Understanding Social Movements: theorising the disability movement in conditions of late modernity

This article draws upon qualitative research carried out by the author and funded by the ESRC. One of the central aims of this research was to investigate the nature of the UK disability movement's ‘struggle’ and to evaluate critically the idea that it is a ‘new’ social movement. Consideration of the disability movement in relation to both ‘new’ social movements and to wider social movement theorising has suggested that it may not be possible to understand this movement, entirely, by using any of the existing models. This article concludes by outlining the possible starting point for a new approach to understanding the disability movement based upon forging a closer link between citizenship and social movement theory and upon a focus on the nature of engagement. Empirical evidence from the research is included in this article in the form of quotations from respondents, all of whom are/were members of organisations that are run by disabled people. All respondents' names have been removed to maintain their anonymity.     

Ethnography and the digital fields of social media

Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined layers of the digital environment interplay with users’ online social practices – which are embedded within offline everyday life and vice versa. While Internet ethnography largely dealt with contextual digital fields, recent developments in the realm of online research allow the ethnographic exploration of digital meta-fields and their publics. This shift recalls Marcus’ appeal for a multi-sited ethnography but, in fact, goes further beyond, towards a truly ‘un-sited’ ethnography. I highlight and discuss the main methodological implications of meta- and contextual fieldworks by presenting an exploratory study of European exchange students’ Facebook identities.     

The concept of social movement

Recent developments in social movement research have evidenced a greater underlying consensus in the field than one might have assumed. Efforts have been made to bridge different perspectives and merge them into a new synthesis. Yet, comparative discussion of the concept of ‘social movement’ has been largely neglected so far. This article reviews and contrasts systematically the definitions of ‘social movement’ formulated by some of the most influential authors in the field. A substantial convergence may be detected between otherwise very different approaches on three points at least. Social movements are defined as networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities. It is argued that the concept is sharp enough a) to differentiate social movements from related concepts such as interest groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions; b) to identify a specific area of investigation and theorising for social movement research.     

Investigating the organizational everyday: a critical feminist approach

ABSTRACT

This article considers the possibilities and limits of applying institutional ethnography, a feminist theoretical and methodological approach that contributes to collective projects of investigating and transforming social life. Elaborating on the approach, the article reports on an ethnographic exploration of visual artists’ experiences and struggles in Canada's art world – a project that started from the standpoint of practising visual artists, examined their work and relations, and explicated practices and logics of art and valued work conditioning their lives. Speaking back to formal or text-based investigations of particular institutions, the article grapples with how to engage in research that more fully reveals the ‘social,’ attending to everyday life, to the ‘life work’ that people do, and to social forms that are threaded through intersecting, localized intimate and institutional spheres.     

The ruins of Managua vieja: the use of expressive photography in urban ethnography

This article proposes a method of conducting urban visual work – a practice-led visual study in which researcher-generated expressive photography explores the ‘city-as-archive’ (Hetherington 2013) and contributes to the urban visual archive. The photographs used in this article focus upon the social world of material remnants in the setting of the old downtown of Managua, Nicaragua. The aim of the article is four-fold: to suggest the epistemological gains of expressive photography, to discuss the methodology and style, to present the use of these images in an urban visual ethnography of Managua and to address related ethical concerns. Although expressive photographs are used to some extent by scholars, there is a noticeable lack of discussion of the method and empirical examples in urban visual studies. In this article, I propose intentionally using expressive photography to convey the subjective and affective knowledge that is generally not communicated by more conventional, ‘realist’ documentary visual techniques. Moving into a more explicit conversation of the work process, I point out three arenas for inquiry, for which this method can be useful. I detail my own visual ethnographic practice, and present my primary visual aims in three image clusters: expressive photography in conjunction with historical images, theorising the oscillation between absence and presence and visually interpreting the vernacular design of the ruinscape. The article concludes with a consideration of ‘ruin romance’ as an ethical concern, as well as some reflections over perceived difficulties in using this method as a means of doing academic research.     

Knowledge co-production with social movement networks. Redefining grassroots politics,rethinking research

Drawing on ethnographic research with social movement networks in Spain, this article explores the challenges and possibilities of research collaboration. My project focused on the emerging logics and practices of collective action, the ongoing re-definition of grassroots politics. The engagement with social movements as reflexive communities – not simply objects to be studied, but subjects actively producing their own analysis and explanations, their own ‘knowledge-practices’ – deeply transformed the in-fieldwork encounter. Through a series of co-analysis workshops, designed and implemented together with the research subjects/collaborators, this research became an open-ended dialogue of reflexivities. The shift from working on social movements to working and thinking together with social movement activists as co-researchers produced new scholarly knowledge, advancing our understanding of contemporary collective action, while simultaneously making research useful for the activists. Moreover, locating epistemic and methodological questions at the centre of the project, I addressed salient debates in social science, exploring collaborative frameworks in order to problematize traditional forms of knowledge production and validation.     

Trending Trousers: Debating Kastom,Clothing and Gender in the Vanuatu Mediascape

This paper presents an ethnography of contemporary media practices in Vanuatu, with a particular focus on media narratives and debates around gender equality and women's clothing, exploring how the discourses of kastom, Christianity and ‘modernity’ are being employed and communicated across various media platforms. The use of community media to promote awareness of gender equality through participatory and entertaining content, and the use of mainstream media to communicate a narrative that reinforces existing gendered power structures are each explored. In addition, social media platforms are identified as an emerging communication tool through which users can straddle the line between producers and consumers of media content and narratives, and engage in frank debate around the issue of gender equality.     

Thinking About Internal Prejudice And Anti-Oppressive Practice In Child Safeguarding Social Work With Irish Travellers In The UK

This paper is a reflective exploration of the emotional encounter between social workers and Irish Travellers in child safeguarding cases in the UK, the unconscious defences that may be triggered for social workers, unfamiliar with Travellers, and how these can impact on the relationship and outcomes. It raises concern about how pervasive societal disapproval towards Travellers may be absorbed by social workers, at the expense of a curiosity about historic marginalisation, the contemporary cultural and social context and a recognition of the strengths of the community. Drawing on psychoanalytical insights into ‘race’, it comprises a literature review which highlights themes of marginalisation in research on Irish Travellers in the UK. It also includes a narrative interview with a Traveller woman who reflects on the fear that social workers invoke in Travellers, and sets up the key question: what might the emotional state of the social worker be in this scenario.     

Social work through collaborative autoethnography

This paper discusses a research project involving five MA Social Work Students and one member of Social Work Academic Staff. Using narrative and taking a collaborative autoethnographical approach, this project highlights some of the feelings that students articulated following a 70-day placement experience. Findings include anxiety, powerlessness and frustration, together with growing confidence, recognition of their skills and a deeper understanding of the role of ‘self’ in social work. Raising issues of preparedness for practice placement, this paper has implications for both social work practice and social work education. Autoethnography (AE) is both a method of carrying out research and a methodology, specifically a qualitative methodology linked to ethnography and narrative inquiry. AE results in highly personalized narrative accounts of the researcher’s engagement with specific sociocultural contexts in the pursuit of knowing more about a phenomenon. Applying such a methodology to explore collaboratively issues of student lived experience of placement is a new and innovative use of this method.     

Narrating political opportunities: explaining strategic adaptation in the climate movement

This article advances theory on social movements’ strategic adaptation to political opportunity structures by incorporating a narrative perspective. Our theory explains how people acquire and use knowledge about political opportunity structures through storytelling about the movement’s past, present, and imagined future. The discussion applies the theory in an ethnographic case study of the climate movement’s mobilization around the UN Climate Summit in Paris, 2015. This analysis demonstrates how a dominant narrative of defeat about the prior protest campaign in Copenhagen, 2009 shaped the strategizing process. While those who experienced Copenhagen as a success preferred strategic continuity, those who experienced defeat developed a “Copenhagen narrative” to advance strategic adaptation by projecting previously experienced threats and opportunities onto the Paris campaign. Yet by relying on a retrospective narrative, movement actors tended to overlook emerging political opportunities. We demonstrate that narrative analysis is a useful tool for understanding the link between structure and agency in social movements and other actors affected by (political) opportunity structures.

     

Limits and Possibilities of the Postmodern Narrative Self

The task of theorising the self has been of little interest historically in systemic therapy, yet becomes more interesting in the postmodern turn to the narrative metaphor and social constructionist ideas. Within this frame, the self is theorised as relational, fluid, and existing in narrative. The ‘postmodern narrative self’ counters modernist assumptions of self as an autonomous and fixed ‘internal’ entity, and brings with it theory and practice possibilities. However, any theory also brings limits, and this paper explores the limits of the central ideas of the postmodern narrative self. Through questioning and discussion, an argument is made for holding a dialectic in our thinking about the relational and autonomous self, for acknow-ledging very real boundaries on the fluidity of self, and for thinking of narrative as one way of knowing self, rather than exclusively constituting the ‘being’ of self.     

Work-based learning in social work education: the challenges and opportunities for the identities of work-based learners on university-based programs

This article explores the experiences of work-based learners undertaking social work degrees in the UK. The article is based on research of work-based learners on undergraduate social work degrees based in two universities, a local face-to-face university and a national distance learning university. Based on narrative inquiry methods for data collection, the article presents two case studies from the wider study which provide narratives of ‘becoming’ and ‘being’ a student. Drawing on identity theory, the article analyses how identity is an important concept in understanding the challenges and opportunities for this group of students on their journeys into and through higher education. The paper concludes by considering the implications for current provision of social work education.     

Social Movements,Protest and Mainstream Media

This article provides a broad, cross‐disciplinary overview of scholarship which has explored the dynamics between social movements, protests and their coverage by mainstream media across sociology, social movement studies, political science and media and communications. Two general approaches are identified ‘representational’ and ‘relational’ research. ‘Representational’ scholarship is that which has concerned itself with how social movements are portrayed or ‘framed’ in the media, how the media production process facilitates this, and the consequences thereof. ‘Relational’ scholarship concentrates on the asymmetrical ‘relationship’ between social movements, the contestation of media representation and the media strategies of social movements. Within these two broad approaches different perspectives and areas of emphasis are highlighted along with their strengths and weaknesses. The conclusion reflects on current developments in this area of study and offers avenues for future research.     

Social Work Education without Walls: Ethnography as a Lens for Transformative Learning

A call for innovation in social work has been put forth to address our society’s greatest problems. This call applies to social work education, which encompasses multiple functions including teaching, research, and practice. Yet, innovation in social work is constrained by the limits of current social work approaches and methods. Increasing social work’s impact in the real world requires illuminating the complexities of reciprocal forces between human lives and the environment. Understanding such complexities incorporates spatial and interdisciplinary approaches, such as ethnography. Ethnography, as method and metaphor, is a lens for transformative learning in social work education: It is the message. Ethnography illuminates real-world complexities and deepens social work education through its core contributions: methodological holism, methodological engagement, and methodological comparison. In deepening social work education, ethnography renders visible salient links in social work’s field of dialectics, invoking the systems perspective. Yet, ethnography extends beyond and expands on the systems perspective, emphasizing engaged integration. Engaged integration of social work’s dialectics forwards the discourse about the profession’s identity. Thus, ethnography is a tool for advancing knowledge and promoting transformative learning in social work education.     

Dementia,disability rights and disablism: understanding the social position of people living with dementia

This article considers the recent history and consequences of positioning people living with dementia in the realms of disability, disablism and disability rights. The geo-political focus is the United Kingdom and neighbouring resource-rich nations in the Global North. The first section examines the growing trend of identifying ‘dementia’ with ‘disability’, a trend fuelled by the expansion of dementia-related activism and research. The second section focuses on how researchers who have published in Disability & Society and other journals have applied the social model of disability to individuals living with dementia. The third section discusses three conceptual challenges that lie ahead for those who choose to research and theorise the dementia/disability connection. These challenges concern: theorising dementia as disability; understanding intersectionality in dementia contexts; and understanding ‘abuse’ in dementia contexts.     

Family ties in genes and stories: the importance of value and recognition in the narratives people tell of family

Diagnosis in paediatric genetics involves a combination of technologies able to display variation in DNA and clinical discussions with families that concentrate on retrieving family histories. This paper explores the significance of the family tales that genetics brings to the fore. Through discussion of an ESRC‐funded ethnographic study of families referred to a paediatric genetic service, the paper explores how genetics and family history intersect in ‘relations of exchange’ (Latimer, 2013). It draws from sociological work on family that emphasizes the importance of narrative to the formation and maintenance of family ties and the importance of broader social contexts to the kinds of stories that can be told and recognized by others. The paper emphasizes the significance of claims to respectability and value to the narratives people provide of family ties; particularly in contexts where such ties, in the past or the present, are thought of as ‘troubling’. Making reference to research by Skeggs and Loveday (2012), it is argued that an important narrative that is drawn upon, in order to claim respectability, is that of being a good parent who protects their children from socially ‘risky relations’ so that a positive future as a ‘subject of value’ may be possible.     

Microbusiness, household and class dynamics: the embedding of minority ethnic petty commerce

Microbusinesses are embedded in wider social processes, and it is the nature of this social embeddedness that is the principal focus of the article. In particular,‘domestic embedding’ of petty commerce is crucial, and involves a mixture of competition, domination, negotiation, and custom (Wheelock and Mariussen, 1997). Furthermore, as a socio‐economic group, petty traders and producers occupy an ambivalent position in the class structure, as they are vulnerable both to upward and downward social mobility. While the petty capital class has the advantage of possessing property assets, many members lack significant symbolic and cultural assets. Nonetheless, property assets offer the most robust bases for class formation (Savage et al., 1992). In addition, the embedding of petty commerce can be both ‘identity‐sensitive’ and ‘identity‐neutral’(Sayer, 1995; 2000; Fraser, 1995). Extra‐ethnic factors are significant in this process. The research uses formal interviews and ‘quasi‐ethnographic’ methodology to explore the different contexts in which restaurateurs and market traders operated in Birmingham, UK. The article draws critically on several literatures on industrial organisation, economic sociology, family businesses and minority ethnic businesses. One aim is to give the rather indifferent concept of ‘embedding’ substantive content, and in this way to make an empirically informed contribution to ‘new economic sociology’.     

SPEAKING OF BODIES,PLEASURES, AND PARADISE LOST: EROTIC AGENCY AND SITUATIONIST ETHNOGRAPHY

This ethnographic account of a love story of two elite-level bodybuilders addresses the ways in which broad cultural histories are relevant to understanding contemporarily situated problematics of sex and sexual identity. Specifically I argue that strategically placed historical and cross-cultural studies are useful in understanding in this context how: (1) subjects are configured as gendered, sexed, and sexually-oriented; (2) subjects make love; and (3) attempts to remake love outside the episteme of sexuality are confined. The love story, configured as a ‘paradise lost’ narrative, provides evidence suggesting that the occularcentric and muscularcentric practices of bodybuilding within this specific setting combined to offer the featured couple the material grounds upon which to venture temporarily beyond the pleasures circumscribed by the historical shift in subjectivity associated with Modernity. I conclude the piece by looking to the 1960's European revolutionary aesthetic movement of the Situationists to suggest how a ‘situationist ethnography’ might be used to create conditions of possibility for progressive work in the area of sexuality.     

The Engaged Academic: Academic Intellectuals and the Psychiatric Survivor Movement

This paper considers some political and ethical issues associated with the ‘academic intellectual’ who researches social movements. It identifies some of the ‘lived contradictions’ such a role encounters and analyses some approaches to addressing these contradictions. In general, it concerns the ‘politico-ethical stance’ of the academic intellectual in relation to social movements and, as such, references the ‘theory of the intellectual’ associated with the work of Antonio Gramsci. More specifically, it considers that role in relation to one political ‘field’ and one type of movement: a field which we refer to, following the work of Peter Sedgwick, as ‘psychopolitics’, and a movement which, since the mid- to late-1980s, has been known as the ‘psychiatric survivor’ movement—psychiatric patients and their allies who campaign for the democratisation of the mental health system. In particular, through a comparison of two texts, Nick Crossley's Contesting Psychiatry and Kathryn Church's Forbidden Narratives, the paper contrasts different depths of engagement between academic intellectuals and the social movements which they research.     

Pneumatologie und die Konstituierung soziospiritueller Gemeinschaften

This chapter brings together approaches from social anthropology and sociology in order to explore with a view to ethnographic research data from southern Africa (Zambia) the relationship between the life-world effects of Pentecostal theologies relating to the Holy Spirit (pneuma) on the one hand, and Pentecostal modalities of constituting translocal communities on the other. This focus allows to question conventional understandings of religious sociality as well as to carve out three different ways of establishing what I call ‘socio-spiritual communities’: In the mode of the ‘logistics of the spirit’, a given Pentecostal community expands in the socio-spatial logic of a network, meaning that the spatial movements of the Holy Spirit run parallel to the spatial movements of its human vessels; in the mode of the Holy Spirit’s ‘self-multiplication’, Pentecostal sociality takes the form of a scattering in which autonomous enclaves of spiritualization are connected to each other; finally, ‘spiritual scaling’ represents a mode of spiritual omnipresence in socio-religious space that is affected by changes in the Holy Spirit’s scalar morphology.