The Micro Potential for Social Change: Emotion, Consciousness, and Social Movement Formation

Can one explain both the resilience of the status quo and the possibility for resistance from a subordinate position? This paper aims to resolve these seemingly incompatible perspectives. By extending Randall Collins's interaction ritual theory, and synthesizing it with Norbert Wiley's model of the self, this paper suggests how the emotional dynamics between people and within the self can explain social inertia as well as the possibility for resistance and change. Diverging from literature on the sociology of emotions that has been concerned with individual emotional processes, this paper considers the collective level in order to explore how movement action is motivated. The emotional dynamics of subordinate positioning that limit women's options in face-to-face interactions are examined, as are the social processes of developing feminist consciousness and a willingness to participate in resistance work. Pointing toward empirical applications, I conclude by suggesting conditions where resistance is likely.     

Symbols of Collective Memory: The Social Process of Memorializing May 4, 1970, at Kent State University

Monument and memorial building is one of the more dramatic forms of symbolic expression. This form of symbolic expression represents aspects of a community's collective history; and its existence thereby serves to crystallize consensus and solidarity. The building of the memorial is a dialectic of symbolic interaction explicated through use of a social process model. This article will first describe the theoretical issues involved with collective representation and memory. The theoretical base when applied to the activity of memorial building generates a social process model. The model is described by application to the building of various memorials, but particular interest will be focused upon the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C. The model suggests how creation of this type of symbolic work involves a complicated organization of social norms or conventions. Part of this organization involves merging norms from a specialized genre of the art world with norms of collective representation residing in the non-professional community. Administrative bureaucracies and political institutions play important roles as well. After the authors explicate the social process model, they apply it to the experience of memorializing students killed and wounded at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Erection of this memorial involves a process of constructing collective memory in such a way as to create moral unity within the community.     

Accounting for Victimization: Social Constructionist Perspectives

This paper reviews research and theory on the social construction of victims and victimization. There are four areas of inquiry: victims’ self‐processes, the collaborative accomplishment of victimization, social problems claims‐making, and social movement framing. Scholars in each area take a symbolic interactionist perspective. Because victimization is potentially stigmatizing, much of this research and analysis draws on the literature on vocabularies of motive, aligning activities, and accounts. Literature on self‐processes examines how victims come to see themselves as victims and their situations as deviant. Often, when they try to establish their victim identities with others, they can be discredited or blamed if they do not meet expectations of typical victims. When people want to show that a social problem exists, they use images of victims to evoke sympathy and other emotions. Sometimes, collective identities may not be sympathetic, and also need to be managed, through the framing work of activists.     

Neighborhood Structure,Social Organization,and Number of Short‐Term Sexual Partnerships

We examine the relationship between neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, and the sexual partnering practices of adults. Analyses of 1990 census and 1995–1997 survey‐based data on Chicago neighborhoods and adult sexual activity reveal for men a number of neighborhood influences on sexual partnering practices. First, residential stability is negatively associated with having a short‐term sexual partner in the last year. Second, neighborhood social ties are positively associated with short‐term sexual partnering in neighborhoods with low levels of collective efficacy—the combination of cohesion and shared expectations for beneficial action among neighbors—but this effect is substantially reduced as collective efficacy increases. Moreover, neighborhood collective efficacy and social ties mediate the effect of residential stability on sexual partnering practices. Neighborhood characteristics were not associated with short‐term sexual partnering for women.     

Practicing Birchism: The Assumption and Limits of Idiocultural Coherence in Framing Theory

Social movement theory and research over the past twenty years have utilized the concepts incorporated under the rubric of Framing Theory in order to draw attention to the cultural ‘meaning work’ within a social movement or social movement organization. Underlying Framing Theory is an assumption of what I term idiocultural coherence – that for a movement organization to be successful, its members must come to agree cognitively with its cultural understandings and identify collectively with it. Drawing on an example of the John Birch Society, a very successful conspiratorial, anti-communist organization, I show how people may join a social movement organization not because they necessarily or fully agree with its collective action frames but because it provides an opportunity to act collectively and publicly perform a collective identity. I argue that a narrow focus on idiocultural processes obfuscates important cultural processes ‘outside’ of a movement organization that have an impact on how and why people join an organization and maintain membership.     

The Social Organization of Conversational Remembering: Experience as Individual and Collective Concerns

This article examines the social organization of remembering in conversation. Examples of conversational remembering are used to discuss the way the sequential organization of talk co-opts others into the project of remembering; how we interactively commit others to the individual and collective relevance of our experience claims; and, finally, how conversational remembering is rhetorically organized in terms of the interdependencies of our own and others' experience as individually and collectively relevant.     

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.     

How Sentiments Organize Social Action

Sociological studies of affect and associated processes have a long tradition in the discipline, originating with Durkheim's interest in religious belief and practice. Contemporary interest in the area has focused on several distinct instances in which affective evaluations are learned, are expressed toward others, organize behavior in social situations, and change. Attitudes, emotions , feelings, moods, and sentiments are distinguished from one another and studied as distinct factors in the organization of social action. Affective information is socialized in families and reinforced in social institutions as the actor matures. Interaction with others and the exchange of social rewards leads to patterns of social organization in proximal and distal groups as actors identify others who share similar patterns of orientation to social objects. Status structures in groups are reflected in patterns of sentiment distribution. Similarly, sentiment and emotion structures impact status behavior in groups. Technological developments have advanced measurement of emotional reactions, expression of sentiments toward social objects, and identification of social structures in social media. Theoretical developments in the study of sentiment and emotion are highlighted in the essay.     

Music and Social Movements

Music is a key component of social movements. This article addresses the relationship between music and social movements through four foci: collective identity, free space, emotions, and social movement culture. Collective identity is developed and nurtured within free spaces through the use of music. These spaces are often rife with emotions that are instrumental in development of collective identity. A social movement culture may develop as these processes unfold. Music is part of this culture and serves as an important mechanism for solidarity when participants move beyond free spaces to more contested ones. Examples of song lyrics demonstrate these processes. Research on music and social movements, it is argued here, can be enhanced by addressing technology and popular culture.     

"It Just Doesn't Feel Like You're Obviously In": Housing Policy, Family Privacy, and the Reproduction of Social Inequality*

L'auteure de cet article examine les liens existant entre le logement, l'organisation de la vie familiale et la reproduction des inégalités sociales. Elle se concentre sur les processus sociaux « sur le terrain >>– particulierement sur ceux entourant l'organisation de la reproduction sociale (les soins quotidiens donnés aux enfants et aux adultes) en tant que préoccupation personnelle ou collective. Elle étudie ces processus dans un cadre où les logements sont détenus publiquement et gérés collectivement. Son analyse indique que l'environnement a des répercussions contradictoires sur l'organisation de la prestation quotidienne des soins. L'auteure se soucie en particulier de la manière dont il influence la reproduction des inégalités sociales chez les femmes qui élévent des enfants.
This article examines connections between housing, the organization of family life, and the reproduction of social inequality. It focusses on "on-the-ground" social processes–specifically, those surrounding the organization of social reproduction (the daily care of children and adults) as a private or a collective concern. It examines these processes in a setting where the housing is publicly held and collectively managed. The analysis indicates that the setting has contradictory implications for the organization of daily caregiving work. Of particular concern here is the way this can play out as the reproduction of social inequality among women raising families.     

Social Strain, Structural Breakdown, Political Opportunity, and Collective Action

Sociology traditionally identified social strain and structural breakdown as causes of collective action. Such explanations were widely interpreted as endorsing social order and viewing its breakdown and the resulting collective action in a negative light. In the 1970s, advocates of the resource mobilization perspective criticized strain and breakdown explanations and this negative connotation of collective action. Rather than strain or breakdown, these theorists explained collective action in terms of solidarity, interests, and resources. Despite these criticisms, strain and breakdown explanations persisted at the margins of mainstream social movement theory. Moreover, the resource mobilization approach invoked 'opportunity' to explain collective action. There is a strong resemblance between 'strain and breakdown' and 'opportunity'. Both explain collective action in terms of external, facilitating conditions, but opportunity explanations connote a more favorable evaluation of the resulting collective action. Such resemblances suggest the viability of a synthesis between older and newer explanations of collective action.     

Overcoming Uncertainty: Agency,Stance, and the Rise of Collective Action in Times of Crisis

This article examines how grassroots actors initiate and engage in collective action to transcend dramatic situations of large-scale societal crisis. Merging strands of sociolinguistic scholarship with social movement theory, the concepts of stance and stance-taking are presented to reveal how individuals collectively exert their agency during episodes of macrostructural instability and uncertainty. Stance is defined as the agentive and solidaristic position taken up by a group of actors to navigate and overcome moments of social rupture. Stance-taking is the situational ensemble of discursive, organizational, and dramaturgical practice through which stances are developed and deployed. Analysis of the social construction of stance promotes multidimensional understandings of how social movements intensify and expand under conditions of crisis. To illustrate the analytical purchase of these concepts, the study describes the stance-taking practices that fueled the rise of mass public protests in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the height of a national crisis in 2001.     

Social Aspects of Genetic Testing Technologies

Since the early days of the Human Genome Project, there has been increasing social scientific research that promises to elucidate the social implications, aspects or dimensions of research on human, animal and plant genetics. This paper discusses the literature on the social aspects of different types of genetic testing technologies and their applications in the contexts of clinical medicine, biomedical research, personal and family genealogy, and criminal justice. Although there are many differences in the practices, purposes and organization of these technologies across such contexts, this paper shows that social scientists’ understandings of their social aspects centers on individual and collective experiences of how genetic testing technologies operate in practice.     

Phantasy and Social Movements: An Ontology of Pro-Space Activism

Psychoanalysis has a long history of influence in the study of collective behaviour, and this paper argues that it has a great deal to contribute to the study of one vitally important and under-researched aspect of social movement activity; the fantasies activists have about life in the social worlds they would like to see in the future. The paper uses empirical research findings to show that, in the case of activists campaigning to further the human exploration, development and settlement of outer space, these fantasies can be fundamental to activists' motivation. Psychoanalysis helps us understand these fantasies as conscious manifestations of unconscious phantasies. However, the paper also addresses the criticisms social movement theory has made of reductionist psychoanalysis, arguing that the study of activists' fantasies must include accounts of the ways in which social forces influence unconscious processes, the discourses used by activists to understand their cause, and the organization of the movement.     

“People Want to Protect Themselves a Little Bit”: Emotions,Denial, and Social Movement Nonparticipation*

Emotions can be a source of information and an impetus for social action, but the desire to avoid unpleasant emotions and the need for emotion management can also prevent social movement participation. Ethnographic and interview data from a rural Norwegian community describes how people avoided thinking about climate change in part because doing so raised fears of ontological security, emotions of helplessness and guilt, and was a threat to individual and collective senses of identity. In contrast to existing studies that focus on the public's lack of information or concern about global warming as the basis for the lack of public response, my work describes the way in which holding information at a distance was an active strategy performed by individuals as part of emotion management. Following Evitar Zerubavel, I describe this process of collective avoiding as the social organization of denial. Emotions played a key role in denial, providing much of the reason why people preferred to avoid information. Emotion management was also a central aspect of the process of denial, which in this community was carried out through the use of a cultural stock of social narratives that were invoked to achieve “perspectival selectivity” and “selective interpretation.”     

Social Movement Endurance: Collective Identity and the Rastafari

In this paper we argue that a movement's longevity depends on its ability to develop and sustain a strong sense of collective identity. We investigate social movement endurance by examining the Rastafari, whose membership is comprised primarily of disadvantaged Jamaicans of African descent. While many social movements fade after a short-lived peak, the Rastafari not only has persisted, but it also has become globally important. Despite its radical posture and its perceived threat to the Jamaican established order, the movement has prevailed for more than six decades. On the basis of a number of concepts derived from different theoretical traditions in social movement theory, we examine the dynamic processes involved in the construction of collective identity among the Rastafari. We are particularly interested in the concepts of "cognitive liberation,""movement culture/boundary structure," and "the politics of signification." These concepts allow us to describe and analyze the key dimensions of the Rastafarian collective identity. This framework, we argue, enhances our understanding of collective identity as well as the processes contributing to social movement longevity.     

Social transformation,collective categories,and identity change

Changes in collective categories of identity are at the core of social transformation. The causal linkages among identity change, institutional change, and change in modes of practice are, however, complex. Developing and adapting ideas from Pierre Bourdieu's work, this article shows the coexistence in tension of a plurality of elements within each collective identity category. On this basis, it proposes a typology of responses at the level of identity to socio-political change. This allows an explanation of patterns of identity change in terms of wider social processes and resource distribution, while remaining open to the sense and complexity of the individual's experience and the moments of intentionality that arise when individuals face choices as to the direction of change. The worth of the model is shown by analysis of modes of identity change in a society now experiencing radical change in socio-political structures, namely post-1998 Northern Ireland.     

The Social Psychology of Robert E. Park: Human Nature,Self, Personality and Social Structure

Robert E. Park is widely recognized today for his contributions to urban sociology, race relations and collective behavior but his social psychology has been largely neglected. Park's inclusive and loose framework covered his interest in: (1) human nature and the bio-physiological instincts which for him were raw materials of personality; (2) formulation of self concept as an organization of roles; and (3) micro-macro linkages between individual and social structure. Each one of Park's three themes is still important for symbolic interaction theory and offers insights into contemporary investigations of emotions, role acquisition and identity.     

Organizations,coalitions, and movements

This article uses empirical evidence on networks of voluntary organizations mobilizing on ethnic minority, environmental, and social exclusion issues in two British cities, to differentiate between social movement processes and other, cognate collective action dynamics. Social movement processes are identified as the building and reproducing of dense informal networks between a multiplicity of actors, sharing a collective identity, and engaged in social and/or political conflict. They are contrasted to coalitional processes, where alliances to achieve specific goals are not backed by significant identity links, and organizational processes, where collective action takes place mostly in reference to specific organizations rather than broader, looser networks.     

Social Movement Strategy,Tactics, and Collective Identity1

Tactical choices and their execution are closely related to the construction of collective identities in social movements. Studying collective identity has helped scholars understand why people participate in collective action, but the array of tactics that constitute action has not been fully explored. An emerging interest in culture and strategy that situates social movement actors in a field of contention with opponents, allies, and bystanding publics raises questions about the tactics that are used and the construction of collective identity, which is formed in interaction with others. Strategies and tactics reflect collective identities but also provide opportunities for reaffirming or challenging them. Innovative methods can create tension as activists work to resolve what they do with who they feel they are. Conflict studies, nonviolent action studies, and sociological research using concepts such as framing, discourse, protest events, and tactical repertoires offer tools with which to bridge tactics and collective identity.