends that “militarism is a feminist issue, rape an environmental issue, and environmental destruction a peace issue” (Rebecca Weiss, ‘Sexism in the Olympics? You shouldn’t be surprised’, Patheos Catholic: Suspended in Her Jar, August 15, 2016). This activist article, using indigenous and anti-capitalist transnational feminism, highlights women’s agency and knowledge in providing life-centred and peaceful alternatives to the socio-ecological crisis across the continent, through a subsistence perspective.

Cancer Council New South Wales: Policy and Advocacy Report Community Insights to Inform the Policy Positioning of Tobacco Retailing Reform in NSW, Australia

Background and context: In the lead-up to the next state election, Cancer Council New South Wales (CCNSW) will run the “Saving Life 2019” advocacy campaign focused on changing NSW Government policy in cancer control. In developing a policy agenda, three priority areas were identified that required further research to better understand public perceptions, inform messaging and engagement strategies. Reform of current tobacco retailing was identified as one of these priorities. Aim: Understand how key audiences view current tobacco retailing laws and widespread tobacco availability in NSW; Find new opportunities to progress our policy objectives by identifying additional key audiences in the general population; Build the evidence base for a salient and convincing messaging guide for the advocacy campaign strategy and CCNSW's broader policy engagement and influencing work. Strategy/Tactics: The campaign will seek to demonstrate community support for reform of current tobacco retailing laws in NSW to the community, the media and political candidates to achieve policy commitments. CCNSW existing campaign strategy includes tactics across grassroots mobilization, targeted political engagement and securing earned media. The development of strategic research to underpin this campaign, including development of an evidence-based communications strategy, was critical in optimizing communications and public engagement. Program/Policy process: CCNSW commissioned an independent external agency to conduct the research. The research used a mixed methodology that included a facilitated online focus group of up to 20 people, followed by polling of the general public. Focus groups were conducted over two days, with participants recruited from a wide geographical spread and constituted a mixture of general population, parents, hospitality workers and small business owners. Outcomes: A research and communications report containing an overview of the research, key findings, as well as communications considerations based on the research was used to inform our overall campaign strategy, including policy messaging and communications planning. What was learned: Findings noted that while cancer of all types is seen as a serious public health issue, cancer specifically resulting from smoking and tobacco use is not top-of-mind. It revealed the link between ease of access to tobacco products and increased usage is clearly understood, and there was support for further restricting where tobacco can be sold. The concept of a “retailer fee” to pay for the cost of antismoking initiatives received limited support, mostly driven by concern for smaller retailers. The most popular arguments were those which reinforced existing community beliefs, rather than challenging them.

Community Insights to Inform the Policy Positioning of Junk Food Marketing Reform in NSW, Australia

Background and context: In the lead up to the next state election, Cancer Council New South Wales (CCNSW) will run the “Saving Life 2019” advocacy campaign focused on changing NSW Government policy in cancer control. In developing a policy agenda, three priority areas were identified that required further research to better understand public perceptions, inform messaging and engagement strategies. Reform of current junk food marketing on government owned assets (including public transport) was identified as one of these priorities to reduce childhood obesity. Aim: •Understand how key audiences view overweight and obesity as a public health issue and specifically junk food marketing to children •Find new opportunities to progress CCNSW policy objectives by identifying additional key audiences in the general population; •Build the evidence base for a salient and convincing messaging guide for the advocacy campaign strategy and CCNSW's broader policy engagement and influencing work. Strategy/Tactics: The campaign will seek to demonstrate community support for restricting junk food marketing on government owned assets in NSW to the community, the media and political candidates to achieve policy commitments. CCNSW existing campaign strategy includes tactics across grassroots mobilization, targeted political engagement and securing earned media. The development of strategic research to underpin this campaign, including development of an evidence-based communications strategy, was critical in optimizing communications and public engagement. Program/Policy process: CCNSW commissioned an independent external agency to conduct the research. The research used a mixed methodology that included two facilitated online focus groups of up to 20 people each, followed by polling of the general public. Focus groups were conducted over two days, with participants recruited from a wide geographical spread and constituted a mixture of general population and parents who are the main meal preparer in households. Outcomes: A research and communications report containing an overview of the research, key findings, as well as communications considerations based on the research was used to inform our overall campaign strategy, including policy messaging and communications planning. What was learned: Findings noted that unprompted, overweight and obesity is considered an important public health issue. The specific issue of childhood obesity is seen to be a personal family issue and the responsibility of parents. The provision of junk food by parents to children was seen as a driver of childhood obesity, but the role of junk food marketing and its regulation was not top-of-mind. When prompted, the idea of banning junk food advertising on public transport was an action that could be taken by government to tackle childhood obesity, with children perceived as being vulnerable and requiring protection.

Cancer Council New South Wales Policy and Advocacy Report: Community Insights to Inform the Policy Positioning of Smoke-Free Legislation Reform in NSW, Australia

Background and context: In the lead-up to the next state election, Cancer Council New South Wales (CCNSW) will run the “Saving Life 2019” advocacy campaign focused on changing NSW Government policy in cancer control. In developing a policy agenda, three priority areas were identified that required further research to better understand public perceptions, inform messaging and engagement strategies. Reform of current smoke-free laws was identified as one of these priorities. Aim: Understand how key audiences view current smoke-free laws and issues of exposure to second-hand smoke in NSW licensed venues; Find new opportunities to progress policy objectives by identifying additional key audiences in the general population; Build the evidence base for a salient and convincing messaging guide for the advocacy campaign strategy and our broader policy engagement and influencing work. Strategy/Tactics: The campaign will seek to demonstrate community support for the reform of current smoke-free laws in NSW to the community, the media and political candidates to achieve policy commitments. CCNSW existing campaign strategy includes tactics across grassroots mobilization, targeted political engagement and securing earned media. The development of strategic research to underpin this campaign, including development of an evidence-based communications strategy, was critical in optimizing our communications and public engagement. Program/Policy process: Cancer Council NSW worked with an external agency to conduct the research. The research used a mixed methodology that included a facilitated online focus group of up to 20 people, followed by polling of the general public. Focus groups were conducted over two days, with participants recruited from a wide geographical spread. Targeted sampling to ensure participants visit a pub or club at least once per fortnight was also incorporated. Outcomes: A research and communications report containing an overview of the research, key findings, as well as communications considerations based on the research was used to inform our overall campaign strategy, including policy messaging and communications planning. What was learned: Preliminary findings noted that while smoking and related health issues is a key concern for participants, it is of greatest concern among those who are smokers, have previously smoked, or are close to someone who does. They revealed a high level of awareness of the meaning.

Contracting Out Services in the Nigerian Local Government: Implications for Internal Revenue Generation

The primary reasons for creating the Nigerian local government system was grassroots mobilization and development. The Council has however, consistently failed to provide critical services to the rural poor ostensibly because of poor funding. The work examined the structure, functions and accountability mechanisms of the Council vis-à-vis its revenue generation capacity. The problem identified is that the Council contracts out services and its statutory revenue sources at ridiculous prices to patrons even in the face of fiscal cutback and burgeoning demand from the critical populace. Using the Local Government Discretion and Accountability Diagnostic Framework of Analysis and Financial Agency Theory, the paper found that lack of political, administrative and financial accountability mechanisms provides the leeway for unscrupulous Council officials to grossly enrich themselves and their patrons. The paper recommends that the Public Procurement Act which emphasizes Due Process in tendering should be institutionalized by the local government. The anti-graft agencies should be repositioned to deal with treasury looters while the electoral process should be reformed to make it more transparent and inclusive.

Gender as “Ebola from Brussels”: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism

AbstractThis article examines the recent wave of grassroots mobilizations opposing gender equality, LGBT rights, and sex education, which vilify the term “gender” in public debates and policy docum...

The Mass-Line, 1917 to 1989: Chinese Experience

The article explores the tangled relationship between activism and state power in China, post-1917, exploring how it sheds light on a perennial problem in radical thought: namely, how universal prescriptions and structures of power relate to localized instances of activism. Grassroots mobilization and community-building has been held up as a solution that keeps revolution “revolutionary” by reforming social relations and personal conduct. By making all politics mass-politics, Chinese Maoists hoped to prevent a slide into a repressive social order. However, the “mass-line” achieved the opposite end and created a hollowed-out politics through reactionary violence. In the post-1989 era, new articulations of state power and activism encourage reflection on changing material conditions and how they affect the possibility of mass-politics and class consciousness.

The Romanian People Versus Corruption. The Paradoxical Nexus of Protest and Adaptation

Corruption has been widely perceived as one of the main obstacles to Romania's successful transformation from socialism to democracy (and capitalism). Still, in the ensuing years after the 1989 transition, it did not directly stimulate mobilization and protest from below. However, more recently, the country has been undergoing a civic awakening. This article focuses on the interplay between the Romanian government and citizens to identify the dynamics of the growing anti-corruption protests in Romania since 2012. Four episodes of grass-roots mobilization (Austerity-2012, Rosia Montana-2013, Colectiv-2015 and OUG13/#rezist-2017) are systematically examined, taking into account the political opportunity structures and developing dynamics of contention. While these protests have been quite successful in achieving articulated demands, they have not yet transformed into sustained social movements with a wider political agenda of social change.

Sharing Cities for Urban Transformation: Narrative, Policy and Practice

Commercial sharing platforms have reshaped the transportation and housing sectors in cities and raised challenges for urban policy makers seeking to balance market disruption with community protections. Transformational sharing seeks to strengthen the urban commons to address social justice, equity and sustainability. This paper uses Transformative Social Innovation theory to develop a comparative analysis of Shareable’s Sharing Cities Network and Airbnb’s Home Sharing Clubs. It argues that narrative framing of the sharing economy for community empowerment and grassroots mobilisation have been used by Shareable to drive a “sharing transformation” and by Airbnb through “regulatory hacking” to influence urban policy.

FROM EXARCHIA TO SYNTAGMA SQUARE AND BACK The City as a Hub for Strategies of Resistance against Austerity

This article will examine the relationships between urban space and social movements in times of economic crisis in Athens, Greece. I will focus my attention on the impact that the Syntagma square movement had on those grassroots mobilizations, which precipitated at a local level as soon as the occupation of the Parliament’s square ended in summer 2011. Accordingly, the anti-authoritarian neighbourhood of Exarchia will provide the spatial setting for pointing out how, starting from “the origin of the conflict,” which occurred in December 2008, joie de vivre (Leontidou 2014) is reflected in practices of resistance. I will briefly depict two empirical cases, the time-banking system and the Social Solidarity Network, in order to finally recount Athens as a relevant hub for incubating social movements.

Demographic Delusions

In this age of Trump-induced anxiety, Teixeira argues that basic demographics suggest an alternative political outcome is possible. But asking citizens to continue accepting the status quo—stagnant incomes, persistent inequality, rising healthcare costs, and a growing educational divide—in the hope that some long-awaited progressive coalition will finally emerge is a recipe for ongoing electoral defeat. Leftists have reason to be optimistic only because a growing number of progressives are rediscovering the value of good old-fashioned politics and grassroots mobilization.

A New Era for Labor Activism? Strategic Mobilization of Human Rights Against Blacklisting

This article examines whether and how international human rights law transforms the grassroots mobilization strategies of labor activists. Drawing on original ethnographic research on the activism of blacklisted workers in the United Kingdom, I show that there is a two-tier process through which human rights norms are interpreted and mobilized, first by legal advocacy groups, then by grassroots activists. Contrary to skeptics who argue that human rights have a “mainstreaming” and “individualizing” effect on labor movements, this research shows that by strategically embedding human rights language in their campaigns, blacklisted workers leveraged media attention and facilitated changes in trade union rights discourse. Findings suggest that the strategic mobilization of human rights differs from other mobilization efforts, since labor activists use human rights language primarily to find a sympathetic audience within a political environment in which trade unions are viewed as a regressive force in the economy.

Environmental remediation and its discontents: the contested cleanup of Vieques, Puerto Rico

Since protest forced the US Navy off Vieques Island, Puerto Rico in 2003, the US military has embarked on one of the largest environmental remediation projects it has ever undertaken. This article explores the way a narrowly conceived, technocratic cleanup process is translated onto an island with a deep history of grassroots mobilization and antagonism towards federal authority. The Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) is a crucible for considering the uneasy dynamics of cleanup. US law enshrines the RAB as the principal venue for public in the cleanup process. However, the prevailing technocratic framework, constrained by under-resourced bureaucratic agencies, clashes with more encompassing concepts of environmental justice. Citizen members of the RAB, nonetheless, approach the committee as a point of access to information about the remediation process, and leverage their participation as a tool for advancing a broader set of environmental justice claims.

La Strada per Selma: La Mobilitazione Afroamericana e il Voting Rights Act del 1965 by Nadia Venturini

Reviewed by: La Strada per Selma: La Mobilitazione Afroamericana e il Voting Rights Act del 1965 by Nadia Venturini Maddalena Marinari La Strada per Selma: La Mobilitazione Afroamericana e il Voting Rights Act del 1965. By Nadia Venturini. ( Milan, Italy: Franco Angeli, 2016. Pp. 211. €25.00, ISBN 978-88-917-2640-7.) Nadia Venturini dedicates La Strada per Selma: La Mobilitazione Afro-americana e il Voting Rights Act del 1965 to "Ai ragazzi che muoino nelle stive dei barconi, nelle acque del canale di Sicilia, sulle strade d'Europa [to the kids who die in the holds of ships, in the waters surrounding Sicily, and on the roads across Europe]" (p. 5). Echoing Langston Hughes's 1938 poem, "Kids Who Die," the dedication signals one of the book's major concerns: young people who devoted their lives to civil rights not just in the 1960s but also for decades before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Divided into four chapters, the book explores the long-term impact of the Voting Rights Act and looks at how union leaders, beauticians, and citizenship schools shaped its long history. Echoing Jacquelyn Dowd Hall's 2005 call to investigate the history of the long civil rights movement, the book builds on recent efforts to extend the movement's temporal limits and redefine its main actors and goals. Venturini contributes to this historiography in two ways. First, she connects the mobilization for the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s to the grassroots mobilization for African Americans' rights before World War II to highlight the role of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the U.S. Communist Party and to demonstrate the intersection between the fight for the right to vote and the push for labor rights. Shifting focus allows her to tell this story through the eyes of lesser-known historical actors in the civil rights movement, especially union members, farmers, and activists living in rural areas. Second, building on Belinda Robnett's notion of bridge leadership, Venturini emphasizes the role of women in the fight for the Voting Rights Act and the complex gender dynamics within the movement. In the mobilization for voting rights, as in many campaigns during the civil rights movement, male chauvinism and sexism were often prevalent. Yet, as the author shows, men advocated for civil rights at the national level, and women represented the engine and force behind local initiatives. Through an engaging, fast-paced narrative, beauty parlors emerge as powerful political spaces, shielded from male and white interference, where activist women could meet, share propaganda leaflets, and organize. In this vein, beauticians assume a role similar to other, already recognized activist female professionals in the African American community, namely, nurses, teachers, and midwives. La Strada per Selma also places a strong emphasis on another pillar of the civil rights movement: instruction. While most of the literature focuses on the catalyzing role of black churches in the political emancipation of the African American community, Venturini emphasizes the phenomenon of citizenship schools. First created in South Carolina, citizenship schools later expanded throughout the entire South with the creation of nine hundred schools between 1957 and 1970. The schools educated and registered hundreds of thousands of African American citizens. Under strong and entrepreneurial female leadership, the schools creatively recruited teachers and students and created innovative curricular programs that went beyond literacy to empower students and encourage civic engagement. Venturini makes a cogent case for the urgency of looking at the intersection of civil rights and economic rights and further investigating regular women and [End Page 219] their roles in the civil rights movement in order to understand this critical chapter of African American history. Nevertheless, a broader range of primary archival sources would have enriched her analysis even more, leaving an important opportunity for future researchers as these areas require further exploration. Moreover, while opening with a chapter on the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the challenges it faces today serves as a powerful reminder for scholars and teachers interested in the history of the present and the unfinished work of the long civil rights movement, the chapter might have been more powerful if it...

States of just transition: Realising climate justice through and against the state

Possibilities for engendering sustainable and just futures are foundering in part because key resources are managed by elites through ‘top down’ environmental governance and management, and knowledge production regimes, largely committed to retaining the status quo, fail to pursue new ways of managing resource consumption and distribution. In this paper, we argue for an alternative climate justice agenda that is enabled through grassroots mobilisation in collaboration with state action. To do this we consider the state as a continued terrain of possibility for positive social, economic and environmental change, noting the imperative of historically attentive state-enabled redistribution along persistent axes of difference. In articulating an alternative understanding of the state, we emphasise the importance of social movements capable of cultivating networked militant particularisms that can be channeled through and beyond state governance processes. In order to ground these ideas, we provide two brief case studies, tracking food sovereignty and energy remunicipalization initiatives.

Building a Fascist Romania: Voluntary Work Camps as Mobilisation Strategies of the Legionary Movement in Interwar Romania

This paper addresses the importance of work camps as mobilisation strategies employed by the ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’, Romania’s interwar fascist movement. It argues that the success of the legionary constructive work projects, practically taking the form of voluntary work camps and smaller ‘construction sites’ (şantiere) – the latter developed according to similar principles, yet more limited in size – contributed significantly to the increase in popularity of the movement, in spite of (and perhaps even aided by) sustained opposition from the state authorities. As such, the case study of the legionary work camps is employed in an attempt to show how grassroots mobilisation strategies, emphasising activism and voluntarism, as well as cross-class solidarity among members of the movement, added considerable credibility to a populist palingenetic project, circumventing a shortage of material resources that prevented the use of more elaborate propaganda methods. Such strategies rendered the legionary movement distinct from all the other political parties in interwar Romania, and their positive reception, especially among the rural population, gave credence to the legionary criticism of the democratic parties and, implicitly, to the movement’s challenge to parliamentary democracy.

Aiding Activism? Humanitarianism’s Impacts on Mobilized Syrian Refugees in Jordan

A common narrative of the Syrian conflict suggests that it began with a grassroots uprising and devolved into a violent war between armed actors, leaving civilians to become victims or warriors. A more careful consideration of developments in and around Syria uncovers evidence of continued unarmed mobilization among civilians. Indeed, refugees in neighboring countries like Jordan are deeply engaged in humanitarian, developmental, and political endeavors. In this study, qualitative research and a unique survey together demonstrate that Syrians in Jordan have engaged in abundant activism on behalf of the Syrian cause. Still, the overwhelming militarism and humanitarianism that have characterized the Syrian crisis have had their impacts: activist organization is constricted and configured by security imperatives and, paradoxically, by the aid regime assisting civilians in the conflict. In turn, activism has evolved from grassroots mobilization to a formal and aid-based response to a humanitarian crisis.