Social Movement Scholars Research Articles

Learning, sharing and caring: Pedagogical features of parents’ educational activism

Scholars of social movements have afforded increasing attention in recent years to pedagogical processes and practices within activist organisations. This article contributes to the ‘pedagogical turn’ in social movement studies by exploring pedagogical features of parents’ educational activism. Drawing on qualitative data collected from parent-led campaign groups operating in England, UK, the article attends to three aspects of activist pedagogy evident within the campaigns. The first concerns the learning that occurs through engaging in activism. The second, internal and external processes of knowledge-sharing. And third, parents’ perceptions of the educative potential of activism as a means for imparting democratic values to their children. I argue that the pedagogical dimension is a central feature of parents’ activism. Indeed, such activism constitutes itself a form of civic education in which democratic values and ideals are transmitted from one generation to another.

Repertoires of action and collective memory: the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the relationship between repertoires of action and collective memory by exploring the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy. These were a key form of action of 1970s feminism in the country, which rapidly disappeared after the institution of state-based Family Health Centers. In the last decades, feminist and transfeminist self-managed health centers have resurfaced in several Italian cities. The present article investigates the mnemonic dynamics underpinning the re-adoption of a form of action from the past in subsequent cycles of mobilization. Social movement scholars have stressed the relatively stable and repetitive character of the repertoire of collective action over time, considering it as part of an implicit memory. The article examines a case in which the discontinuous adoption of a form of action makes its retrieval by subsequent activists the result of active memory work. While the study of social movements and collective memory has grown considerably in the last decades, the study of repertoires remains largely under-researched in this field. Filling this gap, this study shows how, by adopting a symbolically and historically meaningful repertoire, activists re-elaborate their collective identity in the present and establish a relationship with previous cycles. It suggests that further research should investigate the relationship between collective memory and repertoires of action.

Prepping as implicit activism: risk, danger, and post-capitalist imaginaries in prepper literature

ABSTRACT This paper explores the increasingly widespread practice of prepping, and examines how it differs from conventional forms of activism, which generally involve explicit and purposeful efforts to instigate collective social change. Drawing on Luhmann’s sociological theory of risk and the narrative concept of foreshadowing, the paper explores how preppers understand the future and their own responsibility in shaping it, as well as the ways in which their visions of the future show up in the present. The paper argues that while the practice of prepping may appear apolitical and perhaps even asocial at a first glance, its political potential lies in the implicit and largely unintended performative consequences that arise from popularizing and proliferating the idea of a potential alternative to capitalism. Consequently, the paper demonstrates how ‘taking the future seriously’, much like conventional activist movements, albeit within the context of viewing the future as dangerous as opposed to risky, can have performative effects that may ultimately function as a form of ‘implicit activism’. This implicit activism could potentially prove as, if not more, effective in terms of challenging the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism. Considering this, we argue that social movement scholars and activists could benefit from a more profound engagement with the practice of prepping. Empirically, the paper draws on a selection of popular self-help books on prepping.

Data in movement: the social movement society in the age of datafication

ABSTRACT Data has increased currency in contemporary activism and has become an integral part of the action repertoire of today’s social movements. But data and data infrastructure are not only tools to support a movement’s struggle: they are constitutive parts of the environment in which movements operate, and objects of contention in their own right. These developments challenge scholars of social movements and collective action. How are movements changing under the pressure of datafication? What ‘new’ mechanisms, actors and tactics meet the growing demand for citizen participation in an increasingly datafied society? Is social movement scholarship ‘fit’ to capture and interpret this evolution? This theoretical article puts social movement studies in dialogue with critical data studies with the aim of encouraging a much-needed cross-pollination. It advances the notion of ‘datafied movements’ to address the novel structural condition of contentious politics in the age of datafication and to explore the socio-technical, systemic effects of data and data infrastructure on movement dynamics. It reflects on how five key social movement dynamics, and the related elements in the conceptual toolbox of social movement studies – group formation, opportunity structures, action repertoires, meaning work, and collective identity – are altered by datafication and the advance of intelligent systems in society. In so doing, this article charts the building blocks of a future-proof research program in social movements.

Ocean activism: understanding political acts in extra-national terrain

ABSTRACT From enslaved people capturing vessels during the Middle Passage to Greenpeace’s and Sea Shepherd’s famous anti-whaling campaigns in the latter half of the twentieth century – resistance at sea is a phenomenon that is as old as human seafaring. Yet, while social movement scholars have a long-standing interest in transnational movements and what it means to act politically beyond the borders of nation-states, much less is known about social movements acting outside of national territory, in the international waters of the planetary ocean. This article addresses this gap by bringing the phenomenon of sea-oriented civil society to the attention of social movement scholars and proposing a conceptual framework for understanding ocean activism. Bringing together currently scattered accounts of maritime movements with relevant literature from the recent ocean turn across the social and political sciences, the article argues that we may understand ocean activism along three defining, sea-specific characteristics: (1) material specificity (due to the sea’s elemental qualities), (2) technological dependency (from ships to AIS), and (3) extra-territoriality (outside national jurisdiction). The paper contributes to discussions of transnational social movements in particular, demonstrating that scholarly attention to the ocean enables new perspectives on their spatial politics, media and data practices, and materiality. Thus, addressing social movement scholarship’s terrestrial bias does not only allow us to begin to conceptualize ocean activism but opens up paths to better understand political acts in extra-national terrains, in and beyond the sea.

Failing to Mobilize: Prosecutors’ Framing Efforts and Anticorruption Campaigns

Social movement scholars have demonstrated that activists can increase mobilizing attitudes by articulating collective action frames. However, these studies have left unresolved whether and under which conditions state officials such as prosecutors can effectively use collective action frames to trigger mobilizing attitudes. This study draws on an experiment in Brazil to test the effect of different components of collective action frames articulated by prosecutors: identity, agency, urgency, and injustice frames that highlight the material or immaterial consequences of the issue. Respondents were randomly assigned to watch videos that simulated a press conference in which prosecutors discussed a corruption investigation and called for public support using different frames. Although social movement studies would lead us to expect framing components to effectively trigger mobilizing attitudes, results revealed that none of the frames consistently and significantly affected willingness to mobilize against corruption or support for bills that strengthen or weaken prosecutors’ anticorruption efforts.

UNDOING VIOLENCE IN THE MANOSPHERE: INCELS’ DISENGAGEMENT FROM EXTREMISM IN DIGITAL FREE SPACE

Role exit is a complex process that can be especially complicated for extremists, whose identities are stigmatized. Such stigmatization often leads extremists to seek refuge in “free spaces” where they may insulate themselves from the mainstream and celebrate their ideology amongst likeminded individuals. Yet, stigma may also push those who desire to exit an extremist role to seek out their own free spaces where they can disengage from extremist ideology with others who wish to disengage. In this study, we analyze posts obtained from two Incel digital forums: a forum of active Incels and a forum of exiting Incels. We compared the ways that active and exiting Incels use free spaces to situate themselves inside or outside of this extremist community. Our analysis demonstrates that free spaces, which social movement scholars argue foster commitment among extremists, may offer exiting extremists insulation from active extremists while also keeping them tethered to hostile ideology.

Decolonial social movements as translators: Converting prefigurative initiatives into political and legal change tools

Social movement scholars have been discussing the limits of prefigurative initiatives, based on the present enactment of desired futures, in promoting supportive institutional structures. However, research has yet to explore fully how prefigurative means can be meaningfully converted into structural ends. Our paper explores the role of decolonial social movements, centered on challenging institutional legacies of colonialism, and their translating processes into filling this gap. Through our decolonial analysis of the International Monsanto Tribunal, we show how prefigurative translation—that is, process through which alternative organizing principles are converted into proposals of enabling policies and laws—connected prefiguring principles to structuring efforts by bridging alternative voices and negating Monsanto’s damaging actions. As a result of bringing together actors’ sharing similar struggles and horizons and deconstructing current problematic structures, they helped translating their principles and practices into political and legal change tools. Our research contributes to the nascent perspective of decolonial social movements as translators by exploring the process through which they help to defend and promote alternatives from a position with, against, and beyond entrenched hostile structures, often a product of colonial heritage. Furthermore, we propose the prefigurative translation role of negating actions as essential to creating “concrete utopias” anchored on real-world struggles and deconstructing problematic translations. Finally, our analysis suggests that, in this process, the presence of “translation arbiters” is important in recognizing, connecting and balancing alternative organizing principles that are traditionally hidden or devalued.

Sacralising the secular: constructing ‘religion’ in social movement scholarship

ABSTRACT This article investigates how social movement scholars construct the category of ‘religion’ within the discipline. Using some of the conceptual tools from the critical study of religion – namely, problematising the distinction between the ‘secular’ and the ‘religious’ – it analyzes a sample of articles within the journals Social Movement Studies and Mobilization between 2010 and 2020 that deal with a broad range of religious, spiritual, and ‘religion-like’ or ‘secular sacred’ phenomena. I find three key trends within the data: social movements literature has a narrow construction of what constitutes ‘religion’; those things designated ‘religious’ are often instrumentalized in service to ‘political’ ends; and social movement scholars are more likely to study conservative and extreme politics where it intersects with groups considered ‘religious’ than with those considered ‘secular.’ The article invites scholars of social movements to consider how particular conceptions of both ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ are naturalised within the field.

An imperious, closed sandbox? A rejoinder to Van Dijk’s critique of the framing perspective on social movement mobilization

In this article, we provide a response to Teun van Dijk’s criticism of the framing perspective on social movements, as expressed in his article ‘Analyzing Frame Analysis. A Critical Review of Framing Studies in Social Movement Research’. We argue that a more constructive tone is warranted and explain how his criticism is largely based on a selective reading and misinterpretation of the vast literature on framing and social movements. We provide a more detailed explanation of how discourse and related concepts such as schema and ideology are discussed by social movement scholars and critically reflect on his claim that framing as a concept can rather be replaced by discourse and/or various other cognitive/psychological constructs. Finally, we suggest how a discourse perspective and insights from social movement framing can be complementary in increasing our understanding of how movements (and other actors) communicate and with what consequences.

Unapređivanje pripreme za istražno ispitivanje osumnjičenih - multidisciplinarna perspektiva

Building and improving investigative interviewing standards is an important topic for police, citizens and finally society. This paper attempts to improve police interviewing of suspects. We further develop the concept of investigative interviewing by linking it to important insights by social movement scholars. Differences in theories reflect different approaches to the interviewing of suspects. In this article, we explore a variety of theories that may improve preparation for the interviewing of suspects. We provide a multidimensional quality and import theories from sociology, psychology and behavioural studies, modifying these to better fit the investigative interviewing of suspects. The main method applied in the paper is content analysis. The article and its conclusions also address the broader implications of understanding the importance of planning for the investigative interviewing of suspects. Results of the study indicate need for actively seeking of best practices of the investigative interviewing of suspects. Understanding what motivates person to commit a crime is also a crucial aspect of police investigation. Findings of the study may serve as impulse for evaluation and improvement of existing practices of interviewing of suspects and contribute to the broader knowledge in this area. The aforementioned represents a good basis for the development of simulation models for the training of investigators.

Presidential versus Civil Power: Public Opinion, Second-Wave Feminism, and Party Politics in the USA

This article theorizes the relationship between social movements, public opinion, and presidential power. While sociologists and social movement scholars have long neglected these interconnections, we argue that they form a key foundation of American political life. Drawing on civil sphere theory, we show that, at least in formally democratic regimes, the exercise of state power is continuously subject to public opinion, via social movements that pressure states in the public’s name. We demonstrate how social movements compete with one another to speak on behalf of ‘public opinion.’ In giving expression to the desires of ‘the public’, imagined as a putative whole, movements exercise what we call ‘civil power.’ Taking the second-wave feminist movement and the countermovements that arose against it as our empirical case study, we examine their interaction with three particularly illustrative presidential administrations: that of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. While presidents organize state power, we argue, the effective functioning of this formal power is enabled by the civil power of social movements, whose roots are located in collective meanings and whose generation occurs outside the state.

The Long UC Santa Barbara Chicana/o/x Movement

Most social movement scholars assume that the African American Civil Rights and Chicana/o/x Movements lasted no more than ten years. Framing these movements as “short,” rather than “long,” minimizes their complex, radical roots, reinforcing popular misconceptions that they had narrow goals, such as color-blindness. In this article, I utilize a case study approach to examine the long Chicana/o/x Movement on one specific campus—the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The movement on that campus began with the historic El Plan de Santa Barbara Conference in April 1969, and it continued into the 1990s with a ten-day hunger strike. It persisted into the late 2010s when Chicanx/Latinx students mobilized to preserve their beloved “home away from home,” El Centro Arnulfo Casillas.

Teaching and Learning Social Change

How can social work courses prepare students to be scholars of social movements, and also to act in solidarity with movements for social justice? How can graduate programs reimagine the professional socialization of social work students from aspiring for expertise toward a stance of life-long learning? How can instructors more deeply leverage our teaching practice to advance justice in our communities? This paper traces one attempt to answer these questions through a three-quarter graduate social work course designed to deepen students’ skills and knowledge in practices for social transformation, while amplifying existing social justice movements. Drawing on reflections from the instructor and five students, course artifacts, and insights from other students and community partners, this case study offers a model of community-engaged teaching that centers solidarity, reciprocity, and justice.

Cycles of labour protests: public and private sector unions' contentious actions

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the cycle of labour protests in Sweden, comparing the contentious actions of trade unions in public and private sectors over 40 years. Prior studies have focused on industrial conflicts or labour protests, but a long-term perspective on the broad protest repertoire across sectors is lacking. The goal is to test the argument of diversification of action repertoire and differences between the public and private sectors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply the grievance and political opportunity theories of social movement research for explaining the cycles of labour protests and differences between sectors in Sweden over 40 years (1980–2020). The unique protest event data are combined with the official strike statistics. The research period includes the globalisation of the economy and two economic crises.FindingsAlthough unions in both sectors have decreased protest mobilisation over time, private sector unions have resigned the most, whereas public sector unions continue to mobilise a diverse set of protest actions. Swedish unions have not replaced strikes with other protest repertoires. The open opportunities have allowed them to use various protests as part of “routine” operations.Research limitations/implicationsProtest event data are derived from newspapers, leading to an over-representation of large events in the urban areas. Future studies should combine data from newspapers with data about online protests.Originality/valueBy thoroughly examining all protest events mobilised by all trade unions in different sectors over 40 years (1980–2020), the paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the cycles of labour protest. The findings should interest industrial relations and social movement scholars.

From uprising to secession: a plea for a localized and processual approach to the avatars of the yellow vest movement

For about fifteen years now, so-called leaderless movements, often stemming from appeals via social networks and having recourse to lasting or episodic occupations of public spaces have flourished. This has had the effect of calling into question the usual toolkit used by social movement scholars to study them. More precisely, it is a question of which levels, dimensions and units of analysis are relevant, especially when it comes to describe movements’ social base and worldviews. In this paper, based on a localized and a long-term collective undertaking, begun from the very beginning of the Yellow Vests movement in November 2018, we discuss those shortcomings and suggest avenues for analysis. We rely on three sets of data in a concomitant manner: life history calendars, social media data (mainly Facebook) and field research (participant observation and biographical interviews). By considering time and place as key variables, we offer an innovative way to describe how the YVs movement has been constructed in a constant flux of change.

Negotiated Management as a Tool to Achieve Social Control over Political Protest and Social Movement Organizations

Social movement scholars describe negotiated management as a process of collaboration between those in power and those in resistance. For this research, content analysis and critical discourse analysis are used to evaluate questionnaire responses from law enforcement agencies in communities where competing grassroots political organizations engaged in political protest. Findings indicate that law enforcement exercise different levels of social control toward those least likely to engage in, or submit to, a negotiated management model of policing. I argue that responses toward organizations, as reported in questionnaire responses, demonstrates a structural permanence of social control. Negotiated management between the state and competing grassroots political organizations is a tool used to achieve informal control. Organizations that fail – or choose not – to engage in informal social control of their members risk escalated force by police agencies that seek compliance. Results of this research increase understanding of law enforcement responses to political protest groups.

Far-right boundary construction towards the "other": Visual communication of Danish People's Party on social media.

This paper explores how images are used in online far-right political communication to create distinct groups of "otherness." Focusing on the Danish People's Party, we look at how symbolic boundaries are constructed through images to emphasize an exclusive conception of the nation and its citizens, who need protection from the threatening "others." In order to understand the global rise of the far right, scholars of social movements and digital media have called for new research on how visual images serve the mainstreaming of extremist and nationalist beliefs online. We look at images communicated by the Danish People's Party on their Facebook page, exploring how digital images visually communicate the party's slogan of "Safety and trust" (in Danish: "Tryghed og tillid"). With a focus on boundary construction, we present a multimodal visual analysis of 1120 images posted by the party from 2012 to 2020. The data shows how the party constructs an imaginary of Danishness through an exclusionary impermeable boundary construction of a trusted in-group's values and traditions in opposition to culturally distinct "others."

Urban commons and the local state: co-production between enhancement and co-optation

ABSTRACT Urban commons have emerged within the latest mobilization cycle, and have developed forms of everyday politics. Marxist and social movement scholars tend to see the urban commons/local state interactions that assemble commons’ material infrastructure as the prelude to commons being co-opted. Governance scholars uphold that these interactions can bring political benefits to the commons. By bridging these two perspectives, this article analyses urban commons/local state interactions that develop in the context of material-assembling practices in the light of what we call ‘commons-led co-production’: processes where commons gain political advantages from this co-production. By studying commons initiatives in two neighbourhoods in two different municipalities in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, we analyse and discuss a spectrum of five positions. We contend that material-assembling practices act as a condition of possibility for developing the everyday politics of the commons, where commons-led co-production can be laid out, in context-specific and variegated ways. However, the arrangement of commons-led co-production does not necessarily guarantee the long-term enhancement of commons’ political action. We conclude by calling for a more nuanced understanding of urban commons/local state interactions within material-assembling practices, one that considers both co-optation and enhancement as possible long-term outcomes of these interactions.

Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship: Trajectories of Political Subjectification in the Post-Democratic Condition

Dominated by the ‘weak postsocialist civil society’ thesis, Central and Eastern Europe has generally been uninspiring for social movement scholars. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has challenged this pessimistic notion, highlighting the emergence of grassroots activism. What remains under-researched, however, is the process of political subjectification of society’s apolitical segments through contentious practices. Informed by pragmatic sociology, this article explores three case studies – of student, civic and environmental movements, respectively – that demonstrate how citizens constituted themselves as collective political subjects by performatively enacting their citizenship through resistance in post-democratic Montenegro (2010–2015). Through analysis of news media sources and interviews with activists, this article postulates three trajectories of political subjectification – political becoming, political bonding and political embodying – by which citizens (re)gain their civic autonomy, allowing them to challenge dominant power relations and to attain political legitimacy to think, speak and act as relevant political actors on the public stage.