Social Movement Networks Research Articles

The evolution of research on digital communication and social protests: A bibliometric analysis

The rise of digital communication technologies has significantly changed how people participate in social protests. Digital platforms—such as social media—have enabled individuals to organize and mobilize protests on a global scale. As a result, there has been a growing interest in understanding the role of digital communication in social protests. This manuscript provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the evolution of research on digital communication and social protests from 2008 to 2022. The study employs bibliometric methodology to analyze a sample of 260 research articles extracted from the SCOPUS core collection. The findings indicate a significant increase in scholarly investigations about digital communication and its role in social protest movements during the past decade. The number of publications on this topic has increased significantly since 2012—peaking in 2022—indicating a heightened interest following COVID-19. The United States, United Kingdom, and Spain are the leading countries in publication output on this topic. The analysis underlines scholars employing a range of theoretical perspectives—including social movement theory, network theory, and media studies—to identify the relationship between digital communication and social protests. Social media platforms—X (Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube—are the most frequently studied and utilized digital communication tools engaged in social protests. The study concludes by identifying emerging topics relating to social movements, political communication, and protest, thereby suggesting gaps and opportunities for future research.

Surfacing solidarity praxis in transdisciplinary research for blue justice

ABSTRACT In this article, we centre the knowledge and contributions of environmental justice social movements towards transformations for sustainability in Transdisciplinary Research. Scholar activists within research teams can help bridge networks of scholars with social movement networks to build strongly engaged and relational transdisciplinary research. We draw on reflections and learnings from the Coastal Justice Network, a scholar activist network working in solidarity with small-scale fishers and other blue justice movements in South Africa. We discuss some of the alignments, possibilities, and tensions inherent in this mode of TD research. Lastly, we suggest approaches for bridging the academic-activist divide within TD ocean research, including the inclusion of scholar activists who have established relationships with social movements in TD teams; ensuring adequate time and learning spaces for developing relational capacities such as reflexivity and solidarity; and embracing and learning from the messy politics of alliance building.

Creating a Feminist Religious Counterpublic: RLDS Feminists and Women's Ordination Advocacy in America, 1970–1985

ABSTRACTThe 1970s witnessed an efflorescence of religious feminism in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, particularly around the issue of women's ordination. We pose a model for understanding this development—the formation of publics/counterpublics—and explore how it illuminates our case study. Drawing upon oral history interviews and archival sources, we document how RLDS women created independent publications, grassroots consciousness-raising groups, feminist classes and conferences, and Women-Church–inspired worship to reimagine priesthood within their church. We conclude that the lens of a counterpublic offers a capacious view of our topic, one capable of integrating both social movement theory and network theory. Furthermore, we suggest that the RLDS example featured in this essay is simply a manifestation of a larger late twentieth-century American “feminist religious counterpublic” formed across many religious denominations and groups that held a shared feminist social imaginary.

The social movement was live streamed: a relational analysis of mobile live streaming during the 2019 Hong Kong protests

AbstractThis study proposes a sociotechnical framework to study digital media and social movements and uses it to analyze the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. Informed by actor-network theory, this framework examines media technology as infrastructure, practice, and text, and discusses its relation to other actors/actants in the network of social movements. Based on qualitative analysis of live streaming sessions and in-depth interviews with journalists and audiences, I identify and explicate the major actors/actants related to mobile live streaming and argue that mobile live streaming became an obligatory passage point through which actors/actants reached other parts of the network and realized their goals. The assemblage of heterogeneous actors/actants not only contributed to the solidarity and longevity of the movement but also brought risks. This study extends the line of research on media technology and social movements by proposing a framework that examines one specific media technology while maintaining an ecological lens.

Gusdurian Islamic Social Movement: Political Discourse, Resource Mobilization, and Framing

Gusdurian network of Islamic social movements covers political discourse, resource mobilization, and movement framing. This movement started from critical-transformative of Islamic thinking to encourage social change in post-reform Indonesia. With the social dynamics after 1998 reform, the social movement of Gusdurian strive to find new breakthroughs to strengthen democratization, pluralism, and religious freedom in Indonesia. The Gusdurian social movement in encouraging religious social change takes advantage of political dynamics, optimizes resources, and frames them in various forms. The findings in this study show that the Gusdurian as a medium for Islamic social movements is a unique phenomenon containing young activists who continue and fight for what Gus Dur has fought for as a religious and national figure.

Protesting Precarity: South Korean Workers and the Labor of Refusal

AbstractThis essay examines the crisis of solidarity affecting workers who protest labor precarity under South Korea's capitalist democracy. Once considered foundational to the struggle for national democratization, the dramatic protests of aggrieved workers are frequently depicted as out of place and out of sync. Drawing upon ethnographic research on workers’ protest repertoires, this essay challenges prevailing explanations and instead argues that heightened forms of drama, ritual, and suffering in workers’ protests enact a willful politics of refusal. Moving beyond resistance as an all-encompassing frame, the labor of refusal foregrounds ways of being and becoming that are not rooted in the contractual fallacies of liberal capitalist democracy, but in the spaces of solidarity produced by social movement networks and grassroots communities of care. The labor of refusal may not always generate robust solidarity, but it challenges the structures of organized abandonment that treat workers as disposable under neoliberal capitalist rule.

Curating Women’s Business: A Feminist Publishing Perspective

This article takes the form of an interview with Polly Russell, the Lead Curator for Contemporary Politics and Public Life in the Manuscripts and Archives department at the British Library 2015–20, who is also British Library partner to the Business of Women’s Words project, led by interviewer Margaretta Jolly. Russell discusses if and how archival practices capture radical business histories and how they could be developed to further connect and communicate them. This includes debates over enhancing collection records, privacy, law and reputation management, and links with professional and social movement networks. She points to the creative use of archival materials from Virago, Spare Rib and other feminist publishing businesses in a digital map, radio programmes, schools and professional training workshops, and a major public exhibition at The British Library. We conclude by considering the future of the radical business archive in an age of digital technology.

Confronting Scale: A Strategy of Solidarity in Urban Social Movements, New York City and Beyond

Emerging attention to the spatial dynamics of political contention points to the spatially situated nature of mobilization, and, in turn, how space is socially produced through collective action. Drawing from interviews and archival research, this article examines an urban university social movement organization and its relationship to a larger social movement network in an urban context. In response to university administrators’ adoption of neoliberal policy reform, student activists challenged sociospatial boundaries in their organizing across scale—in their university, the city, region, and across the nation. By adopting a strategy of solidarity, student activists collapsed the boundaries of the university and transformed it into a hub of Leftist social movement organizing for the city and beyond, redefining scale. Findings suggest that the development of urban social movement networks can be understood as a scalar strategy of solidarity for building social movement persistence and power. This social movement network emerged in response to market and State redefinition of urban meaning at the transition to the 21st century. This article illustrates how the sociospatial formation of urban social movement networks challenges the boundaries of contention.

Hubs and Authorities in the Koch Brothers Network

The empirical focus is centered on the large social movement network created by the Koch Brothers to further their aims of transforming the US. The network was obtained by using the VOSON web crawler given a starting set of known allies of the Koch Brothers. This produced a large directed network with links between units. We propose using the idea of hubs and authorities as another way of considering the roles played by the units within this network. These roles may be more complex than has been realized. We have included an analysis of the core interests for the members of this network.

Absent Voices: Women and Youth in Communal Land Governance. Reflections on Methods and Process from Exploratory Research in West and East Africa

An increasing number of African States are recognizing customary land tenure. Yet, there is a lack of research on how community rights are recognized in legal and policy frameworks, how they are implemented in practice, and how to include marginalized groups. In 2018–2019, we engaged in collaborative exploratory research on governing natural resources for food sovereignty with social movement networks, human rights lawyers and academics in West and East Africa. In this article, we reflect on the process and methods applied to identify research gaps and partners (i.e., two field visits and regional participatory workshops in Mali and Uganda), with a view to share lessons learned. In current debates on the recognition and protection of collective rights to land and resources, we found there is a need for more clarity and documentation, with customary land being privatized and norms rapidly changing. Further, the voices of women and youth are lacking in communal land governance. This process led to collaborative research with peasant and pastoralist organizations in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea, with the aim to achieve greater self-determination and participation of women and youth in communal land governance, through capacity building, participatory research, horizontal dialogues and action for social change.

An Unintended Spillover: Political Social Movement and Corporate Social Responsiveness

Drawing on social movement literature and network spillover effect, we theorize that social movement targeted on a particular political group with negative spillover to the politically connected firms, and empirically investigate how corporate philanthropic giving may be dressing to preempt these perceived spillover damages on corporate image. We test our theory by examining listed firms in Taiwan that responded to the Sunflower Student Movement against the ruling party Kuomintang (KMT). Our difference-in-differences estimates provide evidence that pre-event linkages to the protested party KMT exhibited significantly higher levels of philanthropic giving following the accident. Furthermore, Taipei location and B2C market type, by escalating the perceived spillover threats, reinforced prior KMT-connected firms’ philanthropic amount after the event. These findings give new insights on the spillover effect of political social movement on the commercial field and the insurance effect of corporate social activities in counterbalancing the corporate political missteps.

Networks as ‘laboratories of experience’: exploring the life cycle of the suffrage movement and its aftermath in Ireland 1870–1937

ABSTRACT Applying an innovative conceptual framework this article presents an interdisciplinary re-appraisal of the suffrage movement and its aftermath in Ireland throughout the years 1870–1937. New social movement theory is utilised to consider how, in the words of the Italian sociologist Alberto Melucci ‘the submerged networks of social movements are laboratories of experience’. Going beyond the previously published work of each author, this article uses the sociological lens of ‘laboratories of experience’ to re-analyse aspects of the suffrage movement, female activism and the wider women's movement in Ireland. This application of social movement theory to female networks, their origins, aims and strategies, along with their interconnectedness, provides a more nuanced and detailed understanding of the ‘life-cycle’ of this movement. The article aims to demonstrate how an analysis of network dynamics and application of the concept of ‘latency’ is useful in further understanding the significance, impact and longevity of the women's movement in Ireland.

Going beyond the divides: coalition attempts in the follow-up networks to the Gezi movement in Istanbul

ABSTRACT As the 2013 Gezi protests in Turkey faded, they were replaced by a flurry of solidarity and defence groups across Istanbul, opening up new coalition-building opportunities for previously fragmented social movement networks. This paper problematizes the coalition-building attempts by these follow-up networks in the face of neoliberal urbanism under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Looking into such attempts by three networks, namely the Kadıköy City Solidarity (KCS), the Beyoğlu City Defense (BCD) and the Northern Forest Defense (NFD), the paper discusses the potentials and limitations of the post-Gezi networks as loci for coalition-building among the ‘dispossessed’ and the ‘alienated’ in Istanbul. Building on ethnographic research, it is argued that coalition-builders do not neatly fit into the categories of ‘the dispossessed’ and ‘the alienated’, but manifest themselves in many fusions, displaying diverse motivations. It is argued that the divergent priorities of diverse groups put a strain on coalition attempts with mixed results: a disjuncture between collective neighbourhood interests and individual monetary interests in the KCS case; rapid operationalization of colossal projects and pressure from macro-politics precluding a long-term alliance in the NFD case; and a relatively more successful alliance in the BCD case where material and sociocultural priorities converged.

Urban challengers weaving their networks: between the ‘right to housing’ and the ‘right to the city’

The article applies a field theory approach to further the analysis of grassroots movements in an urban context. By employing the theoretical framework of Strategic Action Fields merged with the concept of norm entrepreneurs and combined with an idea of networks of challengers, two parallel but different social movement networks in Poland are analyzed. In this comparison the authors discuss differences in strategy and political – discursive – opportunities mobilized within respective fields between the more established housing movement and an emerging Polish urban renewal movement in the light of on-going change in the urban realm. By comparing the networks of challengers in both fields and simultaneously trying to identify the dominant institutional logics within each, we test the usefulness of the Strategic Action Field approach.

Urban activism in confined civil spaces: Networked organizations of housing activists in urban China

ABSTRACTIn the social movement literature, networked organizations are presented as being pivotal to the development of a movement. Yet in authoritarian states, such organizations are perceived as challenging the redline of the state. Hence, the establishment of networked organizations of homeowner activists in urban China and their proliferation to inland cities signifies a changing state-society interaction. This paper attempts to trace the development of homeowner networked organizations using data from in-depth interviews with homeowner activists as well as information collected from the networked organizations. This paper attempts to trace the development of cross-neighborhood networked organizations of homeowners in urban China against the conceptual backcloth of social movement networks and examines the recent development of such networks within the context of the tight social control of the authoritarian regime. This paper helps to shed light on the process by which seemingly neutral, mundane, and isolated small-scale actions involving everyday issues in residential neighborhoods are able to create networked organizations which may have the potential to orchestrate social movement mobilization.

Networks of social movements in quilombola community of Salvaterra, Marajó, Pará

We analyze how the quilombola movements of Salvaterra articulate themselvesthrough networking, both internally and externally, to access socio-territorial rights. To trace the network, we depart from the Quilombola community of Pau Furado, in the municipality of Salvaterra, on the Island of Marajó (PA), to Malungu, a statewide organization that joins the quilombola associations of the state of Pará. The investigation relied on the theoretical works of Alberto Melucci and Ilse Scherer-Warren. The field research, carried out in the Pau Furado community, used direct observations and interviews. The results show the strengthening of the institutionalities of the Quilombola social movements to claim their rights before governmental agencies, at the local, state and national levels.Keywords: social movements; fight for rights; networks; quilombola communities; Marajó Island.LAGES, Lara Thaís de Souza; CARDOSO, Luis Fernando Cardoso e; SCHMITZ, Heribert. Redes de movimentos sociais em comunidade quilombola de Salvaterra, Marajó, Pará. Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, v. 27, n. 2, p. 328-351, jun. 2019.Submitted in march 2019.Accepted in may 2019.

Decolonizing degrowth in the post-development convergence: Questions, experiences, and proposals from two Indigenous territories

A growing coalition of degrowth scholar-activist(s) seeks to transform degrowth into an interdisciplinary and international field bridging a rising network of social and environmental justice movements. We offer constructive decolonial and feminist critiques to foster their productive alliances with multiple feminisms, Indigenous, post-development and pluriversal thought and design ( Escobar, 2018 ), and people on the ground. Our suggested pathway of decolonial transition includes re-situating degrowth relative to the global south and to Indigenous and other resistance movements. We see this decolonial degrowth as a profoundly material strategy of recovery, renewal, and resistance (resurgence) through practices of re-rooting and re-commoning. To illustrate what we mean by resurgence we draw from two examples where people are engaged in ongoing struggles to protect their territories from the impacts of rampant growth—Zapatista and allied Indigenous groups in Mexico, and three Adivasi communities in the Attappady region of southern India. They are building economies and ecologies of resurgence and simultaneous resistance to growth by deterritorialization. We argue that a decolonized degrowth must be what the growth paradigm is not, and imagine what does not yet exist: our separate and collective socio-ecological futures of sufficiency and celebration in the multiple worlds of the pluriverse. Together, the two cases demonstrate pathways to autonomy, sufficiency, and resurgence of territories and worlds, through persistence, innovation, and mobilization of traditional and new knowledges. We offer these as teachers for the transition to decolonial degrowth.

Basic forms of political protests of the precariat

The formation of the precariat based on new forms of power and exploitation, which have become Central to the neo-liberal logic, according to which the organization of social and economic security requires instability as a way of life, undermining social justice and destroying the core of democracy itself. The unique political position of the precariat and the use of the precariat as a starting point for mobilization and collective alternative approaches.Organized by a network of labor collectives, students, migrant groups and other numerous social, political, economic and cultural movements, heterogeneous precariat in many European cities seeks to organize disparate political groups precariat on the day of the First of may and not only. During these protests, demands are made for universal rights for workers, open migration policies, and common basic income. EuroMayDay has an international orientation from the very beginning, aiming to mark precariousness as a transnational problem.On EuroMayday political performance and carnival methods of agitation (allegorical and symbolic posters, colorful actions, etc.) are used. The activists of this political movement understood this as a revival of the precariat may day traditions and, therefore, as a break with the traditional representation of trade unions and social democratic promises that allowed instability and social insecurity to spread freely, reaching critical levels throughout Europe.With the emergence of new forms of individualization and the closing of the potential for organization and collective struggle, traditional ways of uniting have become limited, and people have had to act outside the classical politics, trade Union representation and traditional notions of interest. No forms of lobbying or forms of representation for precarius groups. Thus, precast not only became a form of protest, but did just resistance to unstable conditions because they restrict collective solidarity and group views, and thus deny the democratic institutions.

Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty

Agroecology has been proposed as a key building block for food sovereignty. This article examines the meaning, practices and potentials of ‘transformative agroecology learning’ as a collective strategy for food system transformation. Our study is based on our qualitative and action research with the European Coordination of Via Campesina to develop the European Agroecology Knowledge Exchange Network (EAKEN). This network is linked to the global network of La Via Campesina and builds on the strong experiences and traditions of popular education in Latin American peasant movements. Rather than focusing on agroecology education as a process of individual learning, we analyse how a transformative agroecology education can be strengthened as a critical repertoire of action used by social movements to advance food sovereignty. Our analysis contributes a new theory of transformative agroecology learning based on four key characteristics or qualities: horizontalism; diálogo de saberes (wisdom dialogues); combining practical and political knowledge; and building social movement networks. While these different elements of transformative agroecology learning were present across EAKEN, they were unevenly developed and, in many cases, not systematized. The framework can help to strategically and reflexively systematize and strengthen a transformative agroecology learning approach as a key building block for food sovereignty.

Knowledge co-production with social movement networks. Redefining grassroots politics, rethinking research

Drawing on ethnographic research with social movement networks in Spain, this article explores the challenges and possibilities of research collaboration. My project focused on the emerging logics and practices of collective action, the ongoing re-definition of grassroots politics. The engagement with social movements as reflexive communities – not simply objects to be studied, but subjects actively producing their own analysis and explanations, their own ‘knowledge-practices’ – deeply transformed the in-fieldwork encounter. Through a series of co-analysis workshops, designed and implemented together with the research subjects/collaborators, this research became an open-ended dialogue of reflexivities. The shift from working on social movements to working and thinking together with social movement activists as co-researchers produced new scholarly knowledge, advancing our understanding of contemporary collective action, while simultaneously making research useful for the activists. Moreover, locating epistemic and methodological questions at the centre of the project, I addressed salient debates in social science, exploring collaborative frameworks in order to problematize traditional forms of knowledge production and validation.