Culture Within Sites,Culture as Resources,and Culture as Wider Contexts: A Typology of How Culture Works in Social Movement Theory

Sociologists of social movements agree that culture matters for studying collective action, and have proposed a variety of theoretical concepts to understand culture and mobilization, including framing, free spaces, and collective identity. Despite this, what we mean when we say “culture matters” remains unclear. In this paper, I draw on 30 years of social movement theory and research to construct a typology of three ways that culture is seen as shaping social movement activity: (i) culture renders particular sites fruitful for social movements to mobilize out of; (ii) culture serves as a resource that assists in movement action; and (iii) culture provides wider contexts that shape movement activity. This typology represents the analytic building blocks of theories about culture and social movements, and is presented towards the end of clarifying and sharpening our theoretical concepts. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research that draw on, refine, and extend these three building blocks.