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.     

Long-Term Care Insurance in Japan

Abstract

Among all the industrialized countries, Japan has the fastest rate of population aging and the highest life expectancy at birth. It is projected that the proportion of elderly people will reach 35.7% in 2050. In this demographic environment, Japan launched a social insurance program for long-term care for the elderly in 2000. What were the forces that led Japan to establish a long-term care program for elderly people? What are the provisions for financing, benefits, and service delivery? What aspects of policymaking in developing such a program are unique to Japan? This article presents answers to these questions.     

Relational sociology,pragmatism, transactions and social fields

Starting from the idea that relational sociology has been founded on various and incompatible social ontologies, I argue that it is at risk of losing its raison d'être if we do not answer two fundamental practical and ontological questions: (1) Why do we need relational sociology? and (2) What do we study in relational sociology? In this respect, I propose a deep, transactional sociology partly and freely inspired by the work of J. Dewey which clearly detaches relational sociology from social determinism and co-determinism.     

POLITICAL NETWORKS ON TWITTER

This paper examines patterns of political activity and campaigning on Twitter in the context of the 2012 election in the Australian state of Queensland. Social media have been a visible component of political campaigning in Australia at least since the 2007 federal election, with Twitter, in particular, rising to greater prominence in the 2010 federal election. At state level, however, they have remained comparatively less important thus far. In this paper, uses of Twitter in the Queensland campaign from its unofficial start in February through to the election day of 24 March 2012 are tracked. Using innovative methodologies for analysing Twitter activities, developed by the research team, this study examines the overall patterns of activity in the relevant hashtag #qldvotes, and tracks specific interactions between politicians and other users by following some 80 Twitter accounts of sitting members of parliament and alternative candidates. Such analysis provides new insights into the different approaches to social media campaigning which were embraced by specific candidates and party organizations, as well as an indication of the relative importance of social media activities, at present, for state-level election campaigns.     

Practices of exclusion and injustices within social work education

Despite being a major influence, there are few studies investigating the impact of accreditation on the social justice remit of social work education. This article is guided by two questions: What are the social justice responsibilities of professional associations regulating social work education via accreditation? and What contribution can institutional ethnography make to understanding and change in this area? Drawing on a data-subset from a larger institutional ethnography, selected narratives of two informants, a social work student and a social work lecturer, are discussed. These narratives reveal how key documents of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) used to re-accredit social work courses influence how the study and work of the informants happens. Analysis of the narratives and documents bring the textually organised process of the re-accreditation of social work programmes into view. While this article reports on an Australian context, the issues raised concerning social injustice, epistemological equity and the implicit curriculum are relevant for social work education across many parts of the world. The contribution of this article is to recommend institutional ethnography as a research approach to generate understanding and transformation of organisations with social justice objectives, to redress exclusion and injustice.     

The problem of justification in social work

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the real test of professional social work practice is whether it can be plausibly, effectively and defensibly justified. Since the early 1950s social work in Australia has engaged in a strategy of professionalisation. This strategy and its implications were described by McDonald and Jones in 2000. This paper supports the concerns expressed. We argue that the way out of our profession's dilemma is by focusing on the problem of justification. The main questions addressed by McDonald and Jones appear to be: What is professional social work practice? Does the concept of professionalism serve us and our clients well now? What form should social work take in the future? Their answer is ‘that the “strategy of professionalisation”, as conventionally conceived by Australian social work, is no longer viable in the emerging milieu.’ We build on that answer by exploring the notion of justification in terms of the concepts Foundationalism, Coherentism and Reliabilism. We conclude by suggesting that the immediate task for social work in this new century is to solve the problem of justification.     

Network structures in cross-movement talk: Democracy Now!, 2003-2013

ABSTRACT

As organizers often remind us, we need to work across movements if we are to make substantive social change. Such talk is central to how we understand what social movements are and how we can work together. But how is that talk structured, and how might we theorize structural change over time as movements emerge and subside? This paper outlines several key considerations in the social construction of cross-movement relations between 2003 and 2013 on a daily independent broadcast news magazine program in the United States. Drawing on relational sociology and network studies, I offer a framework for understanding the changing structure of cross-movement talk as an interplay of a) the narrative clustering of movement labels, and b) the bridging of cross-cluster narrative divisions. Using positional network analysis, I first chart the movement canon – those movement labels that were used year after year for structuring the cross-movement field – and trace how key labels were used as bridging leaders during two periods of mass-mobilization. I then compare the narrative environment over time as it moved between more segmented and pluralistic structural characteristics, culminated in periods of narrative convergence in 2008 and 2011 around the Obama presidential election and the Occupy movement. By examining the overall structure of cross-movement talk in broadcast news programming, I illustrate how movement labels themselves are used by hosts and guests to facilitate the social construction of emergent movement clusters, and point to strategies for future application and analysis in cross-movement organizing.     

Learning about child protection

Where do social workers acquire the knowledge they use in child protection work? What opportunities exist for them to access and use research? Should they bother? This paper addresses these questions using information provided by twelve local authority social workers involved in child protection work and findings from relevant research.

In a learning and work climate which appears not to encourage interest in research findings or knowledge from books generally, the paper considers both how knowledge from research might best be brought to the attention of busy workers and what are the necessary conditions for workers to develop and use knowledge in child care and protection practice.     

Celebrity Philanthropy in China: An Analysis of Social Network Effect on Philanthropic Engagement

Celebrity philanthropy is a recent but widespread phenomenon in China. Using social network analysis, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: Is a celebrity’s position within a social network related to that celebrity’s philanthropic engagement, and how? Does a celebrity’s network position interact with normative influence to affect philanthropic engagement? What implications the study has for the development of modern philanthropy in China? Hypotheses regarding the associations between philanthropic engagement and a celebrity’s social network were tested using a sample from the “Celebrity Relationship Database.” Findings suggest that philanthropic engagement was more common in the center of the social network; under normative influence, a celebrity was more likely to engage in philanthropic activities if other members within the social network were active in philanthropic engagement; and, the effect of normative influence was stronger for celebrities who were positioned at the center of a social network than those who were positioned at the periphery. Implications for the development of modern philanthropy in China are also discussed.

     

Do Social Networks Really Matter in Contentious Politics?

A considerable number of studies in the social movement literature stress that social networks are a key factor for those participating in political protest. However, since empirical evidence does not universally support this thesis, we propose to examine three core questions. Do networks really matter for participants in political protest? Are social networks important for all types of protest? Finally, what are social networks and in which ways are they important? By answering these questions this paper aims to provide three contributions to social movement literature: first, we want to put networks in their place and not reifying their influence on participation processes; second, we describe and explain variations of networks influence on protest participation; third, to pursue the theoretical reflection initiated by Kitts, McAdam, and Passy on the specification of network effect on contentious participation, that is, to disentangle the different processes at stake. Many scholars argue for empirical works analyzing the link between networks and cognition, but this remains a pious wish. Here, we propose to systematically examine the effect of social interactions on activists' cognitive toolkit.     

The rhythms of social movement memories: the mobilization of Silvio Meier’s activist remembrance across platforms

ABSTRACT

This article presents a temporal analysis of the activist remembrance of Silvio Meier, a prominent member of Berlin’s radical left scene, who was stabbed to death in 1992. It asks: when has Meier’s activist remembrance occurred and been remediated, with what rhythms, and how has it been influenced by different platforms? To answer these questions, the article draws on the literature dedicated to the interface between social movements and collective and connective memory, and applies Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis approach. Within this approach a diverse set of material is used to visualise the timing of the digital and non-digital remediation and mobilisation of Meier’s remembrance across different platforms of memory including commemorative events, newspapers, websites and social media. Thereafter the various temporalities of use associated with these platforms and how they can influence the mobilisation of remembrance by social movements is discussed using Lefebvre’s concepts of polyrhythmia, arrhythmia, isorhythmia, eurhythmia and with respect to, firstly, a fifteen-year period between 2002 and 2017 and secondly, a fifteen-day period between 15 November and 30 November 2012 around the twentieth anniversary of Meier’s death. The article concludes by introducing another Lefebvrian concept – dressage – in order to consider which rhythms of activist remembrance might most benefit social movements and their goals. Overall, by demonstrating the importance of attending to the when and not only the what, who, where and how of social movement memories and by highlighting the need to consider the temporal influence of the different digital and non-digital platforms that activists use, as well as, by indicating the broader potential of applying rhythmanalysis approaches to instances of activism, the article has broader relevance for the further study of social movements, their use of different media and their mobilization of memory.     

Outline of a sociology of decisionism

I propose an agenda for empirical research on decision, choice, decision‐makers, and decision‐making qua social facts. Given society S, group G, or field F, I make a twofold sociological proposal. First, empirically investigate the conditions under which something—call it X—is taken to be a decision or choice, or the outcome of a decision‐making process. What must X be like? What doesn't count (besides, presumably, myotatic reflexes and blushing)? Whom or what must X be done by? What can't be a decision‐maker (besides, presumably, rocks and apples)? Second, empirically investigate how decision/choice concepts are used in everyday life, politics, business, education, law, technology, and science. What are they used for? To what extent do people understand and represent themselves and others as decision‐makers? Where do decision‐centric or “decisionist” understandings succeed? These aren't armchair, theoretical, philosophical questions, but empirical ones. Decision/choice concepts’ apparent ubiquity in contemporary societies calls for a well‐thought‐out research program on their social life and uses.     

Learning Racial Literacy While Navigating White Social Studies

Abstract

How do children develop racial literacy? How do they make sense of and respond to the master narratives of race and racism? What role does elementary social studies education play in children’s racial literacy development? I explored these questions as a parent–researcher, inquiring how my child, an Asian American elementary student, develops racial literacy as she learns U.S. history at school. In the following, I first situate my inquiry within the literature on social studies education from a critical race perspective. Next, I delineate my positionality as a critical race motherscholar and the rationale for studying my own child. Last, I present the findings from my inquiry and discuss its implications for elementary social studies education.     

Making sense of ‘Price Tag’ violence: changing contexts,shifting strategies,and expanding targets

Writings on the fringe Jewish settler grassroots network known as the Hilltop Youth have proliferated in recent years, following the increase in violent activism associated with the network. But knowledge on this violent activism, called Price Tag, has remained conflicting and problematic. Central questions persist: What is the meaning of Price Tag violence? What explains the increase in the rate and salience of Price Tag violence? What are the social-political implications of Price Tag violence? This article argues that Price Tag violence represents a new strategy of contention taking shape in the context of a fundamental reconfiguration of relations within Israel’s institutional and non-institutional radical Right, and that it represents a highly consequential social and political phenomenon with destabilizing and destructive effects nationally and regionally.     

Immigrants as brokers: dialogical diffusion from Spanish indignados to Occupy Wall Street

This article analyses the role played by Spanish immigrants in the diffusion of the indignados movement in Occupy Wall Street (OWS). I argue that Spanish residents in New York City acted as brokers between the two movements, and that their behaviour had a significant impact on OWS’s understanding of itself as an expansive, inclusive and empathic phenomenon. Building on recent theoretical developments, which stress the importance of dialogue and collective learning in the transnational diffusion of historical social movements, this research produces results at different levels. At the empirical level, the problems faced by the immigrants reveal the cultural complexity of transnational diffusion within the recent wave of contention. At the analytical level, the personal contact and intergroup dialogue established between immigrants and local activists challenge accounts stressing the role of social media and the internet within the transnational diffusion of this protest. At the theoretical level, the article develops a process-oriented perspective on brokerage, improving our understanding of its implications concerning diffusion. I argue that a longitudinal analysis of brokerage shows how interaction can modify role identity and movement diffusion: diffusion develops where brokers maintain a coordinating role in the movement, and ceases to do so where brokers are displaced from this central position.     

Attitudes toward poverty among exit students of undergraduate social work programs in eight Latin American countries

What is the attitude of Latin American undergraduate social work students toward poverty? An earlier study from Europe and other countries worldwide found that most graduating social work students who participated in the research were clear about the socio-structural causes of social problems such as poverty. Still, no data on this topic is available for Latin American countries. The aims of this study were: (1) to describe and to compare eight Latin American graduating undergraduate social work student groups regarding their attitudes toward poverty, as measured by two scales: Causes of poverty scale and Ways of dealing with poverty; and (2) to discuss some of the implications of the study for social work education and practice. Using a quantitative transnational-comparative design, a total sample of 525 nonrandomly selected, graduating undergraduate social work students from eight Latin American countries responded to a self-administered questionnaire. An individualistic attitude to understanding and to dealing with poverty emerged in the majority of the student groups. Multivariate procedures and inferential analyses demonstrated variations across the student groups. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.     

The mediatization of leadership: grassroots digital facilitators as organic intellectuals,sociometric stars and caretakers*

ABSTRACT

Scholars of both resource mobilization theory and new social movement theory recognize leadership as integral to traditional social movements. Following global protest movements of 2011, some now characterize movements relying on social media as horizontal and leaderless. Whether due to an organizational shift to networks over bureaucracies or due to a change in values, many social movements in the present protest cycle do not designate visible leadership. Does leadership in social media activism indeed disappear or does it take on new forms? This paper undertakes an in-depth analysis of data obtained through interviews, event observations and analysis of media content related to three Canadian cases of civic mobilization of different scale, all of which strategically employed social media. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding the role of these mobilizations’ organizers as organic intellectuals, sociometric stars and caretakers. By looking closely at the three cases through the lenses offered by these concepts, we identify the specific styles that characterize digitally mediatized civic leadership.     

Modelling free social spaces and the diffusion of social mobilization

Free social spaces have long been emphasized in the social movement literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations through analysis of emergent structural effects.     

Social Movement Audiences1

Audiences are important to social movements, but the relationships between social movements and their audiences are not well understood. This article uses scholarship from performance studies, especially ideas of audiences as constructed, meaningful, and influenced/influential, to explore two issues. First, how do social movements define their audiences? Second, how are social movement actions toward their audiences shaped by these definitions? Analysis of longitudinal data on two social movement groups in Pittsburgh from 2003 to 2007 shows that social movements variously interpret the nature and role of their audiences and that these interpretations affect their strategies and goals, sometimes quite radically. The conclusion explores how attention to audiences can augment scholarship on the relational, iterative, interpretive, and reflexive aspects of social movements.     

After the ‘APIcalypse’: social media platforms and their fight against critical scholarly research

ABSTRACT

In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, social media platform providers such as Facebook and Twitter have severely restricted access to platform data via their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This has had a particularly critical effect on the ability of social media researchers to investigate phenomena such as abuse, hate speech, trolling, and disinformation campaigns, and to hold the platforms to account for the role that their affordances and policies might play in facilitating such dysfunction. Alternative data access frameworks, such as Facebook’s partnership with the controversial Social Science One initiative, represent an insufficient replacement for fully functional APIs, and the platform providers’ actions in responding to the Cambridge Analytica scandal raise suspicions that they have instrumentalised it to actively frustrate critical, independent, public interest scrutiny by scholars. Building on a critical review of Facebook’s public statements through its own platforms and the mainstream media, and of the scholarly responses these have drawn, this article outlines the societal implications of the ‘APIcalypse’, and reviews potential options for scholars in responding to it.