Youth and social movements on the move: political engagement among young Spanish migrants in London

Since the beginning of the economic crisis in Spain young people have migrated abroad looking for job opportunities. In the meantime, after the 15-M movement in 2011, Spanish society created various social movements hoping to make change happen, as well as the pro-independence movement in Catalonia that gathered strength as a response to the Spanish economic and political crisis. This paper analyses how Spanish young people in London, as transmigrants rooted in two different countries, engage with the politics of their home country through two transnational social movements in London: ANC England and the Maroon Wave London. The article describes both local movements (comparing their goals, structure and activities), showing the reasons that young Spanish migrants get involved and their experiences within them. It also rethinks the nature and modalities of young diasporic identities and political engagement in the global age through the experiences of the young people interviewed.     

Transnationalism and Diffusion: A Study of the Food Sovereignty Movements in the UK and Canada

Abstract

This paper explores a number of questions surrounding the transnational diffusion of social movements and their ideas through case studies of the food sovereignty movements in the UK and in Canada: How do social movements in one country or world region diffuse to another country or region? How do social movement participants learn about other movements and their ideas in different countries and organize and mobilize around these same ideas while at the same time adapting them to their local context? What are the channels and mechanisms of social movement diffusion? In addressing these questions, the paper contributes to our understanding of the transnational diffusion of social movements and the ways in which social movement participants adopt, interpret, and adapt new ideas, organizational forms, and agendas and causes that originated outside their own countries. It highlights the ways in which groups and communities around the world recontextualize social movement discourses to make them relevant to their own circumstances and to connect their causes and struggles to global movements.     

Bringing the Outside In: Field Interaction and Transformation from Below in Political Struggles

This article applies field theory in order to build an understanding of aspects of social movements practice. It argues that the way social movements are positioned within their various fields of practice and the way these fields inter-relate with each other can help explain how movements arrive at their strategies and ideologies. The relationship between the fields within which social movements operate also provides a means to explain how movement participants can become agents for change.

The article discusses the case of British Jewish Israel-critical groups, an example of a movement suspended between several different fields of practice – both local and distant. The internal movement debate around boycotting Israel illustrates how movement activities are channelled by the local fields within which they contend. Their relationship with the distant Palestinian field demonstrates the importance of the influence of external fields in forming social movement ideology. This model views social movement actors – especially those within distant issue movements – as translators between various fields of practice. This provides a mechanism to explain how challengers within a field can overcome the limitations of internal field habitus and become agents for field transformation.     

The power elite and elite-driven countermovements: The associated farmers of california during the 1930s

The involvement of the power elite in social movements has been a neglected area of research. The investigation of elites has generally been limited to that of local elites, political parties, and philanthropic foundations, and their involvement in social movements is believed limited to resource support (either to further or deter the progress of an insurgent social movement) or the institutional obstruction or facilitation of the movement. I contend that under specific conditions, the power elite may become active mobilizers, leaders, and supporters of countermovements (movements to deter insurgent movements). These conditions arise during periods of heightened insurgent movement activity and when the efficacy of institutional channels to safeguard or advance the interests of the power elite is reduced. This is illustrated in the case of the Associated Farmers of California, Inc., a countermovement aimed at interfering with and obstructing the attempts of farmworkers to strike and unionize during the 1930s by enlisting citizens and citizen groups as anti-unionization shock troops. It also opposed New Deal policies and legislation. The mobilization of nonelites into the Associated Farmers originated in and was carried out by agricultural and industrial elite of California to advance their own interests. Citizens allied with the Associated Farmers either because of ideological alignment with their goals or dependence on their economic activities. The theoretical ramifications of this example will be explored.     

Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of Demobilization and Dual Pressure

Why might social movements be highly contentious at one point in time and demobilize shortly after? Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the dynamics of demobilization of popular movements in a context of patronage politics. I argue that demobilization in these contexts results from relational processes creating a “dual pressure” stemming “from below” and “from above.” In social environments where patronage is pervasive, poor people develop survival strategies relying on clientelistic arrangements. They participate in a social movement organization (SMO) to voice their rights, but also to address pressing survival needs by gaining access to resources. These expectations of constituents create a pressure “from below” on leaders of an SMO, which respond by securing resources obtained through alliances with national political actors. In turn, these alliances create a pressure “from above,” because local leaders reciprocate this national support by eschewing the organization of collective actions. Drawing on data culled from 12 months of fieldwork on an Argentine peasant movement, this article inspects the interconnections between popular movements and patronage politics to refine our understanding of demobilization processes; contribute to discussions regarding the role of culture on contentious politics; and shed light on current demobilization trends in Latin America.     

Essentially Political

The purpose of this article is to examine the gendered politics of social work in the Indian city of Mumbai, locating it in a post-colonial context. In order to do this secondary sources are examined along with empirical data collected by the authors. These are interpreted through the framework of a social constructionist methodology that draws on political sociology as well as elements of post-colonial theory and Foucauldian post-structuralism in order to acknowledge agency within a ‘location’ marked by both constraints and opportunities. The article explores the circumstances in which politicians and administrators find themselves in Mumbai. In considering gender and developing a strategy of what we term ‘political essentialism’, it is shown that those involved have been drawing on experiences in civil society and using imagined dualisms of gender to position themselves as shapers of social work in Mumbai.     

Grassroots Movements as Transnational Actors: Implications for Global Civil Society

The past two decades witnessed the emergence of a new range of transnational social movements, networks, and organizations seeking to promote a more just and equitable global order. With this broadening and deepening of cross-border citizen action, however, troubling questions have arisen about their rights of representation and accountability—the internal hierarchies of voice and access within transnational civil society are being highlighted. The rise of transnational grassroots movements, with strong constituency base and sophisticated advocacy capability at both local and global levels, is an important phenomenon in this context. These movements are formed and led by poor and marginalized groups, and defy the stereotype of grassroots movements being narrowly focused on local issues. They embody both a challenge and an opportunity for democratizing and strengthening the role of transnational civil society in global     

Youth mobilisations and political generations: young activists in political change movements during and since the twentieth century

This paper uses political generations theory to examine the main youth mobilisations during and since the twentieth century: pre-1939 fascist and communist movements; the student movements of the 1960s and 70s; movements that challenged colonial and neo-colonial rulers in less developed countries and young people's involvement in the revolutions that saw the end of communism in East-Central and South-East Europe in 1989. Conclusions from this review of the past are used in considering the likely significance of subsequent outbursts of political activism among young people: the ‘colour revolutions’ and other instances of youth mobilisation in former Soviet republics and other ex-communist countries; the Arab Spring and the series of movements that have challenged neo-liberalism – Anti-Globalisation, the Indignados and the Occupy movements. The paper notes that youth mobilisations that have led to the formation of new political generations that have changed their countries' politics then transformed the countries have typically extended over several decades, that initially youthful leaders have sometimes been middle-aged or older before achieving political power and that many of their actions on achieving power have been at variance with their youthful ideals. In conclusion, it is argued that it is still too early to tell whether any of the recent youth mobilisations signal the formation of new political generations.     

Citing history

ABSTRACT

Although rarely considered within the existing scholarship on social movements, even a cursory analysis of protest activity suggests that movements regularly invoke historical citations (whether consciously or not) while working to clarify aims and mobilize constituencies. In order to make sense of this process, and to account for the variations that arise among the different citation modalities favored by movements on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I draw upon the theoretical contributions of Marxist cultural critic Walter Benjamin and, in particular, on his exploration of ‘wish images’ and ‘dialectical images,’ their attributes, and their interrelationship. According to Benjamin, such images summoned the past either to project visions of future happiness (as with the wish image) or to deposit the witness before a moment of decisive, present-tense reckoning. After outlining the role of historical citation in social movements and in the broader cultural field through which these movements find expression, I analyze two recent protest events – the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, VA, in which wish images were actively deployed, and the 2017 Women’s Strike in New York City, where a dialectical image arose from the constellated nodes of the march’s route – to consider the relationship between citation modality and protest outcome. Following from this analysis, and in keeping with the unapologetically partisan nature of my investigation, I conclude by advancing some strategic recommendations for movements seeking – as Benjamin once enjoined – to ‘improve our position in the struggle against Fascism.’     

Local Armed Uprisings and the Transnational Image of Claim Making: The Kurds of Turkey and the Zapatistas of Mexico in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore why and how some local armed uprisings are able to go global with a transnational image of ‘social justice’ while others fail to build such image despite becoming transnational. The cases to be analyzed in the article are the pro-Kurdish mobilization in the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey and the pro-Mayan Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) movement in Mexico. In explaining the relative success of the latter, the study seeks to make connections with the globalization literature in general and the transnational social movement literature in particular. Particularly, the article focuses on the ability of social movements to market their causes in international arena with a good image. Overall, this study lays out several key strategic differences between the two movements such as the holding and the use of arms, duration of armed resistance, and the leadership and organizational structure to unpack why some social movements are more successful to market their causes as a just cause within ‘global civil society’ and why others fail to do so ending with being listed as a terrorist organization.     

Transnational Social Movements,Civil Society,and a Secret State: The Idea of a Nuclear-free World through Israel's Vanunu Affair

Studies on transnational social movements in world risk society tend to emphasize their centrality and effectiveness as the result of two major transformations: the decline of the nation-state as a primary locus of power and sovereignty, and the rise of assertive civil societies' subpolitics. Drawing on the ‘Vanunu affair’ (the Israeli technician who was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for making public Israel's nuclear secrets), and the reactions it elicited at the local and global levels, the article analyzes the obstacles that may prevent the effective influence of anti-nuclear transnational social movements, and their difficulties in contributing to global framing. These obstacles are related mainly to the cultural politics of a ‘secret state’ that constructs national sovereignty, and mobilizes the local civil society, by means of nuclear secrecy and opacity.     

Attack of the Butterfly Spirits: The Impact of Movement Framing by Community Garden Preservation Activists

This study of the community garden preservation movement on the Lower East Side of New York examines the role of movement framing by activists in their struggle to save hundreds of gardens from destruction. In repeated confrontations with the Giuliani administration, gardeners successfully de-routinized the process of urban redevelopment by portraying the loss of a garden as an unimaginable violation against themselves, and the city. This process of re-framing urban development helped activists to compensate for their disempowered political status, and was instrumental in forcing the Giuliani administration to negotiate to save the gardens. Focusing on framing by movement activists demonstrates the purposive and strategic character of neighborhood identity. Emphasizing the strategy of neighborhood identities is a useful corrective to the many studies of community movements that emphasize their emergence from a relational, presumably non-strategic, local reality.     

Producing Space in Action. The Protest Campaign against the Construction of the Dal Molin Military Base

Although the importance of space is increasingly recognized, its conceptualization with reference to social movements varies. For a long time, critical geographers have considered space as socially constructed. Following Lefebvre’s influential distinction, the relevance of three types of socially produced space for social movements have been pointed out: (a) perceived space (or spatial practices), as a material space where everyday life is produced; (b) conceived space, as the representation of space as socially constructed through (dominant and alternative) discourses, meanings and signs; (c) lived space, or representational space, where (a) and (b) interact. This essay maps the various ways through which space structures protest while at the same time being structured by it. We shall address this task by revisiting the contributions of geographers and ethnographers, with the help of empirical research we developed on a case of local opposition to a large-scale infrastructure project: the Dal Molin military base in Italy.     

Clothing and social movements: Tibet and the politics of dress

The ‘cultural turn’ in social movement studies has brought a renewed outlook on new social movements and lifestyle movements. In this development on the symbolic challenge of contemporary movements, research has expanded to both music and art. However, little is known about the role of clothing in movements and how activists use it for social change. In making the case for a greater consideration of clothing’s tactical use in identity work, this paper explores the case of the Tibetan Lhakar movement. I argue that for Lhakar activists, clothing is the materialization of the political consciousness of the movement and symbolically acts as a mechanism of communication in shaping its political goals. By using social media to observe individualized collective actions of wearing Tibetan clothing, the paper demonstrates how activists frame and create new political opportunity structures for civic participation in a one party state that controls all speech and movement.     

Bridging and bonding connections beyond the web: youth movements and civic engagement

Young people's participation, supported by the advent and the use of social media, seems to increase and become more definite, especially when it is linked to the local territory and its activities. In this respect, the connections the youths are able to create online go beyond the web, also developing social interactions with local communities. This article, starting from these premises, aims at investigating more deeply the debate about the civic use of the web by young people. The analysis focuses on 20 youth movements (cultural, social-collective, and environmental ones), with national/international relevance, mainly related to the web. Taking into account five main dimensions – internationalization, level of organization, participation, communication, and benefits for the social structure – the paper point outs different dynamics among the movements related to: (1) the use of the net, (2) the transfer from the online communication exchange to the local implementation of the civic actions, and (3) the involvement of the local public opinion. Moreover, the study reveals strong connections among participants, both in terms of bridging and bonding links so that the movements may be considered as a promising opportunity to strengthen civicness and foster social capital.     

The World Social Forum between politics and NGOs

ABSTRACT

The WSF was established as a forum that gathered movements opposing a certain political ideology, neoliberalism, but it has refrained from openly supporting a political ideology. The WSF has empowered more radical leftish movements and thus played a role in the separation of these movements from more conventional left-wing parties that have embraced neoliberal capitalism as an undefeatable reality. Right-wing politicians have capitalized on this separation by promoting a populist rejection of capitalist elites. WSF itself has profiled itself as a forum of social movements rather than a forum of socialist movements. The article analyses to what extent the hegemonic role of NGOs in the WSF is at the roots of this apolitical positioning and to what extend rightsholder movements might have benefited from a more explicit embracement of a coherent socialist political alternative rather than the diversity that WSF has fostered as one of its central principles.     

The Road Through Paris: Climate Change,Carbon, and the Political Dynamics of Convergence

Abstract

This article tracks the key events that set the stage for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, particularly as they relate to politics of convergence. One side of this coming together is an intersection of issues, where new terrestrial and aquatic carbon sequestration programs have blurred the margins of climate change mitigation and resource grabbing. These programs, enclosing forests, farmlands, and oceans, are likewise fused together in what can be described as an emerging ‘carbon complex’ that is part of the wider blue/green economy. On the reverse side, the clear intersection of issues as witnessed by radical, and historically sectoral, agrarian/social justice movements is causing them to intertwine in resistance. The realm of climate change has proven to be an exceptional space of struggle and countermovement building. Political interactions between movements have become increasingly sophisticated—requiring frameworks that address environmental, agrarian, and oceanic issues at once, as the issues have become ever more complex. Agrarian/social justice movements maintain that their agendas for food sovereignty and climate justice hinge upon exposing fault lines in the system and advocate overall system change. COP21 and its parallel side events were together a landmark moment, but part of a much more involved process, ‘the road through Paris’, along which movements had carved out transnational and local spaces of convergence against the backdrop of a global carbon complex.     

Place making,grassroots organizing,and rural protest: A case study of Anahim Lake,British Columbia

Contemporary rural social movements bring diverse interest groups and stakeholders together at the local scale in the pursuit of common visions and goals, often against the backdrop of an external threat. The challenge for a movement's leaders is to negotiate and design a rural agenda that resonates with this complex constituency. One way to approach this problem is to construct and politicize a local sense of place as a means of rallying insiders against outside forces and pressures. This article explores the place-making activities of rural leaders operating within a complex social setting through an analysis of a grassroots social movement in Anahim Lake, British Columbia. The study uses the concept of the “place frame” to explore how Anahim's activists created a local discursive framework that enabled them to bridge dissimilar environmental values and practices within the community. The removal of external pressures following protest, however, saw the dissolution of this alignment. In documenting this process, the article contributes to a fuller understanding of the significance of place in grassroots protest and activism.     

The limits of participatory democracy and the inclusion of social movements in local government

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the decentralisation of decision-making processes in local government. Empirically, I analyse how Brazilian housing movements are included in participatory processes by examining the ways in which participatory models integrate social movements in spaces of decision-making. I argue that the rules and focus on incremental policy-making limits the participation of social movements. Findings suggests that unequal power structures at local councils, barriers to the participation of citizens, and the lack of transparency of government decisions all prevent social movements from having a more influential voice in decision-making. Although previous studies in Brazil examined the integration of citizens in government institutions, this paper contributes to the literature in two ways: firstly, it provides new evidence on the impact of decentralisation in local government. Secondly, by examining the attitudes of housing council members towards popular political participation, it provides new insights into the limits of decentralisation and participatory governance in contemporary Brazil.     

Using Social Network Analysis to Explore Social Movements: A Relational Approach

This paper uses a ‘relational’ approach to network analysis to demonstrate the linkages between different types of environmental organizations in London. A ‘relational’ approach was used to avoid problems associated with ‘positional’ approaches such as structural determinism, subjectively defined and misleadingly labelled blocks of ‘approximately’ equivalent actors, and reification of the action/issue basis of networks. The paper also explores definitions of social/environmental movements. Whilst broadly agreeing with Diani's consensual definition of a social movement, it argues that we need to be much more precise about the type and intensity of networking required; it must be more than informal or cursory, and should bind individuals and organizations into collaborative networks. Evidence from a survey of 149 environmental organizations and qualitative interviews with key campaigners suggests that whilst many organizations might share information, it is often stockpiled or ignored, hardly creating the kinds of network links that might lead to shared movement identity. The kinds of links that do bind movements are collaborative. In practice, in the environmental movement in London, conservationists tend neither to share information nor to engage in the collective action events of reformist or radical organizations, suggesting that conservationists should perhaps not be considered part of the movement.