scholarly journals The researcher as cognitive activist and the mutually useful conversation

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassie Earl
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Research Interview ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Movement Activities

This autoethnagraphic article argues that in the study of political education, especially learning through social movement activities, the knowledge produced by the research will be of greater social use if researchers position themselves as ‘cognitive activists’. This is because, the article argues, the researcher needs to work in solidarity with social movements for socially just change in order to reconnect academic knowledge work to the wider struggles for social change. The article thinks through the implications and ideas around this framing of research work and positionality. It then goes on to examine in detail one of the techniques for taking this position – that of the mutually useful conversation frame of the research interview – exploring why this thinking came about and how this framing of the interview is politically necessary for the cognitive activism proposed.

scholarly journals GERAKAN SOSIAL DAN NALAR ISLAM PROGRESIF: MENCARI TITIK TEMU KERANGKA METATEORI

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Ahmad Izudin
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Important Position ◽  
New Social Movement ◽  
Meta Theory

This article will examine how progressive Islam’s reasoning can be a reference to free human beings from the exploitation and domination of social class? So what social movements can we do in the midst of crush the nation’s problems related to the exploitation of natural resources that increasingly vine? From this point on, I hope to get a meta-theory regulation that can be implied entirely for the benefit of society, in order to be free from exploitation and domination. To answer this important position, the discourse of social movements can be mapped into two, namely old social movement and new social movement. While Islam as a universal religion, there is no need to discuss theological-transcendental issues, but how the theology should create a new, more applicable avenue of dialectics to answer the question the rulers of powers domination. In the hope of a progressive, inclusive, open-minded, and pluralist theological doctrine. The results of this study may contribute to the development of science and the movement that became a turning point and reference in social change.[Artikel ini hendak mengkaji bagaimana nalar Islam progresif yang dapat menjadi acuan untuk membebaskan manusia dari eksploitasi dan dominasi kelas sosial? Lantas gerakan sosial apa yang dapat kita lakukan di tengah himpitan persoalan bangsa terkait eksploitasi sumber daya alam yang kian menggurita? Dari titik ini, maka saya berharap mendapat satu regulasi metateori yang bisa diimplikasikan sepenuhnya untuk kepentingan masyarakat, agar bisa terbebas dari ekspolitasi dan dominasi. Untuk menjawab posisi penting ini, maka diskursus gerakan sosial dapat dipetakan menjadi dua, yakni old social movement dan new social movement. Sementara Islam sebagai agama universal, tidak perlu lagi membahas persoalan teologis-transendental, tetapi bagaimana teologi itu harus menciptakan ruang dealektika baru yang lebih aplikatif menjawab persoalan dominasi kekuasaan para penguasa. Dengan harapan munculnya doktrin teologis yang progresif, inklusif, open-minded, dan pluralis. Hasil kajian ini semoga memberikan kontribusi bagi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan gerakan yang menjadi titik balik dan acuan dalam perubahan sosial.]

scholarly journals The evolving quality and scope of new social movements: Toronto food security organizations mobilizing for change.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Schieck
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Food Taking ◽  
Security Organizations

"This research project investigates some contemporary urban aspects of the politics of food. Taking social movement theory as my theoretical framework, this paper examines the ways in which the practices and services of Toronto organizations such as the Stop Community Food Centre, FoodShare, and Not Far From The Tree promote countercultural food ideologies and thus may be viewed as actors attempting to influence political and social change through food. While individual organizations should not be confused with social movements, it is possible that we may be able look at this ensemble of organizations as an informal network that exemplifies a new contemporary form of social movement."--Pages 3-4.

Social Media and Social Movements

2021 ◽  
pp. 1096-1105
Author(s):  
Sheldondra J. Brown ◽  
Grace M. Babcock ◽  
Monica Bixby Radu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sociological Research

Because of the increasing importance of the link between social media and social movements, recent research attempts to bridge the gap between media studies and sociological research on social movements. Yet, questions remain unanswered. For example, does social media help facilitate activism that leads to social change? What are the strengths and limitations of social media in creating and maintaining a social movement? This chapter explores these questions and others, paying attention to the #Blacklivesmatter hashtag and social movement, which scholars argue is a power force demanding social change in America. This chapter introduces the concepts of social media and social movements and reviews recent literature examining how social media plays an active role in creating and encouraging social movements. This chapter also considers how sociological theory can provide a better understanding of what social media means for modern social change and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Coloring social change: Humor, politics, and social movements

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-511
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Takovski
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
On Line ◽  
Present Case Study

AbstractAs many social movements demonstrate, humor can serve as an important resource to resist oppression, fight social injustice and bring social change. Existing research has focused on humor’s role within social movements and its positive effects on the free expression of criticism, reduction of fear, communication, mobilization of participants and so on. However, the current literature on the activist use of humor also expresses some reservations about its political efficacy. While humor may steam off the energy necessary to counteract oppression and injustice, other tools of achieving the same political ends have been successfully deployed, primarily social media. Building upon this research, the present case study explores the 2016 Macedonian social movement called the Colorful Revolution. In particular, through the analysis of social media and activists’ reflection on the political use of humor, this case study examines how on-line humor contributed to the emergence and development of the movement. Factoring in activists’ opinions on the role of humor in society and especially in movements, while also paying attention to the role of social media, this case study tends to re-interpret the role of humor in the totality of the actions and circumstances underpinning the development of a social movement.

Identities and Politics

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Social Categories

Critics of identity politics often wax polemically as they charge contemporary social movements with narrowly and naively engaging in essentialist politics based on perceived differences from the majority. Such essentialism, critics charge, inhibits coalition building (e.g., Phelan 1993; Kimmel 1993), cannot produce meaningful social change, and reinforces hegemonic and restrictive social categories (Seidman 1997). It is even responsible for the decline of the Left (Gitlin 1994, 1995). Social movement scholars similarly view “identity movements” as cultural rather than political movements whose goals, strategies, and forms of mobilization can be explained better by a reliance on static notions of identity than by other factors.

Toward a Militant Ethnography of Infrastructure: Cybercartographies of Order, Scale, and Scope across the Occupy Movement

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-509
Author(s):  
Joan Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Infrastructure Studies

Taking networked social movements as a fieldsite, I chart how the Occupy Movement transformed as activists turned to building infrastructure as a mode of political participation. Critically, infrastructure is not simply a feature of networked social movements, but forms its core capacities. Integrating insights from militant ethnography with STS research on infrastructure studies, I illustrate how to use these methods to render visible the infrastructure of networked social movements. Because militant research projects and STS scholarship have a dual role of making knowledge about as well as knowledge for participants, examining the epistemological foundations of social movement research requires understanding the researcher’s purpose for participating and, then, operationalizing their knowledge. To illustrate this, I introduce cybercartography, a theory/methods package, for mapping organizational change in order, scale, and scope across networked social movements. As such, cybercartography bridges academic knowledge production with activists’ goals to organize action.

scholarly journals Inhabited Ecosystems: Propelling Transformative Social Change Between and Through Organizations

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 931-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rich DeJordy ◽  
Maureen Scully ◽  
Marc J. Ventresca ◽  
W. E. Douglas Creed
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Change Effort ◽  
Relational Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Domestic Partner Benefits ◽  
Partner Benefits ◽  
Change Efforts

Two research streams examine how social movements operate both “in and around” organizations. We probe the empirical spaces between these streams, asking how activism situated in multi-organizational contexts contributes to transformative social change. By exploring activities in the mid-1990s related to advocacy for domestic partner benefits at 24 organizations in Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota, we develop the concept of inhabited ecosystems to explore the relational processes by which employee activists advance change. These activists faced a variety of structural opportunities and restraints, and we identify five mechanisms that sustained their efforts during protracted contestation: learning even from thwarted activism, borrowing from one another’s more or less radical approaches, helping one another avoid the traps of stagnation, fostering solidarity and ecosystem capabilities, and collaboratively expanding the social movement domain. We thus reveal how activism situated in multi-organizational contexts animates an inhabited ecosystem of challengers that propels change efforts “between and through” organizations. These efforts, even when exploratory or incomplete, generate an ecosystem’s capacity to sustain, resource, and even reshape the larger transformative social change effort.

What a Good Idea! Ideologies and Frames in Social Movement Research

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Oliver ◽  
Hank Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Frame Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Coherent Systems ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social

Frame theory is often credited with "bringing ideas back in" social movement studies, but frames are not the only useful ideational concepts. The older, more politicized concept of ideology needs to be used in its own right and not recast as a frame. Frame theory is rooted in linguistic studies of interaction, and points to the way shared assumptions and meanings shape the interpretation of events. Ideology is rooted in politics and the study of politics, and points to coherent systems of ideas which provide theories of society coupled with value commitments and normative implications for promoting or resisting social change. Ideologies can function as frames, they can embrace frames, but there is more to ideology than framing. Frame theory offers a relatively shallow conception of the transmission of political ideas as marketing and resonating, while a recognition of the complexity and depth of ideology points to the social construction processes of thinking, reasoning, educating, and socializing. Social movements can only be understood by linking social psychological and political sociology concepts and traditions, not by trying to rename one group in the language of the other.

A useful shift in our perspective: integrating social movement framing into social marketing

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Daellenbach ◽  
Joy Parkinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Marketing ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Collective Action Frames ◽  
Social Movement Framing

Purpose The elaboration of framing in social movement theory offers a different perspective than is typically taken in social marketing. This paper explores how social marketing may benefit from this alternate lens. Design/methodology/approach The construction, features and processes associated with collective action frames in social movements are examined and explored via two social causes: obesity and disaster preparation. Findings A social movement perspective on framing highlights the need to better understand variations in how groups may perceive a problem and its solutions. It suggests a range of considerations and options in constructing and participating in the development of collective action frames, which are suggested to benefit social marketing initiatives and, thus, society. Research limitations/implications Further research in societal well-being and the meso-level of social change should consider adopting a social movement framing perspective. A list of questions is provided to guide future research. Practical implications Mobilising a group into action is often a necessary and effective step in realising social change. The questions raised in social movement framing will equip practitioners and researchers with greater understanding of the issue, the context and potential solutions, ultimately to encourage positive social movements and social benefit. Originality/value While calls have been made for broader perspectives in social marketing, little attention has been given to social movements. This paper offers a way forward with respect to framing.

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