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.     

Conspiracy theories and social movements studies: A research agenda

It is surprising to note the scarcity of contributions in social movement literature related to so-called conspiracy theories. A considerable amount of the work on these topics has been produced in political science, history, media studies, social psychology and other disciplines. These accounts have often adopted a stigmatizing approach, looking at conspiracy theories as forms of pathologies (whether psychological, social or political). Moving from such a perspective to a constructivist one, I argue that conspiracy theories should represent an object of interest for social movement scholars: conspiracies supporters go into the streets to highlight their issues, protest against authority, propose alternative lifestyles and often claim to look for a better/different society. Applying the social movements toolkit can allow to better understand this phenomenon and apply critical perspectives in a more effective manner. On the basis of this premise, the first part of this article reviews the existing literature on conspiracy theories, also identifying the main lacunae; the second part outlines some possible research questions and lines of inquiry, moving beyond the classical theories in the field of social movement studies. The paper also introduces a number of new concepts, such as conspiracy mobilizations and conspiracy coalitions.     

Political activation and social movements: Addressing non-participation in Aotearoa New Zealand

The decline of participation in traditional civic political processes, like voting in elections and writing to elected representatives, continues to deepen in contemporary liberal democracies. However, civics comprise only one avenue for political participation. Social movements also play a key role in influencing political affairs by exerting pressure on established institutions from outside rather than within. ‘Political activation’ is key to understanding and addressing non-participation in both movement and civic settings alike, yet activation in movement settings, like non-participation more generally, remains under-researched. This article seeks to address this imbalance by exploring ways of using political activation theory to synthesise research on the fields of political participation and non-participation, in both civic and social movement contexts. After reviewing the literature on activation, which favours political participation in civic settings, I then juxtapose this existing scholarship with a case study focused more on non-participation and social movements as they are understood by movement organisers in Aotearoa New Zealand. In so doing, I demonstrate how civics, social movements, participation and non-participation can be better understood together to advance scholarship on why people do or do not engage with politics.     

Intersectionality and social movements: Intersectional challenges and imperatives in the study of social movements

Intersectionality emerged in the border space between social movements and academic politics as a means of better understanding and confronting interlocking systems of oppression. For scholars studying social movements, it offers a framework for better understanding the power dynamics of movements (the inclusions and exclusions). It is also something to be studied. Women of color, and other groups at the intersection of multiple marginalities conceptualized intersectionality as not only a type of integrated analysis or heuristic, but as an active political orientation to be put into practice. In this essay, I review and discuss the benefits and challenges of studying social movements intersectionally (an analysis that might be applied to the study of any movements), as well as the growing literature focused on social movement intersectionality, that looks for and at intersectionally oriented movements and the praxis of intersectionality within movements. This developing area of study provides new ways of understanding and troubling social movement solidarity.     

Protests as critical junctures: some reflections towards a momentous approach to social movements

ABSTRACT

Recent times have been defined as momentous: great transformation, great recession as well as great regression have been frequently used short-cut terms to characterize the period following the financial breakdown of 2008. As for contentious politics in these times, we frequently hear references to crisis as well as eventful protests, as calls for what was expected to be routine protest triggered portentous waves of contentious politics. Reference to moments of change can be found in different approaches addressing social movements from the macro, meso, and micro levels. While neoinstitutional approaches have looked at extraordinary times from a macro perspective, the Chicago School adopted a micro perspective, looking at the sudden breaking of established paths, the reproduction of ruptures, and their stabilization. An emerging concern in social movement studies with ‘great transformations’ that triggered big mobilizations can also be seen at the meso level Drawing on these perspectives, I argue that some eventful protests trigger critical junctures, producing abrupt changes which develop contingently and become path dependent. While routinized protests proliferate in normal times, under some political opportunities, some protests – or moments of protest – act as exogenous shocks, catalyzing intense and massive waves of contention. Referring to the debate on critical junctures, and bridging it with social movement studies, I thematize a sequence of processes of cracking, as the production of sudden ruptures; vibrating, as contingently reproducing those ruptures; and sedimenting, as the stabilization of the legacy of the rupture. With the aim of mapping some relevant questions, rather than providing answers, I refer for illustration to research I carried out on movements in democratic transitions during economic, political, and social crises, as well as their legacy and memory.     

Symposium on political communication and social movements: ships passing in the night*

ABSTRACT

In this essay I argue that we can begin an interdisciplinary conversation by acknowledging the contributions political communication can make to social movement studies (and visa versa) as well as critically assessing how each discipline can productively contribute to the other. Social movement scholarship, for instance, can contribute key definitions and specifications to core concepts such as activism to political communication research. Communication scholarship can provide movement scholars a methodological toolkit that will help them better understand (and study) audiences, particularly how audiences understand movement messages. I conclude the essay by arguing that increased interdisciplinary engagement will grow the impact of both fields on public discourse and policy processes. An unwillingness to think across disciplinary boundaries, however, threatens to transform us into the worst version of our academic selves – close minded intellectuals unwilling (or unable) to change with the times.     

Symposium on political communication and social movements: audience,persuasion, and influence

ABSTRACT

This article argues that an important contribution that political communication can offer social movement studies is a more variegated understanding of social movement audiences and their role in social movement strategy and processes. Specifically, the article introduces a coarse typology of social movement audiences and discusses the importance of understanding differences in the goals of these audiences and what kinds of influence, from messaging or other forms of pressure, may be important to affect different audiences in movements’ favors. The article also examines the ways in which audiences are active, shaping what messages they are exposed to, consume, believe, and act upon. The call of the article is to bring a concern for audiences into social movement studies in the hopes of wedding these more media and communication-focused concerns with the kinds of structural and material influences social movement studies is so accomplished in investigating.     

Immigrant rights and social movements

The disciplinary fields of immigration and social movements have largely developed as two distinct subareas of sociology. Scholars contend that immigrant rights, compared to other movements, have been given less attention in social movement research. Studies of immigrant‐based movements in recent decades have reached a stage whereby we can now assess how immigrant movement scholarship informs the general social movement literature in several areas. In this article, we show the contributions of empirical studies of immigrant movements in four primary arenas of social movement scholarship: (a) emergence; (b) participation; (c) framing; and (d) outcomes. Contemporary immigrant struggles offer social movement scholarship opportunities to incorporate these campaigns and enhance current theories and concepts as earlier protest waves advanced studies of collective action.     

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements. Media ecology and media practice approaches

Abstract

The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies. In particular, the article argues that media ecology and media practice approaches serve well to reach this objective as: they recognize the complex multi-faceted array of media technologies, professions and contents with which social movement actors interact; they historicize the use of media technologies in social movements; and they highlight the agency of social movement actors in relation to media technologies while avoiding a media-centric approach to the subject matter. Second, this article employs a media practice perspective to explore two interrelated trends in contemporary societies that the articles in this special issue deal with: the personalization and individualization of politics, and the role of the grassroots in political mobilizations.     

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.     

Articles reporting research on Latin American social movements are only rarely transparent

ABSTRACT

Social movement scholars often want their research to make a difference beyond the academy. Readers will either read reports directly or they will read reviews that aggregate findings across a number of reports. In either case, readers must find reports to be credible before they will take their findings seriously. While it is not possible to predict the indicators of credibility used by individual, direct readers, formal systems of review do explicate indicators that determine whether a report will be recognized as credible for review. One such indicator, also relevant to pre-publication peer review, is methodological transparency: the extent to which readers are able to detect how research was done and why that made sense. This paper tests published primary research articles on and for social movements in Latin America for compliance with a generous interpretation of methodological transparency. We find that, for the most part, articles are not methodologically transparent. If transparency matters to social movement scholars, the research community may wish to formalize discussions of what aspects of research should be reported and how those reports should be structured.     

The New Anti-war Protests and Miscible Mobilizations

This paper analyzes the factors contributing to the relative success of the recent mobilizations against war despite the peace movement organizations' weakness and unfavorable political opportunity structures. I argue that these anti-war protests were shaped by two factors: first, by trigger events which created new grievances and, second, by the use of new information technologies such as the Internet. These factors contributed to what I call miscible mobilizations, or simultaneous mobilization efforts by movements with compatible ideologies and shared activist communities and SMOs. Results from an extensive study of the anti-war protests from September 2001 in the USA support this notion and call attention to the need to develop a synthesis between traditional resource mobilization, political process, and new social movement theories of mobilization and to focus research on the fluid processes of miscible mobilizations.     

Anti-corporate movements and public relations

This paper develops a theoretical framework of the anti-corporate movement. We argue that previous accounts in the public relations literature, including theorizing around stakeholders, publics, activist groups and issues management, are limited and provide only a partial conceptualization of anti-corporate movements. In order to address this shortcoming, we draw upon social movements theory to develop a grounded and enriched theoretical framework of anti-corporate movements.     

A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student Movements

Recent theory and research on revolution indicate that leadership and ideology play crucial roles. Much of the leadership and ideology for contemporary revolutions developed within the context of student movements. But previous research on student movements has often been limited to developed Western societies and has yielded typologies of student activism that have little application to revolutionary movements worldwide. Based on an analysis of student movements in many societies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new typology of student movements is formulated. The typology, which allows differentiation among reform student movements, identity radicalism student movements, structural revolutionary student movements, and social revolutionary student movements, appears capable of identifying the essential contrasts as well as key similarities among a wide range of student movements in many societies. Conditions fostering each type of movement are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of case studies in several countries and how these student movements are categorized in the new typology.     

Theory-bashing and answer-improving in the study of social movements

Over the 1970s and 1980s, a “theory-bashing” mindset gained popularity among sociologists of social movements and, for a period, overshadowed the alternative mindset of seeking to improve answers to questions about social movements. Now on the wane, theory-bashing nonetheless retains a significant presence. This mindset has a number of attractions and virtues and it is, broadly speaking, legitimate. But, it also has negative features and consequences that I want to point out. I begin by showing how the theory-bashing differs from the answer-improving mindset and I then explain ways in which the former hinders the analysis of social movements even though it can also be helpful. Finally, I offer a sociological account of why theory-bashing has been so popular in movement studies. His most recent book isPolite Protesters: The American Peace Movement of the 1980s (Syracuse University Press, 1993).     

The unity of social movements

A coherent intellectual structure for social movement studies has recently been emerging over a range of theoretical and empirical studies. This structure counterposes ‘within social movements’ a diverse range of collective actions against the unity imposed by a collective identity. However, theorisations of this collective identity have so far failed to address the contradiction between structure and agency. A definition of collective identity for social movements that is not caught in the structure/agency divide is proposed by defining the appropriate level of abstraction for such a definition, defining why movements are unified and then how.     

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.     

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.