Social Movements Research Articles

Fringe discourse networks 1932–2022: a media archaeological approach to (Ex)communication and (De)platforming

ABSTRACT In 1932, the Dutch writer Ernest Michel was banned from publishing with a Catholic publisher for critiquing the Catholic church and Dutch democracy. After his ban, Michel joined Verdinaso, a political organization with strong ties to upcoming National Socialist movements in the Netherlands, where he continued to write, frequently advocating for free speech, and against censorship. In this paper, we will compare the case of Michel with the case of Laurens Buijs, as well as contemporary processes of deplatformization and replatforming. We will discuss the removal of right-wing political actors from mainstream platforms, and analyze their narratives of victimhood and cultural decline, as well as the ‘network of technologies and institutions’, i.e. the ‘discourse networks’ that make far-right and populist political communication possible. We follow a media archaeological approach allowing us to show the continuities in seemingly distant times and seemingly different material and institutional networks, as well as the discontinuities in the development of contemporary media. With this analysis, we aim to contribute to current debates concerning the governance of anti-democratic and right-wing media, and their material and institutional networks.

Comparing the South African and Brazilian student uprisings (2015–2016): Similarities, Circulations, and Distance

ABSTRACT South Africa and Brazil are notorious for having some of the highest levels of (racialised) inequality on the planet, and dysfunctional education systems failing millions in their aspirations for a better life. Over 2015-16, student protests erupted across Brazilian and South African schools and universities, challenging these conditions through strikes, occupations, on-campus and street protests, and intellectual production. This paper builds on a World-Systems theoretical framework to understand the similarities, circulation, and distance between the two contemporaneous movements. In Brazil, the ‘Primavera Secundarista' high school occupations dealt primarily with local political dynamics, such as school closures, and intersectional forms of oppression. In South Africa, the ‘Fallist' university mobilisations demanded free, decolonised education, alongside addressing issues of outsourcing and institutional racism. In the first section, I give a comparative overview of these student movements’ similarities, situating them in their context and highlighting the key concerns and political and pedagogical practices of student activists in each. While these movements did not generally engage with each other, there were some important points of interaction, discussed in the second section. While highlighting these points of connection, I also advance an argument in the third section for why there was nevertheless relatively little direct engagement between these contemporaneous movements that otherwise had so much in common. The points of connection and disconnection between these similar movements offers insights about the functioning of the contemporary World-System and the modes of transnational circulation between movements therein, with lessons for transnational understandings of social movements, especially South-South movements.

Contesting patents on COVID-19 vaccines in the EU: the no profit on pandemic campaign

ABSTRACT This article presents and analyses the campaign behind the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘No Profit on Pandemic’ which challenged patents for COVID-19 vaccines. Albeit unsuccessful, we argue that the campaign offers a unique opportunity to study the transnationalisation of European contention during the ‘emergency critical juncture’ of the pandemic. We situate the campaign within (1) the broader Europeanisation of health governance and (2) the wider ‘Access to Medicines’ movement to point to the political obstacles and discursive opportunities for anti-patent mobilisation over the period. We conclude that, despite the discursive opportunities offered, the campaign failed to break through the political push-back and the industry opposition. The article, thus, contributes to the literature on health activism, in general, and progressive social movements during the pandemic, in particular, and hopes to shed some light on the global politics of public health.

Understanding energy conflicts: From epistemic disputes to competing conceptions of justice

Analysing energy conflicts is crucial to realise a successful and just energy transition. In doing so, it is insufficient to understand energy conflicts as epistemic disagreements about risk analyses and safety, as people often voice moral concerns beyond epistemic debates. To analyse grievances of social movements and citizens in energy conflicts, scholars often adopt a tenet-based energy justice framework that distinguishes between distributive, procedural, recognition and restorative justice. However, categorising claims into tenets does not shed light on disagreements within the tenets. As such, the existing conceptual toolkit is insufficient to understand the core of energy justice conflicts. This article proposes to shift focus towards capturing different conceptions of justice. This approach is illustrated by a qualitative analysis of the controversy around underground gas storage Grijpskerk and Norg in the Netherlands. The results show that the conflict is constituted by competing conceptions of restorative justice. The institutionalisation of one conception delegitimises and hides certain justice concerns and reduces the conflict to an epistemic dispute, which leads to misrecognition and possibly to the escalation of the conflict.

Introduction: Mobilizing during COVID-19: social movements in times of crisis

ABSTRACT Early 2020 saw the beginning of a pandemic that triggered an unprecedented global health crisis and economic turmoil. The COVID-19 pandemic also crucially affected the dynamics of political mobilization in social movements. This introduction seeks to reflect on such effects. In particular, we ask: How did the pandemic change or hinder existing struggles? To what extent did new activist networks, issues, and forms of action emerge? Drawing on the special issue’s contributions, we highlight how the pandemic gave way to new incentives and forms of mobilization, in particular the anti-lockdown protests with covid-specific claims, and actor constellations that often brought together people with diverse ideological orientations. These mobilizations were crucially facilitated by social media, bringing together previously disconnected people and harnessing heightened emotions of fear, anger, distrust, uncertainty, and anxiety. At the same time, existing movements continued their work on longer standing issues and often effectively adapted their organizational infrastructures, repertoires of action, or goals to a new set of priorities and circumstances. As in other crises, the pandemic spurred mutual aid and solidarity activism for those most affected by the pandemic.

NGOisation and food sovereignty: unearthing the intricacies of NGO-driven food sovereignty efforts. Insights from Uganda

AbstractIn many places, social movements and organised networks are the primary drivers of mobilisation for food sovereignty. Elsewhere, the concept has been institutionalized and incorporated into national food policy frameworks. However, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding places where food sovereignty efforts are spearheaded by NGOised civil society. This study addresses this gap by examining five Civil Society Organisations promoting food sovereignty in Uganda through qualitative research. Through in-depth interviews, the study explores the implementation, activism, and mobilisation strategies employed by these organisations. The findings reveal that civil society organisations play a significant role in advancing food sovereignty in Uganda. They do so through practical initiatives such as disseminating knowledge, building capacity among smallholder farmers, promoting agroecological practices, and politicizing agricultural development through farmer mobilisation, policy advocacy, and formation of strategic alliances. Nonetheless, the study highlights critical areas for improvement. First, the need for better coordination among CSOs to create synergies that can enhance the impact and sustainability of their efforts. Second, the need to complement non-contentious strategies with more politically assertive actions to address systemic barriers. Finally, the need to forge alliances for FS among rural producers, urban consumers, and other non-farming populations. The main takeaway from these findings is that Food Sovereignty is a dynamic and context-dependent concept, requiring equally flexible strategies to promote it. Therefore, the choice of mobilisation strategies should be carefully adapted to the unique political, cultural, and economic context, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Equitable community-based participatory research engagement with communities of color drives All of Us Wisconsin genomic research priorities.

The NIH All of Us Research Program aims to advance personalized medicine by not only linking patient records, surveys, and genomic data but also engaging with participants, particularly from groups traditionally underrepresented in biomedical research (UBR). This study details how the dialogue between scientists and community members, including many from communities of color, shaped local research priorities. We recruited area quantitative, basic, and clinical scientists as well as community members from our Community and Participant Advisory Boards with a predetermined interest in All of Us research as members of a Special Interest Group (SIG). An expert community engagement scientist facilitated 6 SIG meetings over the year, explicitly fostering openness and flexibility during conversations. We qualitatively analyzed discussions using a social movement framework tailored for community-based participatory research (CBPR) mobilization. The SIG evolved through CBPR stages of emergence, coalescence, momentum, and maintenance/integration. Researchers prioritized community needs above personal academic interests while community members kept discussions focused on tangible return of value to communities. One key outcome includes SIG-driven shifts in programmatic and research priorities of the All of Us Research Program in Southeastern Wisconsin. One major challenge was building equitable conversations that balanced scientific rigor and community understanding. Our approach allowed for a rich dialogue to emerge. Points of connection and disconnection between community members and scientists offered important guidance for emerging areas of genomic inquiry. Our study presents a robust foundation for future efforts to engage diverse communities in CBPR, particularly on healthcare concerns affecting UBR communities.

Making the match: How Chinese food‐movement organizations develop consumers in the alternative market

AbstractMany social movement organizations promote their agendas in market spaces. As such they need to attract consumers to their cause. This article used longitudinal qualitative data collected between 2018 and 2023 in Chinese alternative food markets to explore their consumer recruitment and ongoing efforts to match movement ideologies with consumers' values, particularly regarding what makes “good food.” I argue that an iterative, two‐way learning process between organizations and consumers helped facilitate good matching and establish a stable consumer base. Organizations educated consumers about the production process and producers' stories, aligning their missions with consumers' pursuit of safety and taste and distinguishing them from mainstream markets. Consumers resonated with this cultural work but required responsible producers and market organizers. Some organizations fostered self‐affirming discussions to redirect consumer demands, while others interacted with and learned from the dynamic culture within consumer groups to co‐create their new definition of good food. This mutual learning motivated organizers to adjust their visions of ideal consumers to align movement ideologies with consumers' desires, creating the right amount of differentiation in alternative markets. This paper advances the literature on social movement organizations' market activities by revealing the interactive learning process and the diversity of alignment strategies.

Chartism’s Critical Carbon Theology: What Fossil Power’s Nineteenth-Century Demonizers Contribute to the Ethics of Energy Justice Today

Recent scholarship on religion and energy highlights the religious attachments some groups of people form with fossil fuels that have served to facilitate their extraction and use in building socially and economically stratified worlds. This scholarship foregrounds the business owners, managers, scientists, inventors, industrial spokespersons, and other panegyrists of the beneficent, civilizing power of coal and oil. However, little research to date has examined the religious attachments formed with fossil fuels by those who mined them, labored with machines powered by them, and lived in places that were diminished to extract, burn, and waste them. This article builds on the work of Andreas Malm and Terra Schwerin Rowe to examine these “critical carbon theologies”. It focuses in particular on the theological themes in popular literature produced by the nineteenth-century British Chartist movement—the first great social movement led by those who experienced in their bodies, communities, and environments the traumas that accompanied the introduction of fossil fuels as a motive power. These Chartist activist-theologians condemned coal power as a demonic force in history and envisioned a way to exorcize an industrializing society of its demons. This article uncovers and evaluates the largely overlooked theological dimensions of this movement and applies them toward a consideration of the ethics of energy transition today.

Letter From the Co-Editor: Yes, “Shit’s Got to Change.” But How? A Call for a Deep Scholarship Social Movement

This letter from the editor is in response to Benjamin et al.'s (2024) call to action surrounding the structures and systems of the tourism academy. It recommends a social movements approach as a possible framework for taking next steps. This Deep Scholarship Movement suggests (1) identifying and assembling key leadership change agents with diverse viewpoints, (2) enhancing self-efficacy, increasing consciousness-raising, and maximizing resource mobilization, the three primary components of successful social movements, and using them to work toward (3) community consensus building. These are challenging and daunting recommendations. This letter argues, however, that this or some other systemic, organized approach is necessary for those of us in varying aspects of leadership to clear the way and establish deeper, richer, more inclusive and less oppressive environments for our early-and mid-career colleagues.

The democratic public and the practices of the oppressed

Democratic theory, especially deliberative democracy, centrally focuses on verbal communication. In contrast, social movements, especially those fighting against oppression, often use practices such as dance, theatre, or other practical activities. In recent years, theorists have also turned to practices beyond words, for example, artistic expressions and the contributions they can make to democratic life. We expand this line of argument by exploring experimental and transformative practices and their connection to the democratic imperative to overcome oppression. Drawing on practical examples and on the literature on the epistemology and pedagogy of the oppressed, we explore the mechanisms through which experimental and transformative practices can help citizens to improve their epistemic position and to develop their political agency. We argue that even though such practices can also be used by non-democratic forces, democratic societies need to create space for, and take seriously, the contributions that such practices make to democratic life.

Mother-Led Science: Rethinking Science-Based Social Movements Through Temporality and Care

This article explores the subjective and temporal modes of organizing underlying science-based social movements through an analysis of two mother-led movements in Argentina. The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo appropriated forensic anthropology and nascent DNA technologies to identify their disappeared grandchildren during the 1976–83 dictatorship. The Madres de Ituzaingó Anexo developed community-led epidemiology studies and agrochemical contamination mapping to argue for a causal relation between intensive pesticide use and high rates of childhood illnesses. We focus on how these movements delineate visions of time, responsibility, and collective action by closely examining the underlying histories and practices of each social movement as they politicized motherhood and appropriated scientific practice. We offer the concept of mother-led science through the temporal registers of constancy, desgaste, and durability to illuminate the iterative relationship between care work, creating sustainable communities and institutions, and the fragile processes of stabilizing facts. Mother-led science, with its dual claims to scientific authority in an epistemic register and maternal authority in an affective register, articulates a potent form of scientific organizing. We suggest that these affective temporalities may be present across all science-based social movements but can be obscured by narratives of linear progress toward objective truths.

The Combination of Virtue and Law in the Political Thought of Le Thanh Tong

To solve the urgent problems of Vietnamese social history in the 14th - 15th centuries, which is the requirement to consolidate and build a unified and strong Dai Viet nation, with a centralized autocratic state apparatus; on the basis of absorbing and inheriting the premises of political and social thought in the cultural tradition of the Vietnamese people as well as the political thought of Confucianism and Legalism, the thought of Le Thanh Tong was formed and developed. In the rich and unique political ideology of Le Thanh Tong, the outstanding and meaningful issue is the idea of combining moral governance and legal governance, which he expressed in great works such as: National Dynasty Penal Code, Chau Co Thang Thuong Thi Tap, Chinh Tay Ky Hanh, Van Minh Co Suy,...

Bifurcated Bolivia: Indigenous Governance and Land Struggles in the Eastern Lowlands

This paper analyzes Indigenous politics in Bolivia, the 2019 coup against President Evo Morales, and the return of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) with the inauguration of Luis Arce in 2020. Drawing on interviews with Indigenous community members in the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon, this piece theoretically situates Indigenous autonomy struggles within world systems theory and insights from Max Weber’s ‘iron cage’ of institutional isomorphism to argue that political tensions in Bolivian Indigenous communities can be understood within a context of (1) increasingly strained relations between the MAS and civil society organizations; (2) Indigenous-NGO coalition efforts to protect Tierras Comunitarias de Orígen (Native Community Lands) and; (3) the development of competing parallel leadership organizations within Native communities that threaten democratic processes and cohesive responses to extractivism.

Challenging Institutional Path Dependence Through Field Configuring Events: Exploring the Collective Institutional Entrepreneurship of the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative

ABSTRACTResearch Question/IssueHow can a global social movement, mobilized through a multi‐stakeholder initiative, promote the uptake of novel governance practices in distinct national institutional environments?Research Findings/InsightsUsing data from all 114 of the world's stock exchanges, covering over 99% of global stock market capitalization as of 2018, I find that exchanges in common‐law countries were more likely to become early partners of the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative (SSEI) after its launch in 2012. However, exchanges based in civil‐law countries experienced a higher likelihood (i.e., risk) of adoption, as measured by the hazard ratio, particularly during a series of sustained field‐configuring events (FCEs) promoted by the SSEI. Over time, this increased hazard ratio indicated a rising likelihood of adoption for civil‐law‐based exchanges, eventually surpassing that of their common‐law counterparts.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsWhile institutional environments' path dependency can facilitate or hinder the adoption of governance practices, collective institutional entrepreneurship (CIE) can moderate this path dependency and reveal new information regarding the structural fit between promoted governance practices and their institutional environments.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsThe insights provided by this study can help practitioners understand why some practices face resistance in specific institutional environments, while others are more readily accepted. These insights also help practitioners communicate the elements of governance practices that implicitly align with the institutional environments in which they are seeking adoption.

‘Argumentative Disobedience’ as a Strategy to Confront Hate Speech

AbstractIn this paper, I examine argumentative strategies that social movements can follow to counter hate speech. I begin by reconstructing the disagreement space of the abortion debate in Argentina as a polylogue, identifying the protests of the social movement Pañuelos verdes as argumentative contributions. I then describe two different forms of hate speech used in response to the movement’s protests. I argue that hate speech discredits the position of Pañuelos verdes in the abortion debate and depicts their protests as social threats. Subsequently, I discuss three argumentative strategies that social movements can implement to address hate speech: arguing with hate speakers; advocating for a dialogue with restrictions; and opting for argumentative disobedience. Arguing with hate speakers aims to make hate speakers retract hate speech by exposing the undesirability of using hateful messages in argumentative exchanges. Advocating for a dialogue with restrictions aims to impose limited bans on public speech in order to ensure equal participation of arguers in argumentation. Finally, I propose the notion of argumentative disobedience to describe communicative responses to hate speech that aim to bring bystanders in line with the position of social movements in public debates.

“I can’t tell you what freedom is ’cause I’ve never seen it”: Addressing the Omission of Liberation Narratives in Sociology

ABSTRACT While liberation, or the process of freeing marginalized individuals and groups from societal oppression and domination, is referenced across many sub-disciplines of sociology, it surprisingly remains under-conceptualized in sociological literature. To address this omission, the present study responds to the following query: how, if at all, do Black individuals conceive of a Black liberated future? I draw on data from 65 in-depth interviews with Black Millennials during Black Lives Matter to capture their imaginings of a Black liberated future. Findings reveal that participants construct four types of liberation narratives when detailing their perceptions of Black freedom: 1) Liberation via Reformation, 2) Liberation via Reconstruction, 3) Liberation via Afrocentrism, and 4) Liberation as Inconceivable. I ultimately argue that liberation narratives function as resistant knowledge projects and, as such, are significant socio-political artifacts and resources for future generations of change agents, community organizers, and social movements actors. Altogether, this study demonstrates how rectifying the omission of liberation narratives magnifies our sociological knowledge about marginalized groups and deepens our analytic capacity to make sense of their ontological approaches toward politics of liberation and imaginings of their collective futures.

Enlivening Prayers: Aesthetic and Function in the Supplicatory Odes of Shaykh Abū Bakr Atiƙu (Kano, Nigeria, d. 1974)

ABSTRACT This article analyzes Sufi supplications in the poetic works of Shaykh Abū Bakr ʿAtīq b. Khiḍr b. Abī Bakr b. Mūsā al-Kashināwī (1909–1974), known in Hausa as Shehi Abubakar Atiƙu Sanka. It examines the literary and aesthetic aspects of Atiƙu’s supplicatory odes, as well as their social and political functions. Atiƙu, a significant Tijani scholar in Kano, Nigeria, was a prominent voice in the Fayḍa Tijāniyya movement, which greatly enhanced Islamic scholarship and literacy across West Africa. The Fayḍa literature includes various genres, particularly classical Arabic odes (usually monorhyme), with the Sufi supplicatory ode (qaṣīdat al-tawassul) being a notable sub-genre. Despite their devotional nature, these odes are often overlooked by Western scholars for their literary and historical value. This article shows that Atiƙu’s odes possess a unique aesthetic grounded in reiteration and intertextuality, which contributes to their coherence and unity. Moreover, these supplicatory odes play crucial social roles and serve as valuable sources of social history. The study relies on Atiƙu’s original manuscripts, which contain paratextual elements and annotations about political and religious contexts, providing a basis for a socio-literary analysis of this Islamic poetry sub-genre in Africa.

SISGAN: A Generative Adversarial Network Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction Model Combining Interaction Information and Scene Information

Accurate pedestrian trajectory prediction is crucial in many fields. This requires the full use and learning of pedestrians’ social interactions, movements, and environmental information. In view of the current research on pedestrian trajectory prediction, wherein most of the pedestrian interaction information is explored from the level of overall interaction, this paper proposes the SISGAN model, which designs a social interaction module from the perspective of the target pedestrian, and takes four kinds of interaction information as the influencing factors of pedestrian interaction, so as to describe the influence mechanism of pedestrian–pedestrian interaction. In addition, in terms of environmental information, the index density of pedestrian historical trajectory in space is taken into account in the extraction of environmental information, which increases the potential correlation between environmental information and pedestrians. Finally, we integrate social interaction information and environmental information and make the final trajectory prediction based on GAN. Experiments on ETH and UCY datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the SISGAN model proposed in this paper.

The impacts of COVID-19 on youth activisms in Spain (2020–2022)

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic can be considered a ‘period of emergency critical juncture’ that affected social movements and collective action. Based on this premise, this article analyses its impact on youth activisms in Spain, investigating its structural or circumstantial nature. The research used in-depth interviews and focused on three types of youth activisms - feminisms, environmentalisms, and socio-community - chosen for either their mobilising force prior to the pandemic or their relevance during it. In order to assess the temporary or permanent effects of the pandemic on these activisms, three dimensions were studied: organisational forms, mobilisation issues and repertoires of action. The results allow us to identify short-term impacts, such as the interruption of the rhythm of activism, the prominence of the virtual world, and the creation of pragmatic alliances of local collective action, while at the same time allowing us to glimpse those that may have a more structural character such as the inclusion of mental health as an issue and the normalisation of repression and criminalisation of activism in securitarian contexts.