Everyday politics,social practices and movement networks: daily life in Barcelona's social centres

The relations between everyday life and political participation are of interest for much contemporary social science. Yet studies of social movement protest still pay disproportionate attention to moments of mobilization, and to movements with clear organizational boundaries, tactics and goals. Exceptions have explored collective identity, ‘free spaces’ and prefigurative politics, but such processes are framed as important only in accounting for movements in abeyance, or in explaining movement persistence. This article focuses on the social practices taking place in and around social movement spaces, showing that political meanings, knowledge and alternative forms of social organization are continually being developed and cultivated. Social centres in Barcelona, Spain, autonomous political spaces hosting cultural and educational events, protest campaigns and alternative living arrangements, are used as empirical case studies. Daily practices of food provisioning, distributing space and dividing labour are politicized and politicizing as they unfold and develop over time and through diverse networks around social centres. Following Melucci, such latent processes set the conditions for social movements and mobilization to occur. However, they not only underpin mobilization, but are themselves politically expressive and prefigurative, with multiple layers of latency and visibility identifiable in performances of practices. The variety of political forms – adversarial, expressive, theoretical, and routinized everyday practices, allow diverse identities, materialities and meanings to overlap in movement spaces, and help explain networks of mutual support between loosely knit networks of activists and non‐activists. An approach which focuses on practices and networks rather than mobilization and collective actors, it is argued, helps show how everyday life and political protest are mutually constitutive.     

The Micro‐politics of Gendering in Networking

Networking processes contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequalities in everyday practices in organizations. This article examines the implications of the conceptualization of gender as practice for social network theory. The three central elements of this critical feminist approach to networking are the study of agency, identity construction and the micro‐political processes of networking and gendering. To illustrate that networking practices are gendering practices, that there are various manifestations of those practices, and the way in which networking and gendering are intertwined, the networking practices of four white, Dutch female and male account managers are discussed. This micro‐political analysis suggests that networking does not necessarily reinforce gender inequality, which opens up the possibility of examining which combinations of networking and gendering contribute to changing the gender order.     

Commodities,merchants, and refugees: inter‐Asian circulations and Afghan mobility

This article consists of an analysis of ethnographic material on Afghan trading networks involved in both the export of commodities from China to a variety of settings across Eurasia and the movement of ‘refugees’ from Afghanistan to Europe. Much recent work on trading networks has deployed the concept of trust to understand the functioning of such social formations. By contrast, in this article I assess the durability of Afghan networks in three ways. First, recognition of how they are polycentric and multi‐nodal. Second, how they are successful in transforming their collective aims and projects in changing shifting political and economic circumstances. Third, how they are made up of individuals able to switch their statuses and activities within trading networks over time. Furthermore, I argue that a focus on the precise ways in which traders entrust capital, people and commodities to one another, reveals the extent to which social and commercial relationships inside trading networks are frequently impermanent and pregnant with concerns about mistrust and contingency. Recognition of this suggests that scholars should focus on practices of entrustment rather than abstract notions of trust in their analyses of trading networks per se, as well as seek to understand the ways in which these practices enable actors to handle and address questions of contingency.     

‘There is Nothing Here for Us..!’ How Girls Create Meaningful Places of Their Own Through Movement

This article focuses on how girls create places of meaning and opportunity through collective movement. It is based on an ethnographic study of the everyday experiences and mobility of 10–13 year old girls living in a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark. 1 The girls ventured for a sense of freedom and a ‘place of their own’ to pursue their interests and social relationships. For some girls the creation of places where they felt ‘at home’ would entail breaking rules and transgressing spatial boundaries set by adults.     

Cop Rock: Protest,Identity, and Dancing Riot Police in Jordan

Social movement scholars have long studied actors' mobilization into and continued involvement in social movement organizations. A more recent trend in social movement literature concerns cultural activism that takes place primarily outside of social movement organizations. Here I use the vegan movement to explore modes of participation in such diffuse cultural movements. As with many cultural movements, there are more practicing vegans than there are members of vegan movement organizations. Using data from ethnographic interviews with vegans, this article focuses on vegans who are unaffiliated with a vegan movement organization. The sample contains two distinctive groups of vegans – those in the punk subculture and those who were not – and investigates how they defined and practiced veganism differently. Taking a relational approach to the data, I analyze the social networks of these punk and non-punk vegans. Focusing on discourse, support, and network embeddedness, I argue that maintaining participation in the vegan movement depends more upon having supportive social networks than having willpower, motivation, or a collective vegan identity. This study demonstrates how culture and social networks function to provide support for cultural movement participation.     

The discursive construction of gay teenagers in times of mediatization: youth's reflections on intimate storytelling,queer shame and realness in popular social media places

New media applications such as social networking sites are understood as important evolutions for queer youth. These media and communication technologies allow teenagers to transgress their everyday life places and connect with other queer teens. Moreover, social media websites could also be used for real political activism such as publicly sharing coming out videos on YouTube. Despite these increased opportunities for self-reflexive storytelling on digital media platforms, their everyday use and popularity also bring particular complexities in the everyday lives of young people. Talking to 51 youngsters between 13 and 19 years old in focus groups, this paper inquires how young audiences discursively constructed meanings on intimate storytelling practices such as interpreting intimate stories, reflecting on their own and other peers' intimate storytelling practices. Specifically focusing on how they relate to intimate storytelling practices of gay peers, this paper identified particular challenges for queer youth who transgress the heteronormative when being active on popular social media. The increasing mediatization of intimate youth cultures brings challenges for queer teenagers, which relate to authenticity, (self-) surveillance and fear of imagined audiences.     

The Processes of Social Construction in Talk

Sociologists have paid a great deal of attention to the idea that many aspects of human life are socially constructed. However, there has been far less attention to the concrete interactional processes by which this construction occurs. In particular, scholars have neglected how consensual meaning is constructed in verbal interaction. This article outlines nine generic construction tools used in everyday talk, based on a review and synthesis of past work. These tools fall into three general categories: building blocks, linking devices, and finishing devices. The authors argue that scholars must pay greater attention to the interactional nature of social construction, and discuss three interactional processes that are central to the social construction of meaning in talk: challenge, support, and non‐response. The article presents concrete illustrations of these processes using examples from focus group discussions about gender and violence. These micro‐interactional processes often reproduce, sometimes modify, and (more rarely) resist larger institutions and structures, and thus are indispensable to understanding social life.     

The time and space of everyday life

This article argues that everyday life is related to all social relations and activities, including both the ‘official’ practices that are codified and normalized and the ‘unofficial’ practices and articulations of experience. Indeed, everyday day life is seen as the single plane of immanence in which these two forms of practice and articulation interrelate and affect one another. The lived experience of everyday life is multidimensional, composed of various social fields of practice that are articulated, codified and normalized to different degrees and in different ways (either officially or unofficially). Moving through these fields in daily life, we are aware of passing through different zones of time and space. There are aspects of everyday relations and practices more open to government, institutionalization, and official codification, while others are more resistant and provide the basis for opposition and social movements. Everyday life is a mixture of diverse and differentially produced and articulated forms, each combining time and space in a unique way. What we refer to as ‘institutions’ associated with the state or the economy are attempts to fix social practice in time and space – to contain it in specific geographical sites and codify it in official discourses. The relations and practices more often associated with everyday life – such as friendship, love, comradeship and relations of communication – are more fluid, open and dispersed across time and space. However, the two should not be uncoupled in social analysis, as they are necessarily interrelated in processes of social and political change. This is especially so in contemporary capitalism or, as Lefebvre called it, the ‘bureaucratic society of controlled consumption’.     

Managing Risk: Self-Regulation Among Homeless Youth

While homeless youth are characterized by their risky behaviours we know little about how they conceptualize and manage risk in their everyday lives. This article will flesh out one aspect of a doctoral study that explored homeless youth’s conceptualizations of risk, by unearthing their self-regulation practices. Deploying an ethnographic lens, 18 youth were followed over a 1–4 year period to capture their risk perception and practices as they unfolded. The findings question the relevancy of the prominence of expert discourses in theories of risk. The study’s empirical findings run counter to the thesis that expert systems predominate in practices of self-regulation. In contrast, practices of self-regulation were not so much in response to expert discourses or social norms but were balanced by personal experience, intuition, and situated knowledges. Results provide valuable insights into the interplay of lay and expert knowledges in the construction of risk among an identified risky and at-risk group. Lessons can also be drawn for clinical practice and the relevancy of the expert role that social workers play in the lives of homeless youth.     

From the Nativist's Point of View

Based on my participant observation of the border militia group known as the Minutemen, this article examines what motivates people to participate in social movements. Building on social movements' scholarship, I argue that participation cannot be reduced to the expression of the beliefs which group members hold. However, while previous scholarship has turned toward organizational dynamics and networks to move beyond the ideological foundations of political behavior, I turn to everyday practices. By focusing on practices, ethnography allows us to expand our understanding of movement participation by showing not just the “before” of a movement (understood as a set of ideas or interests people hold) or the “outcomes” of a movement (understood as securing of material interests) but the “during” of a movement. And, as I show through the Minutemen, the “during” of the movement can sometimes be what inspires and sustains participation, and indeed, be the very crux of what the movement is about.     

A message-focused measurement of the communication dimension of social capital: Revealing shared meaning in a network of relationships

This study integrates two theoretically driven methods—network analysis and fantasy theme analysis—to present a message-focused operationalization for the communication dimension of social capital. The results find empirical support for scholars’ theorizing that public relations-facilitated messages cultivate shared meaning and foster social capital. The relationship between shared meaning and social capital was especially evident in network subgroups (cliques). This article contributes to social capital theory building by focusing on the meaning making process that strengthens social capital in networks. Public relations practitioners’ communicative roles in social capital cultivation are made evident with a message-focused measurement.     

CONSTRUCTING RAPE: FEMINISM,CHANGE, AND WOMEN'S EVERYDAY UNDERSTANDINGS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

The cultural and legal meaning of rape has changed dramatically over the past 30 years as the feminist movement has challenged traditional constructions of sexual violence and offered an alternative construction of the meaning of rape. The transformation of rape into a social problem has brought increased attention to the subject in both popular and academic realms. Despite the growing body of research and theory on sexual violence, little inquiry exists into women s everyday constructions of rape and the degree to which such constructions have been influenced by the feminist movement. This article uses a constructionist framework to examine the everyday understandings of rape held by a diverse sample of women. Data gathered through an open-ended survey instrument were analyzed to reveal both interesting similarities and significant differences in the ways women of different ages, races, and personal histories define and interpret the phenomenon of rape. By examining these data, the extent to which the feminist reconstruction of rape has influenced women s everyday assumptions is examined, and the role of differences among women in perceptions of rape is explored. The findings presented in this article have implications for theories of social problems, for feminist discourse, and for the application of research on rape in applied settings.     

Collective Memory Anchors: Collective Identity and Continuity in Social Movements

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data from two social movement organizations, this article highlights the way that remembrances of the past are inserted into present interactions to help maintain a sense of movement continuity. Seeing collective identity and collective memory as intertwined dynamic processes, the article argues that the continuity of a social movement is maintained, in part, when movement members insert narrative commemorations that constrain current collective identity development. The process examined is that of “collective memory anchoring,” in which participants instrumentally and/or contextually bring forward the past during interactions in such a way that the formulation of elements in a movement's collective identity appears to mirror past formulations. The common constraints of preexisting networks, participants' shared cultural backgrounds, and a movement's collective action frames are explored.     

Inclusion in Indignity: Seeing the State and Becoming Citizens in Chile’s Social Housing

Qualitative Sociology - Building on recent ethnographic research on social provision in the global South, this article examines the everyday construction of a welfare state that links distributive...     

The integrative power of online collective action networks beyond protest. Exploring social media use in the process of institutionalization

Abstract

In this article, we aim at expanding the event-based and protest-centered perspective that is typically adopted to study the nexus between social media and movements. To this aim, we propose a network-based approach to explore the changing role that these tools play during the dynamic unfolding of movement processes and, more particularly, over the course of their institutionalization. In the first part, we read the added value of social media as a function of the ‘integrative power’ of the networks they foster – a unique and evolving form of sociotechnical power that springs from the virtuous encounter between social media networking potential and social resources. In the second part, we investigate this form of power by focusing directly on online networks’ structure as well as on the type of communication and participation environments they host. We apply our proposed approach to the longitudinal exploration of the Twitter networks deployed in the period 2012–2014 during three annual editions of the transnational feminist campaign ‘Take Back The Tech!’ (TBTT). Results from our case study suggest that, over time, TBTT supporters do in fact make a differentiated use of social media affordances – progressively switching their communicative strategies to better sustain the campaign’s efforts inside and outside institutional venues. Thus, the exploration of the TBTT case provides evidence of the usefulness of the proposed approach to reflect on the different modes in which social media can be exploited in different mobilization stages and political terrains.     

French connections: the networking strategies of French highly skilled migrants in London

Although the migration studies literature often takes social networks for granted, these social ties are not spontaneous but require effort and nurturing. There has been insufficient research on the actual process of networking, especially among highly skilled migrants. Our understanding of why and how migrants form networks with particular characteristics is still poor. In this article, we argue that it is necessary to consider both the structure and content of networks – the nature of the relationships as well as the flow of resources within various social ties. Drawing on qualitative data from a study of highly skilled French migrants in London's business and financial sector, we use a microanalysis of network‐making processes. In the context of London as a dynamic and highly competitive financial centre, we examine the importance of opportunities, skills and shared interests in building new social relationships from scratch. In addition, we also assess how mobility and proximity, virtual communication and co‐presence impact on geographically dispersed networks and why some long distance relationships endure while others fade over time. By bringing together classic literature on professional networking and wider discussions on how relationships are managed across time and space, our work contributes to a fuller understanding of why and how highly skilled migrants form networks with particular characteristics.     

Neighborhoods in the Network Society the e-Neighbors study

This study examines whether the Internet is increasingly a part of everyday neighborhood interactions, and in what specific contexts Internet use affords the formation of local social ties. Studies of Internet and community have found that information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for social interaction, but that they may also increase privatism by isolating people in their homes. This paper argues that while the Internet may encourage communication across great distances, it may also facilitate interactions near the home. Unlike traditional community networking studies, which focus on bridging the digital divide, this study focuses on bridging the divide between the electronic and parochial realms. Detailed, longitudinal social network surveys were completed with the residents of four contrasting neighborhoods over a period of three years. Three of the four neighborhoods were provided with a neighborhood email discussion list and a neighborhood website. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to model over time the number of strong and weak ties, emailed, met in-person, and talked to on the telephone. The neighborhood email lists were also analyzed for content. The results suggest that with experience using the Internet, the size of local social networks and email communication with local networks increases. The addition of a neighborhood email list further increases the number of weak neighborhood ties, but does not increase communication multiplexity. However, neighborhood effects reduce the influence of everyday Internet use, as well as the experimental intervention, in communities that lack the context to support local tie formation.     

Automatic transmission: ethnicity,racialization and the car

This article is based on ethnographic research carried out in Bradford, an ethnically diverse city situated in the north of England. The sample of over 60 participants mostly comprises males of British Pakistani Muslim heritage but varies in terms other markers of identity such as social class, profession and residential/working locale. The article analyses the cultural value and meaning of cars within a multicultural context and how a consumer object can feed into the processes which refine and embed racialized identities. Small case studies reveal the concrete and discursive ways through which ideas around identity and ethnicity are transmitted and how, in particular, racialization continues to feature as a live, active and recognizable process in everyday experience.     

Group formation,styles, and grammars of commonality in local activism

This article argues that in order to analyse democracy as a pattern constantly processed in a given society, it is useful to look at activist groups’ agenda setting and recruitment principles, group bonds and boundaries, and how these actions direct and influence ways of creating the common. Based on an ethnographic study on bicycle activism in Helsinki, Finland, it describes a local critical mass movement that was successful in promoting a bicycle friendly and sustainable city, yet dissolved due to lack of people involved, and the bicycle demonstrations stopped at a moment of high public interest. This empirical puzzle is addressed by combining three theoretical perspectives: Kathleen Blee’s work on path dependencies in nascent activist groups; Nina Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman’s work on group styles, and Laurent Thévenot’s work on the grammars of commonality. These theoretical tools help understand the sense of what is deemed possible, desirable and feasible in activist groups, and the consequences thereof to social movement ‘success’ and ‘failure’. The article claims that everyday practices and interaction are crucial in understanding the ‘democratic effects’ of social movements. It concludes that following specific processes of politicization and their conditionings in activist groups provides keys to understanding contextual differences in democracies without resorting to methodological nationalism or to exaggerated global isomorphism, and thus may contribute to figuring out how to succeed global action plans over wicked, pressing problems like global warming.