History Of Social Movements Research Articles

Queer Career and the History of Social Movements

<i>Queer Career</i> and the History of Social Movements

Power to the People

In the fall of 2022, two professors from two different academic disciplines launched an interdisciplinary undergraduate course named Power to the People: Social Movements in United States History (Power to the People henceforth) at a small private religiously affiliated liberal arts college in the southern United States. The goal of the course was to provide students with a comprehensive background of historical social movements and the strategies and tactics used by the people to make change. In an era and climate where critical race theory, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two Spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) identities, citizenship status, and other social identities and issues have become political flashpoints, the faculty developers knew this course could incite controversy, yet they also believed it could welcome critical dialogue needed by students preparing to enter careers a society plagued by binaries and divisiveness. Furthermore, the students in these two disciplines expressed interest in this subject matter as it related to their professional pursuits. This article explores a rationale for this course, the experience of teaching an interdisciplinary, team-taught course, the design of the course, pedagogical strategies employed, and it concludes with reflections on challenges and successes from the first year of teaching this course. This article seeks to provide educators with information and ideas for how to broach difficult topics in the college classroom with a collaborative, interdisciplinary course.

From Silence to Social Awakening: Exploring the Personal Trajectories of Activists in Morocco's Post-Arab Spring Movements

The Arab Spring served as a catalyst for various movements aiming to implement political change across the Arab world. Morocco, with its rich history of social movements, witnessed the emergence of the Movement of 20th February 2011 (M20F), the Hirak Rif, and the 2018 boycott campaign. The M20F, in particular, challenged the established fear imposed by the Makhzen, marking a transformative moment facilitated by social media and a call against "hogra" – oppression, injustice, and social contempt. While existing studies have focused on the political and social factors behind activism and the consequences of these movements on societies, the present paper takes a more individualistic perspective. Using biographic interviews with several activists from these uprisings in Morocco, and from different backgrounds and affiliations, the paper examines their life trajectories with the aim of understanding what factors influenced their decision to join a movement and the subsequent impact on their lives. This paper presents the profiles of six activists and discusses the rationale behind shaping their activist careers. The respondents developed an interest in activism from various influences—parental, cultural, media, socio-economic conditions, and experiences of marginalization—all united for a common objective of change, despite diverse ideologies.

From an election to an insurrection: Investigating differential engagement and sentiment in the #defundthepolice and #defendthepolice network on Twitter.

Social movements and their respective countermovements have evolved to use online social media platforms to recruit followers, share pertinent information, discuss relevant issues, and draw the attention of political figures. Movements' strategic use of Twitter has increasingly been studied, though there are relatively few studies that compare social movements and their corresponding countermovements simultaneously. We examine engagement in the #DefundthePolice social movement and #DefendthePolice countermovement in a Twitter network comprised of retweets using both hashtags from August 2020 to January 2021. Text and sentiment analysis as well as a content analysis of a random sample of retweets in the network's 20 largest subgroups reveal four key patterns. First, information commonly communicated in historical social movements is communicated in the online, Twitter network. Second, the use of movement and countermovement hashtags to criticize is common, suggesting Twitter engagement with the movement/countermovement is not a sufficient indicator of support for the movement. Third, social movements are inextricably embedded in politics, with political discourse present in all the 20 largest subgroups. Finally, though we do not include geo-tagged tweets in the analysis, physical geography is key theme in multiple subgroups. Broadly, our findings demonstrate the breadth of topics communicated within movement networks and highlight the importance of qualitatively examining Twitter data in the study of social movements.

How Fromm’s Ideas Resonate Politically as well as Philosophically: The Contemporary Case of Guaranteed Income

ABSTRACT Erich Fromm is not generally associated with policy positions and politics. Yet, Fromm was an early proponent of guaranteed income as an important practical entitlement necessary if greater human freedoms were to be realized. The article traces the development of the idea of basic (or guaranteed income) in US social movement history going back to the 1960s and including the writings of Erich Fromm on this topic. It argues that the concept of guaranteed income flows easily from, and is consonant with, Fromm’s humanistic philosophy overall. Four reasons are offered, including those that are politically, ethically and pragmatically oriented, as to why providing basic income to all citizens has major advantages over the kind of economic precarity and anxieties that many people currently experience. Lastly, after making a multi-dimensional case for guaranteed income, the article responds to a common objection – namely, if basic income became universally available, people would not wish to work. Quite to the contrary, and as empirical experiments have shown, Fromm’s ideas suggest that guaranteed income would encourage people to work with increased commitment and passion and that more positive than negative consequences would ensue from the concept becoming a widespread and much more generally accepted public policy.

Pioneers of Precarity

Through oral histories read in tandem with previously untapped archival sources, Margot Canaday's Queer Career unearths an entirely new body of evidence that captures the workplace experiences of a generation of gay and lesbian Americans whose stories have never been told. Canaday does so while making crucial interventions in sociolegal history, the history of gender and sexuality, and the history of capitalism, intertwining those often-siloed genres in innovative and generative ways. My aim here is to highlight just a few of Queer Career's many contributions to the legal history of sex, gender, and sexuality and to the history of social movements and antidiscrimination law.

Abortion-Eugenics Discourse in Dobbs: A Social Movement History

Abortion-Eugenics Discourse in Dobbs: A Social Movement History

What’s New in the History of Social Movements?

What’s New in the History of Social Movements?

Berita Pustaka as historical source of Bandung Institute of Technology Library in 1970’s

Background of the Study: History of Indonesian library is less explored field in library studies. Debates on history of Indonesian library seems to be unexplored due to pressure on librarian to adapt with technological changes. It causes development of history of Indonesian library seems stagnant among scholars of library science and librarians. Meanwhile, in the field of history itself, library history is less attractive for historians. The development of historiography since 1980’s is more concerned with social movement history, though library played significant role in the field of education and research in Indonesia. Almost all research centers and universities certainly need library for obtaining references. Purpose: This article observes one of National Library of Indonesia’s rare collection named Berita Pustaka. The collection is a tabloid published by Center Library of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in 1970’s. Today the collection is still deposited in Rare Newspaper Division, National Library of Indonesia with call number QQ-131. Method: In this article author uses qualitative method along with deep analysis of Berita Pustaka. Therefore, author also uses historical approach as a methodology in this article. Finding: In addition, the collection also contains information regarding library service for faculty members and students in 1970’s. Conclusion: Author argues that Berita Pustaka is an information source for researching history of Indonesian library, particularly higher education library.

Visual Collective Memories of National Socialism: Transatlantic HIV/AIDS Activism and Discourses of Persecutions

Abstract Focusing on Bavarian policies and analysing the pages of gay and lesbian written-communication networks, this article demonstrates how a memory of the national socialist persecution of homosexualities fed a collective fear of state repression in homosexual circles in the 1980s and 1990s. It argues that comparisons between HIV/AIDS policies and National Socialism not only originated in a German national context, but were also anchored in a transatlantic story, linking queer emancipation movements in Europe and North America. It furthermore underlines how this history of queer political thought goes beyond the textual. In order to make this claim, the article traces a genealogy of the Pink Triangle in the northern transatlantic world. The symbol was originally used to brand non-heteronormative men in concentration camps, but it was recuperated in the 1970s both in Europe and in North America. AIDS activists reinterpreted the symbol for a new political context in the 1980s. All in all, using examples and analysis emanating from queer history, the article shows how the history of social movements needs to be understood in a global perspective. This analysis further proves the role of images and symbols as third idioms for the flow and translation of ideas across the Atlantic.

Another world is possible: building games for just futures

ABSTRACT Game design in systematically excluded communities offers a powerful framework for empowering communities. These findings are based upon The Resisters—an alternate reality game built with young people about social movement history in Providence, RI—and Vukuzenzele—a collaboration between an interactive media firm and an informal settlement non-governmental organization (NGO) in Cape Town, South Africa. In this article, I assert the value of game development as a process, the importance of considering collaborations with stakeholders, and the challenges and possibilities of intentional game design.

Solidarity in Search of Human Agency: ‘Détente from Below’ and Independent Peace Activists in the Soviet Union

While the histories of Western grassroots movements and the officially sanctioned, communist-sponsored peace movement are well known, the independent peace activists of the Soviet bloc have remained footnotes in the history of social movements. The Group for the Establishment of Trust between East and West (the Trust Group) was the largest and most prominent unofficial peace group in the late Soviet Union. Active between 1982 and 1989, its members established significant ties with foreign peace activists. This article considers the agenda, activities and membership of the Trust Group. It contrasts the persecution experienced by this independent movement with the activities of the official, state-sanctioned Soviet Peace Committee (SPC). As the article shows, the Trust Group’s agenda resonated with the concept of ‘détente from below’, as promoted by members of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), including the historian E.P. Thompson. The article traces how Western advocates of ‘détente from below’ sought to support these independent campaigners in the Soviet Union, thus highlighting important East-West dimensions in European peace activism in the 1980s.

알리기 위한 지역학, 알고 싶은 지역학 - 미국 내 한국학 수업 풍경과 연구 동향

This review essay introduces the landscape of Korean Studies class in the US and recent books in Korean Studies with three primary points: kinship studies in the context of war, history of social movements and the Korean diaspora. First, kinship studies based on the context of the Korean War and the Cold War have paid attention to war traumas, personal/collective sufferings and memories. Among them are studies that examine how the most intimate relationship, “kinship”, can turn into political relationships. This articulation of kinship as politics has allowed new ways of historical narrative writing and new analysis of subject formation. These studies address the process in which kinship has acquired political meanings and war lives across and beyond the battle field and ideological competitions as a continuous legacy. Second, studies of social movements linked to the developmental state have pointed out the continuity of democratization movements after the democratic transition. These studies highlight the institutionalization of democratization movements and co-existing movement with a defiance. Youths familiar and active on online communities have primarily led the disorganized and de-institutionalized political movements as a way to participate in political activities in an ordinary sense. Third, Korean diaspora studies have explored the formation of overseas Koreans as ethnic minority subjects and the contested ways that they encounter the homeland (mainly South Korea) in the context of globalization and post Cold War. Korean diaspora studies have rapidly increased as the neoliberal South Korean government recognized the “value” of overseas Koreans. This review of books in Korean studies demonstrates that they are interrogating complex historical and theoretical questions and not merely aiming to introduce and promote an unknown country to the world. Within the US, Korean Studies has emerged as a critical channel that allows American students to ask reflective questions about the relationship that the US has established with the world, and about global capitalism through the lens of Korea.

What’s New in the History of Social Movements

What’s New in the History of Social Movements

Feminist Business Praxis and Spare Rib Magazine

This article analyses the ‘business praxis’ of the feminist magazine Spare Rib, one of UK feminism’s most enduring cultural institutions. It discusses the diverse ways Spare Rib sustained itself financially (or not), with reference to the role of advertising, distribution, revenue and wages. I explore how Spare Rib developed ethical approaches to business through supporting other women-led business endeavours and attempting to balance profitability with accountability to its readership and the wider women’s movement. The provision of grant funding by the Greater London Council transformed Spare Rib’s fortunes in the early 1980s and demonstrates the ways in which the magazine operated in a market ecology comprising commercial, publicly funded and philanthropic elements. Tracing the history of radical political movements as enterprises and employers expands the existing field of business history and connects it to the history of social movements. The concept of ‘business praxis’, extending across public, private and philanthropic sectors, helps nuance simplistic talk of ‘the market’ or ‘enterprise culture’ in late twentieth-century Britain. It also expands social movement analysis, demonstrating that making money and creating employment were important though often controversial principles of radical activism.

독일] 독일사 연구의 ‘연속’과 ‘불연속’ - 위기에 응답하는 2019~2020년 연구의 진단과 전망 -

This paper comprehensively reviews the achievements of German history research in Korea during the last two years (2019-2020). First, the research results during that period decreased slightly in terms of the total number of published papers amid the impact of Covid-19, but it showed unprecedented great progress in monographs including books and translations. Second, if we look at the research in the field classified as ‘continuous’, it leads to a further expansion of the scope of research in the field of transnational history, while in history education and public history a large number of research papers have also been published. In addition, certain research results were also found in the field of political history and studies related to German unification. Third, looking at the research fields grouped as ‘discontinuous’, although many researchers did not participate, meaningful research results were still obtained in social movement history, corporate history, economic history, urban history, etc. Good papers have been published in studies of the early modern era, including the history of emotions. One of the characteristics of Korean studies on German history is that it responds to the demands of the times, and it is quite unfortunate that there are too few research results in women/gender history and environmental history, which are representative fields that require such a role. Finally, in the context of a new historical interpretation caused by the coronavirus crisis, it is expected that German history researchers will take the lead.

한국 근대 사회운동의 계승관계에 대한 고등학교 한국사 교과서 서술 분석 - 동학농민전쟁과 의병운동을 중심으로 -

When we analyze [Donghak Peasant Revolution Participation White Paper] and [Independence Patriots Achievement Record], severance was more common than succession in terms of the succession of personnel from Donghak to Righteous Army. Also, the Confucian students, who were the central force of the Righteous Army, were generally hostile to Donghak. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the schema of simply connecting the genealogy setting of the modern and contemporary social movement history from Donghak to Righteous Army.BR However, we should not completely deny the succession from Donghak to Righteous Army altogether and determine the succession from anti-Donghak to Righteous Army, e ither. As mentioned in this paper, there was no Righteous Army leader in then northern Gyeongsang-do area who was from anti-Donghak party and there were several cases that some former Donghak participants joined the Righteous Army. These mean that there were people who crossed between different forces in the local communities. However, the existence of people in the intersection of those two forces and defining the succession of personnel between the two powers is another matter. This is because the aspect of the succession of orientations between the two forces must also be considered.BR In conclusion, the dichotomy between the progressive succession and severance from Donghak Peasant War to the Righteous Army Movement must be overcome. The reality of the time was not simply the succession based on the developmental stage theory, nor was it a complete segmentation. It is necessary to accurately recognize the concrete reality of the time where some forces were intertwined, even though they were mostly opposed, and their boundaries were not fixed but variable. On this basis, we will be able to figure out the succession and historical position of the modern and contemporary social movements history in Korea more correctly.

A social history of racial disparities in breastfeeding in the United States

Over the past five decades in the United States, White women have breastfed at higher rates than Black women. While a small but growing body of social historical research has examined racial disparities in breastfeeding over time, empirical research, particularly quantitative research, has focused on single historical snapshots, unintentionally treating the persistent racial disparities in breastfeeding as a static phenomenon, rather than one with distinct social mechanisms at different points in time. Further, few studies on racial disparities in health deconstruct difference both within and across racial groups. But what if we thought about persistent racial disparities instead as discrete trends with distinct social mechanisms at different points in time? In a binary logistic regression of breastfeeding initiation rates from 1973 to 2015 using the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), I found that the persistent racial disparities were actually comprised of three distinct types of changing racial disparities: (1) increases in racial disparities that derive from improvements for Whites not captured by Blacks (1973–1982); (2) decreases in racial disparities that stem from improvements for Whites captured even more strongly by Blacks (1995–2006); and, (3) leveling off of racial disparities (2006–2015). Placing results of this quantitative analysis within the context of public policy and social movement history, I identify three distinct mechanisms that drive the different trends in racial disparities in breastfeeding. This paper contributes to the literature on motherhood, race, and health a more nuanced understanding of the social historical mechanisms that pattern breastfeeding, and more broadly, racial disparities in health.

The 1905–07 Russian Revolution as a ‘Moment of Truth’: An Overlooked Contribution from Menshevism

This article is the first exposition of a projected five-part Menshevik study of social forces in the Russian Revolution of 1905, only four volumes of which appeared in 1907 covering reaction, the proletariat, the peasantry, and the liberal and democratic bourgeoisie. This collective effort marked perhaps the first attempt to present an overall analysis of the revolution from within one perspective, that of the Menshevik variety of Russian Marxism. Despite the centrality of perceptions of revolution to participants and future historians of Russian socialism and of 1905, this project has been largely overlooked. This is to be regretted, for the volumes contain interpretations now familiar on the nature of the 1905 revolution and why it failed. Furthermore, there is continuity between the works and authors of 1907 and the subsequent (1909–14) much more famous Menshevik history of social movements in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Las protestas de la Rosenstrasse: acción colectiva de mujeres frente al régimen nazi

In February of 1943, the Nazi regime arrested 2,000 Jewish men which were taken to the administrative office located on Rosenstrasse in Berlin. The spouses of the incarcerated Jews gathered in front of the building to demand the return of their loved ones. A protest of 600 women that lasted a week quickly broke out. Although this event was relevant within its context, from the point of view of the history of social movements it has remained unexplored. This protest deserves recognition within the journey of women struggles in history. This paper will critically address the debates regarding the women’s social movement involved in the Rosenstrasse protests that took place between February and March of 1943 in Berlin during the Nazi government. The interest lies in discussing the nature of this social demand led by women; analyze this claim of justice taking into account the unfavorable period for the German feminist movement and for women’s rights; identify their position regarding gender perspective; and to assess the impact of the social movement. The thesis of this paper is that the Rosenstrasse protests meant an extraordinary act of a successful resistance which prove the awareness of the Nazi terror on account of German bystanders. These protests, despite not being against the system, were a spontaneous collective action that managed to have an impact on public opinion and on the Nazi government within a context of state weakness. Even if women questioned the state from their position as wives, not from a feminist perspective but from the morality of traditional values such as home and family, the importance of this protest in the memory construction of social movements cannot be underestimated.