Social Change Activities Research Articles

Being pimped out - How South Africa's AIDS response fails sex workers

abstract Sex work is highly stigmatised in South Africa. All aspects of sex work are currently a criminal offence. Sex workers’ stigmatised position in society, and the nature of their work-multiple, concurrent sexual partnerships, working within dangerous and violent spaces, and lack of services and legal protection-render them particularly vulnerable to HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). No recent data on sex worker HIV prevalence in South Africa exists, but it ranged from 45%–69% in 1998. Sex work often occupies a much maligned – and often sensationalised or lurid – space in contemporary thinking and social change activism on feminism, health matters, policy-formation and human rights in Africa. Few individuals or institutions treat sex work or sex workers with seriousness or respect. Indeed, in areas of policy-formation, programme design or law reform, sex workers are often either overlooked, paid lip-service to, or they are let down during power-broking. South Africa's AIDS response has been no exception. This Briefing explores South Africa's 2007 and 2012 AIDS Plans and the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) processes during 2007–2011 as a case study of sex work marginalisation at a critical time where their interests and demands should have been heeded: not only as it would recognise sex worker health, human rights and dignity, but as it would have significant public health effects.

Moroccan Youth and the Forming of a New Generation: Social Change, Collective Action and Political Activism

The demonstrations by thousands of young people since 20 February 2011 have re-launched the debate on the position of the young and their social, economic and political conditions in Moroccan society. This article examines that position and these conditions, revealing a series of social changes that justify our speaking of the emergence of a new sociological generation. It also analyses the 20th February Movement, its nature, its limits and its achievements, as well as the Moroccan regime's responses to it. The conclusions are that the movement's demands represent the vanguard of the reformist agenda and are the tip of the iceberg of the changes experienced by young people. Thus it is possible that we can speak here about a new historical generation.

Looking for a Silver Lining: The Possible Positives of Declining Energy Return on Investment (EROI)

Declining energy return on investment (EROI) of a society’s available energy sources can lead to both crisis and opportunity for positive social change. The implications of declining EROI for human wellbeing are complex and open to interpretation. There are many reasons why frugal living and an energy diet could be beneficial. A measure of wellbeing or welfare gained per unit of energy expended (WROEI) is proposed. A threshold is hypothesized for the relation between energy consumption and wellbeing. The paper offers a biophysical-based social science explanation for both the negative and positive possible implications of declining EROI. Two sets of future scenarios based on environmental and economic trends are described. Six types of social change activism are considered essential if the positives of declining EROI are to balance or exceed the negatives.

Displacing activism? The impact of international service trips on understandings of social change

This article reports key findings from in-depth interviews with undergraduate students returning from international service trips (ISTs). These interviews examined students’ perceptions of social change activities and assessed students’ affinity toward service and activism independently as well as the perceived relationship and interaction between the two. Using an identity project model, we argue that far from being complementary, service and activism may act as competing identities with service being preferred. We further argue that ISTs can incorporate and model a broader range of civic engagement activities to help students better understand the different approaches taken to enacting social change. In particular, we call for the deliberate incorporation of strategic activist skill-building, and discussions of the history and ideology of activism within ISTs.

Digital activism in the Middle East: mapping issue networks in Egypt, Iran, Syria and Tunisia

The shocking image of the young student Neda Salehi dying, after appearing to have been shot by the Iranian government's Security Forces, dominated the global news and online platforms during the 2009 ‘Iran election crisis’. Iranian protestors took to the streets, internet, blogosphere and Twitter to express their discontent about the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the days following the election, the global news attention shifted from the situation on the ground to the role of Twitter in ‘the Iran crisis’. With headlines such as: ‘Iran's Protests: Why Twitter is the Medium of the Movement’ content organisers such as Twitter increasingly become part of reality and the web becomes a space for analysis. Unique to the web and content organizers is that they mediate the formation of online networks and make these networks traceable. Using natively digital research tools, this paper mapped issue networks of digital activism in the Middle East to understand if the internet mediates the organisation of activism for social change in repressive environments. Digital activists are individuals, sometimes organized in social organizations, that actively express or engage online for development and social change.

Theopoetics and Social Change

Theopoetics and Social Change Matt Guynn We open up the hungers and longings of our age. We enter into a conversation with the deepest places of our selves and our audience. To engage in the theopoetic is to tempt the radical nature of ourselves, it is to follow in the footsteps of the God‐Speakers that could upset the republic, could speak from the margins of our hungers and unspeakable truths.: Jason Derr, In Consideration of the Theopoetic1 What is the activity of a priestess of the social imagination? What focus shall a theopoetic social change agent take? How can we as social change organizers both “upset the republic,” in Derr’s language, and also awaken the hungers and strengths of the human heart, accessing the power and Presence of imagination and of God‐Deity‐Divinity‐Mystery? This essay is a report from the field, an update about ways that theopoetic intent has informed one set of experiments in social change organizing. The theopoet argues that, in many cases, like old soda pop, language has gone flat in our religious traditions. We use the same language again and again without examining and refreshing it, and often no one really wants to drink it any longer. Bound up with the flatness of language, our rituals become rote. Instead of actually interacting with Deity‐Divinity‐Essence‐God, rituals and religious conversation become routinized. Rather than paths of power, we tread paths of habit.2 In Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination, Amos Wilder asserted that when language gets too encrusted, it fails to produce either new theophanies or Spirit‐fed enactments of ancient truth. The conversation in which Wilder participated, with artists, musicians, mystics, and psychologists, was about the integration of soul into spirit, the re‐introduction of ecstasy into religion, the renewed embrace of vision/hymn/poem as categories of God‐talk.3 There is a risk that theopoetics will remain just a conversation corner in the academy: Yes, the writing may evoke more writing, but these rivers of words deserve to also flow into the sanctuary and toward the streets. If theopoetics is to keep growing toward its real promise of more powerful engagements with Mystery‐Absence‐God‐Presence, then theopoetics will need to find life not only in the pages of journals, but also in worship services that midwife the new/ancient humanity, and in incarnate experiments of struggles for justice/peace. The latter is the focus of this essay. Theopoetics as a stance promises to deepen and develop social change organizing, by enriching issue‐based organizing with a search for an empowerment rooted in Presence and Power. The theopoetic activist wants not just words—but enfleshed initiative. The theopoet change‐maker seeks new re‐engagements of faith stories. Not only community change, but individual regeneration. And not only individual salvations, but full‐bodied wholeness, for the person, the faith community, the neighborhood. The theopoet leader is a change agent who speaks not just in slogan and catchphrase, but from the currents of a deeper Life. I am concerned that many times, those of us in spiritual social change leadership fall short of the mark. Too often, it is possible to fall into the kinds of patterns that theopoetics train us to be skeptical about—for example, to fall into the rhetorical trap of using the same tired constructions of Us vs. Them, instead of seeking new framings that catalyze the imagination and spirit in the direction of hopeful action. And it is far too easy for faith‐based leaders to retell scripture stories only to make moral points about justice or peace, but not to dwell in them with their people, to access power in new/ancient ways. Far too easy to continue to plan the same old vigil, the same kinds of rote civil disobedience, which become themselves a kind of tired and flat language that no one hears anymore. I have at times taken these easier roads. But I am hungry, and I think I join many others in my yearning, for faith‐rooted social change activism which draws from wells the run from a deeper Source, and achieves fresh and generative political relevance. I...

Communication Activism, Volume One: Communication for Social Change and Communication Activism, Volume Two: Media and Performance Activism - Edited by Lawrence R. Frey & Kevin M. Carragee

Communication Activism, Volume One: Communication for Social Change and Communication Activism, Volume Two: Media and Performance Activism - Edited by Lawrence R. Frey & Kevin M. Carragee

Citizens' publications that empower: social change for the homeless

This paper surveys street publications that are members of the International Network of Street Papers. Street publications can empower the homeless though numerous endeavours that can lead to social change. Empowerment can be achieved by being employed, such as magazine vendors and/or as workers in socially oriented companies. It can also occur by recovering self-esteem and acquiring knowledge and abilities though training courses, rehabilitation therapy, and other endeavours such as the university of the homeless. Empowerment also comes by giving ‘voice to the voiceless’, allowing the homeless to publish their experiences, ideas, and opinions in street magazines. Collective empowerment occurs by creating local networks in solidarity with the magazines and building an international homeless community that strengthens these endeavours and encourages social-change activities.

A Transformation of Theory and Activism for Social Change through Feminism

A Transformation of Theory and Activism for Social Change through Feminism

The Impact of HIV Education on the Lives of Ugandan Nurses and Nurse-Midwives

In this ethnography, I explored the impact of an HIV/AIDS education program on the lives of 24 Ugandan nurses and nurse-midwives. Nurses who previously had viewed themselves simply as providers of advice and sympathy now saw themselves as more holistic, collaborative caregivers. They voiced an increased awareness of their role as leaders and advocates in the community with respect to policy. The education program had positive and synergistic effects on the nurses' professional practice, communication and problem-solving skills, confidence, and engagement in political and social change activities.

Feminist Theory, Global Gender Justice, and the Evaluation of Grant-Making

In activist circles feminist political thought is often viewed as abstract because it does not help activists make the kinds of arguments that are generally effective with donors and policy makers. The feminist political philosopher's focus on how we know and what counts as knowledge is a large step away from the terrain in which activists make their arguments to donors. Yet, philosophical reflection on the relations between power and knowledge can make a significant contribution to women's human rights work in the area of evaluation. Feminist political philosophy can offer guidelines for how to evaluate the work of women's human rights organizations and their funders in light of the social, political, and economic conditions that render their work necessary and difficult. This article offers 1) an account of the difficulty in showing the impact of social change activism using conventional modes of measurement, particularly those that focus on first order effects, 2) feminist theoretical insights into the interrelatedness of global gender injustices that may help us develop better benchmarks of evaluation for women's human rights programming, and 3) a sketch of how to approach the evaluation of organizations and donors who seek to support global gender justice.

Feminist Theory, Global Gender Justice, and the Evaluation of Grant Making

In activist circles feminist political thought is often viewed as abstract because it does not help activists make the kinds of arguments that are generally effective with donors and policy makers. The feminist political philosopher's focus on how we know and what counts as knowledge is a large step away from the terrain in which activists make their arguments to donors. Yet, philosophical reflection on the relations between power and knowledge can make a significant contribution to women's human rights work in the area of evaluation. Feminist political philosophy can offer guidelines for how to evaluate the work of women's human rights organizations and their funders in light of the social, political, and economic conditions that render their work necessary and difficult. This article offers 1) an account of the difficulty in showing the impact of social change activism using conventional modes of measurement, particularly those that focus on first order effects, 2) feminist theoretical insights into the interrelatedness of global gender injustices that may help us develop better benchmarks of evaluation for women's human rights programming, and 3) a sketch of how to approach the evaluation of organizations and donors who seek to support global gender justice.

The Perils of Institutionalization in Neoliberal Times: Results of a National Survey of Canadian Sexual Assault and Rape Crisis Centres

This article reports on a national survey of Canadian rape crisis and sexual assault centres conducted in 2005. We situate our results in relation to feminist literature on the perils of institutionalization. We argue that institutionalization takes on new forms in the context of neoliberalism and we emphasize the resistance of centres to under-funding and to individualized victims’ services policy frameworks. Despite significant pressures to redefine as social service delivery agencies, Canadian centres continue to engage in social change activism and define themselves as specifically feminist/pro-woman/equality-seeking organizations. Our respondents vary significantly in size and resources, yet nearly all emphasize the significant obstacle of inadequate funding and all continue to rely heavily on the unpaid work of (usually women) volunteers to do more with less.

Accredited Programs: Models for Training the Next Generation of Social Change Agents

Practicing applied, clinical, and more recently public sociologists have most often become involved in social change activities because of a learning environment that combined a change oriented classroom experience with a positive field experience. How does a sociology program create such a learning environment? In this paper, I will cover three models used by practice programs in sociology accredited by the Commission on Applied and Clinical Sociology to train change oriented students. Although accreditation is not essential for training the next generation of social change agents, it is one means by which like minded sociologists can pursue their common educational interests. Accreditation is also a way by which the discipline of sociology can return to its practice oriented roots.

Moral commitments to community: mapping social responsibility and its ambiguities among small business owners

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to map the different moral positions articulated by small business owners in relation to social responsibility (SR) commitment and practice.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study utilized collaborative action research with 25 small business owners in two Canadian provinces and used combined methods of group dialogue, personal semi‐structured interviews, and thematic analysis through researcher triangulation.FindingsWe found that the morality underpinning business owners' social responsibility tended to be embedded in a sense of relationship with and commitment to the well‐being of the local geographic community. However, this was threaded with felt ambiguities, revealing their understanding of a spectrum of SR practices.Research limitations/implicationsThrough an ethical analysis, we argue that this moral commitment to community is connected to a relational worldview as part of a distinctive ethical vision while, at the same time, the small business owner‐managers were continuing to pursue business within an environment of orthodox economic ethics and practices. This substantially impacted the shape of their commitment as social change agents and their engagement in collective activities with like‐minded peers.Practical implicationsFurther research is needed to reveal how much the lack of engagement in collective social change activities and collective promotion of social responsibility is related to the practical issues of time famine, maintenance of a business niche, or an individualist ethos.Originality/valueThis study contributes several original findings by identifying a range of SR practices and the ethics behind each, from the perspective of small business owners, how they position themselves, as well as the paradoxical constraints they experience.

Ideologically motivated activism: How activist groups influence corporate social change activities

Using insights from the social movement literature and institutional change theory, we explore how activism influences corporate social change activities. As the responsibility for addressing a variety of social issues is transferred from the state to the private sector, activist groups increasingly challenge firms to take up such issues, seeking to influence the nature and level of corporate social change activities. Eventually, they aim to bring about field-level change. We argue that ideological differences among activist groups motivate them to choose different influence tactics to support their claims.

Corporations as social change agents: Individual, interpersonal, institutional, and environmental dynamics

Over the past two decades, there have been a growing number of corporations, both within and beyond the United States, engaging in activities that promote positive social change. The papers in this special topic forum examine corporate social change agency at the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. Through these analyses, the authors of these papers build a richly textured, multidisciplinary conceptual foundation for analysis and research on corporate social change activities.

Pencils and Photos as Tools of Communicative Research and Praxis

The present article analyzes the communication for social change activities of Minga Perú, a non-governmental organization in the Peruvian Amazon. Minga Perú broadcasts a popular radio program, Bienvenida Salud (Welcome Health), in the Amazonas, and carries out several community-based empowerment activities for local women. The authors’ data-collection procedures in the Peruvian Amazon included ordinary communicative tools, such as pencils and photographs. The respondents, comprising children and women, used these tools to ‘visually’ record their perceptions of Minga Perú contributions to reproductive health, gender equality and social change in the Peruvian Amazon. The authors argue that pencil sketches and photos represent important tools for communication research and praxis, providing an alternative to ‘textocentrism’ - the privileging of text, writing and the lettered word as a mode of comprehension and expression. However, in recognizing the value of visuals as an alternative mode of expression, the authors also point out that sketches, paintings and photographs are socially and technically constructed. That is, visual frames, by their very nature privilege the photographer’s point of view.

An Experimental Evaluation of a School-Based Emancipatory Intervention to Promote African American Well-Being and Youth Leadership

This study experimentally examined the effect of a school-based emancipatory intervention on the psychological and behavioral well-being of African American adolescents. Sixty-five eighth graders in an inner-city, predominantly Black school were randomly assigned to either receive the experimental intervention or a regular Life Skills course (the control condition). The class met three times a week for one semester. Growth trajectory modeling was used to test the extent to which the intervention affected students’ communal worldviews, individualism, school connectedness, motivation to achieve, and social change activities over time. Results indicated that the intervention positively affected each of these variables. Increased communalism and increased school connectedness mediated the relationship between the intervention and students’ motivation to achieve. Competitive individualistic orientation was a partial mediator for motivation to achieve. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.

Social change and physical activity

Social change and physical activity