‘Trans’ cending Barriers

SUMMARY

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 national transgender activists as well as analyses of movement publications and events, this article examines the use of the Internet in the development and growth of the transgender movement. The Internet, which functions both as a tool for activists and as a space within which activism can happen, reduces challenges and obstacles to mobilization and maximizes available tools and strategies for organizing. While the Internet is not a panacea, it clearly facilitates organizing, allows organizations and activists to be more productive and effective, and provides new tactics and arenas for activism.     

The Role of Public Relations With Internal Activists

Abstract

Within the context of benefits/outsourcing reviews at a small, Eastern U.S. college, this qualitiative case study examined potential internal activism, employee/organizational leadership communication strategies, and ensuing changes in internal public relations practices/structure. Findings revealed that employees implemented activist strategies in response to perceived communication gaps, prompting organizational leadership to increase solictiation of employee input and commit to ongoing, two-way symmetrical communication; structural changes in internal public relations practices and reporting relationships also resulted. Extending previous activism research findings to internal publics as activists, in this study I suggest that the prodrome of potential employee activism should inform future public relations practice.     

Between rebellion and uprising intersecting networks and discursive strategies in rebel controlled Syria

ABSTRACT

In the article I explore how, at the individual level, participation in multiple networks opens up questions regarding the classification of social activism. The central contention is that as mobilization networks increasingly intersect, explicit discursive designations of activism (being ‘political’ or ‘nonpolitical, social’) by individual activists becomes more prevalent. I substantiate this argument with an in-depth exploration of the Syrian uprising. I show that as two distinct networks─one that emerged around nonviolent activism, another that emerged around a violent uprising─increasingly intersected, activists began to use specific discursive strategies. On the one side, a strategy emerged that emphasized the nonpolitical nature of mobilization, distancing activism discursively from intersecting networks. On the other side, a strategy emerged of politicizing collective identities, thereby bridging discursively various mobilization networks. The article thereby adds to existing studies on the intersection between network structure and individual activism. The analysis builds on more than a hundred primary sources from various rebel groups and relevant local actors in addition to thirty interviews with relevant players among activist, rebel and public services organizations.     

“Nobody’s paying me to cry”: the causes of activist burnout in United States animal rights activists

ABSTRACT

We examine the causes of activist burnout – a condition in which the accumulative stress associated with activism becomes so debilitating that once-committed activists are forced to scale back on or disengage from their activism – in 17 United States animal rights activists. Following a phenomenological qualitative approach, analysis of interview data revealed three primary categories of burnout causes: 1) intrinsic motivational and psychological factors, 2) organizational and movement culture, and 3) within-movement in-fighting and marginalization. Implications for understandings of activist burnout and the AR movement are discussed.     

Other Decembrists: The Chizhov Case and Lutskii Affair as Signifiers of the Decembrists in Siberia

Abstract

Two, lesser known Decembrists were exiled to Siberia as a result of their involvement in the uprising of 1825. The first, Nikolai Chizhov, was one of a handful of Decembrists sentenced by Emperor Nicholas I's Supreme Criminal Court to exile to settlement (ssylka na poselenie). The second, Aleksandr Lutskii, was like most Decembrists sentenced to penal labour (katorga); however, unlike such well known Decembrists as Trubetskoi and Rozen he was tried by a military court rather than the Supreme Criminal Court and consequently faced much harsher conditions. Historian Aleksandr Margolis has classified Lutskii as one of the 'soldier-Decembrists,' in contradistinction to those 'aristocrat-Decembrists' assigned to Chita and later transferred to Petrovskii Zavod. English-language works on the Decembrists routinely avoid discussion of the 'soldier-Decembrists' or those who were, like Chizhov, exiled to settlement; and among Russian sources Margolis's research is exceptional. Using archival and secondary sources this article expands upon Margolis's work to analyse these individuals' experiences in Siberia. Although both men were atypical of the majority of Decembrists exiled to Siberia, analysis of their experiences highlights the importance of class within the punitive structures of Nicolaevan Russia and elucidates certain administrative procedures which characterized the bureaucratic apparatus.     

The last laugh: humour in community activism

This paper uses Australian case studies to demonstrate the useof humour in social justice and eco-pax ¹ movements. Drawingfrom the literature and from personal experience in activiststreet-theatre over more than twenty years, the author discussesthe rationale and motivations behind humorous activism, andnotes audience reactions and impacts on participants. Usingnon-violence theory within the multidisciplinary paradigm ofPeace Studies, he describes how activists use humour to enlivenpopular education, and to create liminal atmospheres conduciveto non-violent conversion. Humorous activism creates commonground and complements other modes of activism. It is inclusive,drawing in audiences and adherents and attracting media attention.It simplifies and enhances communication, and allows activiststo release emotions such as rage and frustration, while at thesame time providing positive, enjoyable experiences for audiences.It can empower and inspire audiences, and bring a healthy balanceand diversity to activism.     

Beyond organizational ties: foundations of persistent commitment in environmental activism

ABSTRACT

Movement scholars commonly treat persistent commitment as an aspect of activism that is set in motion when recruits join a group or organization. To investigate the phenomenon of sustained activist commitment that exists separately from or in addition to organizational membership, I examine activist commitment to environmental causes. I base this analysis on thirty open-ended interviews, averaging eighty minutes, with activists whose persistent commitments to environmental causes range from ten to fifty years. I (a) identify patterns that long-term environmental activists express in their personal biographies and activist trajectories, (b) generate insights about commitment mechanisms that exist independently of organizational membership, (c) discuss how existing conceptions of activist commitment might be extended. I recommend that scholars look beyond organizational ties to pinpoint specific mechanisms that produce and sustain activist commitment to causes. I find that committed environmental activists link their activism to strong connections with nature, biographical influences, individual tactics, and personal missions rather than to organizations.     

Institutional Activism: Seeking Customary Forest Rights Recognition from Within the Indonesian State

This article aims to explain why the adat movement activists in Indonesia could expand their campaigns for state recognition of adat community rights to activities from within the state apparatus. We argue that three combined processes have contributed to the conjuncture that made institutional activism possible: the preparation of the 2014 national election offered activists opportunities to influence the government agenda; the emergence of a conscious strategy for conducting institutional activism; and the coalitions between some key state officials and the movement’s actors. This article also analyses the problems that institutional activists faced, in particular resistance from influential actors at various government units who were not sympathetic to the adat movement’s agenda. Therefore, the impact of this activism on policy changes so far remains limited. The authors’ personal involvement in this case of institutional activism to promote customary forest provided access to the information for this article.     

Habitus and social movements: how militarism affects organizational repertoires

2010–2012 were years of global protests. This wave of mobilization has been celebrated for its horizontal, leaderless, and participatory character. But this was not the case in all countries. In Israel, which saw the largest social contention in its history, the protest was marked by a dominant and centralized leadership and by cooperation with institutional actors and corporate media. Based on the study of the Israeli case, this research seeks to contribute to explanations of how movements’ organizational forms develop. Social movement scholars have shown that activists’ forms of organization are limited to a familiar repertoire of action. Building on previous scholarship, I argue that activists’ organizational repertoires are shaped by a habitus that familiarizes and routinizes certain practices. But while existing scholarship focuses on how organizational habitus develops within the field of activism, I expand the applicability of habitus and show how movement repertoires are also influenced by habit in fields unrelated and even antagonistic to activism. Based on participant observations and interviews, I show how in the Israeli case, militarism formed part of activists’ organizational habitus and contributed to the 2011 protests’ centralized and hierarchical character.     

Creative cultural production and ethnocultural revitalization among minority groups in Russia

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss how globally circulated forms of creative cultural production and digital technologies are appropriated by minority ethnocultural activists in Russia, and how these processes result in new forms of expression of ethnic culture and reinterpretation of minority cultural heritage. I focus on creative cultural and digital initiatives that have emerged within the last 5–7 years in an autonomous region of the Russian Federation: the Republic of Tatarstan. These initiatives were launched by young grass-roots activists and entrepreneurs who are Tatars – an ethnic group that predominantly resides in the Republic of Tatarstan. As a republic with a certain degree of autonomy under the Russian federal legislation, Tatarstan has been the centre of the Tatar classic cultural production (theatre, music, arts, and literature), as well as of the Tatar language education. Under the policies of centralization and cultural unification Russia has pursued under the presidency of Vladimir Putin (2000 onwards), most of the political autonomy arrangements that Tatarstan achieved in the 1990s have been dismantled. The new restrictive ideological climate in Russia has repercussions for activism around ethnocultural questions, such as preservation of minority language and identity. At the same time, dissemination of transnational forms of cultural production and the advancement of digital technologies in Russia contribute to innovative cultural developments in the regions. Adapting these global formats and genres to the local cultural activities, the young members of the Tatar community develop new forms of ethnocultural activism. They produce alternative ways of representing and articulating ethnic identity, which depart sharply from the Soviet-born templates of representing ethnic culture. The urban activities these groups pursue allow for the de-politicization of ethnocultural activism in the conditions of an increasingly restrictive ideological and political climate in which minority activism is often equated with separatism.     

Youth-Adult Partnership in Community Organizing

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a campaign developed around sexuality education policy by a national youth-focused organization, Advocates for Youth, and its network of youth activists. The paper provides an overview of the national sexuality education debate and the specific strategies youth and adults use in partnership to advocate for a comprehensive approach to the education. The case study of the My Voice Counts!Campaign provides insight into the creation and evolution of a youth-adult partnership approach to community organizing, beginning with an online activism campaign and resulting in local youth-led projects to improve sex education policies and curricula. Following an analysis of the Campaign's accomplishments, the paper lays out recommendations for action and research to demonstrate the positive effects of this form of community practice.     

The prospectus of activism: discerning and delimiting imagined possibility

This article aims to articulate a new agenda in the scholarship of social movements. Specifically, it seeks to turn attention to the assumptions that undergird activism. Rather than studying movements themselves, we can study them as the embodiment of collective expectation in a particular public. We can learn more about the broader society in which movements are embedded by asking how activists and the public they seek to engage determine what is within the realm of possibility. I refer to the imagined horizon of possibility as the activist prospectus. To illustrate the importance of prospectus, I draw upon a case study of environmental activism in Samara, Russia. Ethnographic observation and analysis yield insights into subjective perceptions that help explain the weakness of civil society within Russia.     

“AM/FM Activism”

SUMMARY

As a cultural approach to LGBT activism, media advocacy, such as that modeled by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), has grown in importance in the last decade. Drawing on the tactics used to educate the media about national anti-gay defamation issues, GLAAD has recently launched “AM/FM Activism,” an online resource that provides local activists with the tools necessary for responding to defamation in their own communities. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research, this article explores the implications of “AM/FM Activism” as a new form of media advocacy that bridges the gap between national and local activists.     

The Shape of Queer

ABSTRACT

The rise of queer theory and activism have posed problems of identity and of goals. Queer theory has problemaiized identity, including queer identity: who or what is queer? Queer activism, on the other hand, has been fraught with those challenging sexual boundaries and those for whom “queer” is just the new name for gays and lesbians. Many of these latter activists reject earlier politics, and are in danger of returning to interest-group liberalism as a result. This paper sketches these problems and argues that wholesale rejection of lesbian-feminism and gay liberation is a mistake. The broader vision of these movements offers the possibility of articulation with other movements for change, and this possibility must be renewed and rethought.     

Framing and counter-framing a Peace March in Russia: the use of Twitter during a hybrid war

ABSTRACT

Framing is vital to the capacity of social movements to enlist popular support and sustain contentious collective action. Using the case of a Peace March held in Moscow on 21 September 2014, the article examines how antiwar activists and their opponents framed a protest against Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The study argues that different interpretations of patriotism underpinned divergent evaluations of the conflict and the construction of opposing identities. An analysis of Twitter posts on the eve of the march shows that peace activists positioned themselves as citizens with high moral standards and a healthy dose of patriotism, criticized the Russian government for military intervention in Ukraine, and called for a peaceful conflict resolution. In turn, opponents of the march considered themselves as real patriots and their adversaries as national traitors, denied Russia’s military presence in Ukraine, and fomented an attack on critics of Russian foreign policy. The study contributes to social movement literature by analyzing the framing of antiwar activism on a social media platform in the midst of a hybrid war, marked by a great deal of ambiguity and deception about causes, dynamics, and consequences of military operations by state and non-state actors.     

Civic Engagement Among Older Adults in a Rural Community

Abstract

This is a report of the second and final stage of a research project evaluating courses for community activists in Israel. We compared 286 graduates of Schools for Community Activists, of whom 198 were still active in their communities and 98 were not, with 138 activists and 131 non-active residents of the same neighbourhoods who had never participated in courses for activists. We noted no significant socio-economic or demographic differences between the graduates and the non-graduates. However, on a range of variables, we found consistent and generally significant differences between the graduate and non-graduate activists: the former reported higher levels of activism, knowledge and skills, higher community involvement and deeper community roots, and assessed more highly the prestige of community involvement. Few differences were noted on their assessment of the benefits and losses of community activity. Since the graduates and non-graduates come from similar backgrounds, we conclude that the courses made a significant contribution to the development and socialization of those activists who participated in them.     

‘Skeptics’ and ‘believers’: anti-trafficking,sex work,and migrant rights activism in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Very little is known about activism, as it relates to the issue of migration in South Africa. Yet, migration policy and migration governance are increasingly becoming important to states like South Africa, which, 22 years into democracy, finds itself being home to the second highest number of migrants in Africa. This paper fills this gap by exploring multi-level policies and advocacy experiences of activists working on migration in a post-colonial context of South Africa through the lens of key contestations around the trafficking discourse in South Africa from 2005 to 2018.     

‘I am not your nutter’: a personal reflection on commodification and comradeship in service user and survivor research

Abstract

This article offers some personal reflections from a mental health service user/survivor researcher working in English academia. It is a critical examination of what mainstream clinical mental health researchers and funders appear to need us to be, and what some in the service user and survivor movement perceive us to be. The discussion examines questions about commodification and public and patient involvement and contemporary challenges for service user and survivor research as a separate discipline operating within and beyond academia in England. The article concludes by exploring potential strategies for collaborative activism for service user and survivor researchers in academia based on the concepts of social capital and situated solidarity.     

‘Each one teach one’ visualising black intellectual life in Handsworth beyond the epistemology of ‘white sociology’

ABSTRACT

Handsworth, a suburb in north-west Birmingham, became an important generative epistemic location that produced a number of contested discourses on race and racism in Britain during the 1970s and early 1980s. Using archival sources, this article will focus on Handsworth as an important epistemic space where white sociological studies on ‘race relations’ converged and diverged with the counter-hegemonic political activism of the African Caribbean Self-Help Organisation (ACSHO). This group of young Black working class Pan-Africanists in Handsworth were the coordinating committee for a national delegation of activists who attended the Sixth Pan African Congress in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1974. Their activism in Handsworth was further captured by the photographer, Vanley Burke. The photography of Burke and his archive not only engages with the politics of creating alternative sites of knowledge production, they also enable us to map, trace and reconstruct some of these important sites of Black intellectual life in Britain.     

The American Civil Rights Movement Reconsidered: Teaching the Role of Women

Abstract

This article examines coverage in social studies curriculum and U.S. history textbooks, specifically, of women in the American Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and considers how social studies teachers can broaden the narrative they teach to include more gender-related issues and the work of women activists. The author found that despite a rich body of scholarship focused on women in the CRM, textbooks, which still serve as the central curriculum documents in most secondary social studies classrooms, provide a relatively cursory treatment of women’s roles in the movement. The context of women’s activism and the intersections of race and gender, particularly around sexual violence and sexism within the movement, are rarely examined. To address this problem, the author provides examples of critical issues confronted by African American women in the era of the CRM as well as examples of activists that teachers could incorporate into their CRM units. In addition, the author argues that an inclusive study of the American CRM provides an excellent opportunity for students to develop an understanding of the many ways in which women and girls—often in the face of great personal danger—acted with courage and skill in the fight for racial justice.