Collective identities and formal ideologies in the Irish grassroots pro-asylum seeker movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-72
Author(s):  
Niall Moran
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Support Group ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This article examines the relationship between formal ideologies and processes of collective identity construction across two key waves of mobilisation of pro-asylum-seeker groups in Ireland, namely radical anti-racism and the multicultural support group. In each period, a formal ideological stance delimited the scope of actions available to members. In examining the interplay between collective identity and ideology, the actions and trajectories of individual social movement organisations (SMOs) and the movement at large can be better understood. Processes of collective identity construction facilitated SMO members in creating conditional senses of ‘weness’. In instances, these challenged formal ideologies with differing results. In the case of radical anti-racism, it created a reformist/radical division among members. In the multicultural support group, it created a reformist/non-reformist division. These cleavages are crucial to understanding how the movement progressed over time. Collective identity work is understood as a means through which individuals can challenge or reinforce formal ideologies, thus playing a crucial role in the trajectories of the SMOs examined and their repertoire of actions.

Constructing a Collective Identity Across Conflict Lines: Joint Israeli-Palestinian Peace Movement Organizations*

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Gawerc
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Trust Building ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Protracted Conflict ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Critical Process

For collective action to occur and be sustainable, social movements must construct collective identities and develop a sense of themselves as collective actors. This is especially difficult for movements that work across deep political and cultural chasms, and in situations of protracted conflict. Yet, there has been almost no research on how movement organizations, which work across conflict lines in situations of protracted conflict, are able to establish this sense of cohesion. This project investigates how two joint Israeli-Palestinian peace movement organizations are able to construct shared collective identities in a political environment where each side is cast as the enemy of the other. The findings indicate that in protracted conflicts, trust building is a distinct and critical process inherent in constructing a collective identity. The findings similarly reveal that while storytelling goes a long way toward establishing trust initially, ultimately, collective identity construction depends on visible confirmatory actions.

scholarly journals Learning from difference and similarity: Identities and relational reflexive learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-403
Author(s):  
Nic Beech ◽  
Andrew D Brown ◽  
Christine Coupland ◽  
Leanne Cutcher
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Organizational Setting ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
As If ◽  
Learning Together

Within organizations there is reciprocal interplay between identity construction and learning. Processes of learning are enabled and constrained by identity practices; concomitantly, the possibilities for learning are shaped by the identity positions available to individuals. There is a dynamic between the impositions of organizations and people’s freedom to shape their identities and learning plays a crucial role in this. Our purpose in this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of the intersection of identity work and learning as a response to experiences of being different. Experiences of difference include moving into a new role, encountering a disjuncture with others while in a role or a difference in broader life which is reacted to as if it were a problem in an organizational setting. Being different produces a variety of challenges and the papers in this special issue trace how people cope with vulnerabilities, develop resilience and often collaborate in their learning. We focus on how people reflect on their own identity and learn and how, by learning together with people who have similar experiences, micro-communities can support, develop and enhance their insight and identity-positions.

Queer Festivals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Eleftheriadis
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
European Level

To what extent is queer anti-identitarian? And how is it experienced by activists at the European level? At queer festivals, activists, artists and participants come together to build new forms of sociability and practice their ideals through anti-binary and inclusive idioms of gender and sexuality. These ideals are moreover channelled through a series of organisational and cultural practices that aim at the emergence of queer as a collective identity. Through the study of festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Copenhagen, and Oslo, Queer Festivals: Challenging Collective Identities in a Transnational Europe thoughtfully analyses the role of activist practices in the building of collective identities for social movement studies as well as the role of festivals as significant repertoires of collective action and sites of identitarian explorations in contemporary Europe.

Bali Tolak Reklamasi: The local adoption of global protest

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Bräuchler
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Land Reclamation ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Negotiation Processes ◽  
National Power ◽  
Different Cultures

Diverted by the virality of social media and the powerful visibility of contemporary global protest, social movement research started to loose sight of the invisible and silent aspects of mobilization and underlying collective identities. Looking at a Balinese protest movement against land reclamation whose anti-capitalist and performative character remind of recent transnational protest, this article refocuses on collective identity and examines the local adoption of global protest. It analyses the evolving actor landscape and the negotiation processes between different cultures, ecologies, generations, media and networking strategies that prominently shape the Bali movement. The article conceptualizes the movement as an emerging information ecology and tracks its entanglements with local identity, national power politics and global activism through a culture and transmedia approach. It thus analyses the loud and the silent side of the protest and the movement’s decision-making strategies that involve human and non-human agency, an aspect that is largely missing in current social movement debates. Going beyond simplified notions of strong leadership or leaderless networks, it tracks the difficult balancing acts between openness and closedness, between an ideally consensual and inclusive movement and the necessity to make strategic decisions in a specific local, national and transnational setting.

Meaning and Structure in Social Movements: Mapping the Network of National Canadian Women's Organizations

1991 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan D. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Women's Organizations ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Perceived Effectiveness ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Women’S Organizations

AbstractSocial movements are conceived of as networks that provide structures within which organizations negotiate meaning through the construction of collective identities. Network analysis is applied as a method for mapping the relationship among 33 national Canadian women's organizations. Results show that these diverse groups form an expansive, but loosely coupled, network that is bound by a collective identity of “liberalized” feminism. However, minority women tend to be marginalized within the movement and there are surprisingly few linkages with other core social movements. Intra-movement position has significant extra-movement consequences as demonstrated by the finding that network position is a highly significant predictor of the perceived effectiveness of a social movement organization.

Defining, Aligning, and Negotiating Futures: New Forms of Identity Work in an Urban Farming Project

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 691-708
Author(s):  
Amy Jonason
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Archival Data ◽  
Urban Farming ◽  
Future Projections ◽  
Coordination Problems ◽  
Ethnographic Interview ◽  
Urban Farm ◽  
Project Coordination

Collective identity is critical to motivating and sustaining participation in social movement groups. What organizes and sustains collective action when a group’s members do not share common identity traits such as race, class, religion, or gender? This paper argues that shared ideas about the future, or future projections, are overlooked bases of collective identity in social movement groups, and that the processes of defining, aligning with, and negotiating future projections constitute previously unrecognized forms of identity work. I support this argument with ethnographic, interview, and archival data from a nascent urban farming project. After describing how project founders defined a compelling future of “sustainable community,” I identify a process called imaginative imputation through which a diverse set of participants aligned themselves with the project. Coordination problems created critical points for negotiating new properties of the imagined future, ultimately weakening some individuals’ identification with, and commitment to, the urban farm.

DENIAL, DEFLECTION, AND DISTRACTION: NEUTRALIZING CHARGES OF RACISM BY THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT*

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Malaena J. Taylor ◽  
Mary Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
Racist Ideology ◽  
The U.S

This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the “stigma neutralization model,” which explains how activists challenge stigmatizing identities in order to build a positive collective identity. Using original ethnographic research, we examine the response of a local Tea Party group to charges of racism. If a social movement is seen as racist, their political efficacy may be damaged. By analyzing backstage identity work, we illustrate that the strategies involved in distancing both activists and the movement from charges of racism reflect broader cultural understandings of the U.S. as being a post-racial or “colorblind” society. Our stigma neutralization model illustrates how activists deny, deflect, and distract from charges that activists are racist, thus maintaining and reproducing racist ideology, while reconstituting both individual and movement identities as unspoiled and racially tolerant. We discuss the implications of our findings for antiminority majority social movements more generally.

scholarly journals SCALE, PLACE AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE ALONG INDIA’S NARMADA RIVER

REVISTA NERA ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 96-113
Author(s):  
Pratyusha Basu
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
National Level ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Narmada River ◽  
Sardar Sarovar ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
Sardar Sarovar Dam

This paper focuses on the struggles being waged by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a rural social movement opposing displacement due to dams along India’s Narmada River. Building a comparison between two major anti-dam struggles within the Andolan, around the Sardar Sarovar and Maheshwar dams, this study seeks to show that multi-sited social movements pursue a variety of scale and place-based strategies and this multiplicity is key to the possibilities for progressive change that they embody. The paper highlights three aspects of the Andolan. First, the Andolan has successfully combined environmental networks and agricultural identities across the space of its struggle. The Andolan became internationally celebrated when its resistance led to the World Bank withdrawing funding for the Sardar Sarovar dam in 1993. This victory was viewed as a consequence of the Andolan’s successful utilization of transnational environmental networks. However, the Andolan has also intervened in agrarian politics within India and this role of the Andolan emerges when the struggle against the Maheshwar dam is considered. Second, this paper examines the role played by the Andolan in building a national movement against displacement. Given that India’s Supreme Court gave permission for the continued construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam in 2000, the power of the state to push through destructive development projects cannot be underestimated. The national level thus remains an important scale for the Andolan’s struggle leading to the formation of social movement networks and the construction of collective identities around experiences of rural and urban displacement. Third, this paper reflects on how common access to the Narmada river also provides a material basis for the formation of a collective identity, one which can be used to address the class divisions that characterize the Andolan’s membership. Overall, the paper aims to contribute to the study of social movements by showing how attachments to multiple geographies ensure that a movement’s potential futures always exceed the nature of its present forms of resistance.

scholarly journals ‘The Long and Winding Road’ — Collective action among people experiencing homelessness

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håvard Aaslund ◽  
Sissel Seim
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Boundary Work ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Public Identity ◽  
Action Project ◽  
The Relationship

What possibilities exist for collective action among marginalised people? Through participatory action research (PAR), we study possibilities for collective action among people affected by homelessness and substance use. We describe the process of collective action in a single case, the X-street project, and scrutinise how collective identity can contribute to understandings of collective action. Findings of collective identity in boundary work, consciousness-raising and negotiations suggest that identity work and collective action are closely linked in processes of empowerment and created in mutually reinforcing processes. The case shows that the group succeeded in building a collective action project by simultaneously challenging its members’ public identity and providing them with home and work. More research is needed about the processes of collective action, and the relationship between material change and identity work.

Methodological Considerations and Explanation of Case Studies

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-58
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
Diaspora Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time

This chapter examines various definitions of diaspora and how the characterization of diaspora has evolved over time and through adoption in fields beyond international relations. The chapter provides an explanation on historical institutionalism, which is adopted by the author to explain the selected case studies as well as provides greater insight into the social movement and symbolic interactionism theories of Herbert Blumer, which are used widely in diaspora studies and sociological theories on identity construction. The chapter provides justification for the author's use of qualitative analysis and methods of researching diaspora.

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