The NGOization of LGBT activism: ILGA-Europe and the Treaty of Amsterdam

This article discusses the Europeanization of social movement organizations using the case of ILGA-Europe, the umbrella of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations in Europe. It examines the impact of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and focuses on three entrenched dynamics ILGA-Europe has rapidly undergone: NGOization, institutionalization, and professionalization. It argues that although we should be aware of the role of the European political opportunity structure in shaping civil society organizations, we cannot overlook internal organizational dynamics and movement identities. Following the literature on the Europeanization of social movements, this piece confirms institutional opportunities and interactions with European institutions are a major cause of transformation: The adoption of Article 13 and the development of a European equal opportunity policy constitute a pivotal moment in ILGA-Europe’s history, endowing it with easier access to EU institutions and core funding. This allowed the organization to NGOize, contributed to a transformation of its internal structures, and led to the appointment of highly skilled professionals. However, this article also insists on the importance of movement identity. These transformations are not solely the result of interactions with the European institutional environment, but had been prepared by long-term orientations within ILGA, that is a preference for reformist claims and institutional strategies. ILGA-Europe’s NGOization is thus not only a response to institutional and political changes, but also results from specific ways of imagining activism. It is the interaction between movement identity and arising institutional opportunities that allowed the organization to transform.     

Hashtagging girlhood: #IAmMalala, #BringBackOurGirls and gendering representations of global politics

This article explores how gendered, racial and youth-ed concepts of girlhood shape the way conflict, violence and the lived experiences of girls in conflict-affected environments are understood globally. In particular, it examines the broader context and effect of social media campaigns that specifically invoke a concept of “girlhood” in their responses to crisis or tragedy. It focuses on two hashtags and their associated social media campaigns: #IAmMalala, started in response to the attempted killing of Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012 by Taliban gunmen, and #BringBackOurGirls, started by Nigerians and adopted globally in response to the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by terrorist group Boko Haram. In both instances, understandings of the broader political context are shaped by the focus on girls. Both hashtags also appropriate an experience: claiming to be Malala and claiming the Nigerian girls as ours. Through this exploration, I argue that particular ideals of girlhood are coded within these campaigns, and that these girls’ experiences are appropriated. I critique the limited representations of girlhood that circulate in these discussions, and how these limited representations demonstrate the problematic narrowness of dominant conceptions of girlhood.     

Health activism and the logic of connective action. A case study of rare disease patient organisations

This exploratory work investigates the role of digital media in expanding health discourse practices in a way to transform traditional structures of agency in public health. By focusing on a sample of rare disease patient organisations as representative of contemporary health activism, this study investigates the role of digital communication in the development of (1) bottom-up sharing and co-production of health knowledge, (2) health public engagement dynamics and (3) health information pathways. Findings show that digital media affordances for patient organisations go beyond the provision of social support for patient communities; they ease one-way, two-way and crowdsourced processes of health knowledge sharing, exchange and co-production, provide personalised routes to health public engagement and bolster the emergence of varied pathways to health information where experiential knowledge and medical authority are equally valued. These forms of organisationally enabled connective action can help the surfacing of personal narratives that strengthen patient communities, the bottom-up production of health knowledge relevant to a wider public and the development of an informational and eventually cultural context that eases patients’ political action.     

COP 21 Charades: Spin,Lies and Real Hope in Paris

Abstract

UN Climate talks have become an annual fixture on the global diplomatic calendar since 1995. Some have been praised, others denounced, but the levels of greenhouse gas emissions have risen regardless year-on-year. This essay and eyewitness account argues that the Paris COP 21 talks like its predecessors failed to deliver a meaningful result, judged from either a scientific or social justice point-of-view. However it did reveal the presence of a growing and increasingly sophisticated and powerful climate justice movement that heralds the most hope for a just response to the global climate crisis     

Chemo Killed the Small-Talk Gene

Urvashi Vaid is a community organizer and writer active in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and social justice movements for over three decades. She is currently Director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University Law School. She is founder of LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Gill Foundation. Vaid's past positions include Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation, Deputy Director of Governance and Civil Society Unit for the Ford Foundation, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and staff attorney for the ACLU National Prison Project. She is author of the books Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and The Assumptions of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Politics, and Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation, and co-editor of the book Creating Change: Public Policy, Sexuality and Civil Rights. Urvashi has had thyroid cancer and stage III breast cancer.     

研究型购物者为何回归离线渠道购买？——基于感知风险和感知成本视角

针对"反展厅"现象,从感知风险和感知成本视角,探究了多渠道零售环境下研究型购物者从在线渠道回归离线渠道购买的行为机制。采用问卷调研方法,运用结构方程模型对样本数据进行了实证研究,结果表明:在线环境下的感知风险和感知成本显著影响离线购买意愿,进而显著影响离线购买行为;在线购买经验显著负向调节了在线感知风险与离线购买意愿之间的关系,而对感知成本与离线购买意愿关系的正向调节效应并不显著;转换成本对离线购买意愿与离线购买行为关系的负向调节效应不显著,对离线购买行为的负向作用显著。因此,多渠道零售商应充分发挥比较优势,积极构建多渠道,培育网络购买信任,在市场细分的基础上优化营销策略,才能有效应对研究型购物者的"渠道搭便车"行为,进而实现渠道保留。     

试论网络多媒体在大学英语教学中的作用

网络多媒体技术运用对于大学英语教学拥有传统教育无可比拟的优势。在英语教学中利用网络多媒体优势激发学生学习英语的兴趣,突破教学中重点和难点,培养学生解决问题的能力。这会对大学英语教学在新形势下的改革起到至关重要的作用。     

网络消费购后后悔与转换行为研究——基于顾客不信任感的调节作用

网络购物购后情绪和行为研究是网络营销的新研究热点。以消费者网络购后后悔的负面情绪为视角,探讨网络购后后悔与转换行为的关系。研究结果表明,网络购后质量后悔、价格后悔、服务后悔均与转换行为显著正相关。顾客不信任感对不同类型的购后后悔和转换行为起到不同的调节作用。     

从劳动理解社会——阿兰·图海纳的贡献

社会学需要探寻理解社会的多种理论逻辑。阿兰·图海纳在结构主义、功能主义之外,创造了一种行动主义社会学。他研究社会行动,却不是从行动概念出发,而是从劳动出发,研究劳动怎样规定主体、形成历史质和社会运动,从而通过劳动理解社会。这一理论贡献,对于我们研究中国社会学理论,理解中国社会现代化过程,具有重要的启发意义。