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This conceptual paper wishes to contribute to the debate on digitally mediated movements by developing the perspective of ‘contentious branding’. The empirical research has followed the #Occupy and #Anonymous hashtags around popular social media, reconstructing their highly heterogeneous adoption. A branding perspective on contentious politics is aimed at highlighting the diverse and sometimes contradictory appropriations of the ‘semiotic repertoires’ of protest movements, particularly apparent within digital networks of communication. A contentious branding perspective on social movements not only tries to fit these specific cases better: it intends to provide an epistemological and methodological device to sustain a non-essentialist understanding of social movements in general, and to face the challenges and opportunities of digital social movement research in particular. The first section of the paper briefly discusses the concepts ‘social movement’ and ‘branding’, characterizing the proposed idea of ‘contentious branding’. Some insights derived from a broader digital exploration on the uses of the hashtags #Occupy and #Anonymous then serve to emphasize their variable, incoherent and at times contradictory utilization: few of the several reiterations of the brand Occupy, deviating from its original use, are presented, and a heuristic categorization of Anonymous’ diverse issues of involvement is proposed. Based on this, the discussion further develops the concept of contentious branding, clarifying its analytical boundaries vis a vis neighboring approaches in social movement theory. The conclusion discusses some of the epistemological and methodological implications that contentious branding bears for the study of social movements in the digital age.

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008/9 social movements reminis-cent of ecoemancipatory movements of the 1980s powerfully repoliticised the post-political order of neoliberalism. Additionally, and more recently, right-wing populist movements, Fridays for Future or political mobilisations related to the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially refashioned both the understanding of post-politics and the patterns of its repoliticisation. This article introduces a special issue on Movements and Activism beyond Post-politics. In light of these recent shifts we revisit the notion of post-politics, identify key characteristics of contemporary forms of repoliticisation, zoom in on academic debates about prefigurative and transformative politics and – following a preview of the contributions collated in the special issue – explore what the ongoing reconfiguration of public discourse may imply for further research into social movement activism beyond post-politics.

Drawing on insights from social movement studies, public order policing, and the specificities of protest law, this chapter argues that illiberal practices of protest management and manipulation exist in regimes of all political hues. The chapter considers the causes, forms, and effects of protest action in different contexts, highlighting the challenge of attempting to correlate protest activity, repressive tactics and institutionalized opportunities for participation. It is argued that state authorities rely variously on practices of media framing, police repression, counter-mobilization, and legislative intervention to limit or withdraw the public space subsidies upon which equal liberty depends. These distortions of the public realm – in which law is instrumental – serve to rebalance the dynamics of political power and reinforce incumbent advantage. They present an insidious threat to pluralist constitutional democracy wherever they arise.

Grassroots-led global social movements have become increasingly prominent on mainstream media and political agendas. In Scotland, several of these have resulted in significant policy change, including the period poverty movement, which addresses inequalities relating to menstruation. This chapter looks to this movement as a case study, showing how several interventions have led the country to be hailed a world leader in policies providing free access to menstrual products. It will analyze the conditions under which this movement first took hold in Scotland in 2016, moving chronologically from the first mention of the term 'period poverty' in legacy media. It will show how the increasing visibility and discursive realization, or crystallization, of the term itself fueled further activism to influence the political agenda. In doing so, it will show the increasingly hybrid and circuitous dynamic of contemporary political communication and how taking a holistic approach to viewing this may give added insight to appraisals of media and political agenda setting.

The Political Ecology of Austerity explores the environmental dimension of austerity that has thus far escaped academic, policy, and media attention.Offering a better comprehension of the full socio-environmental impact of austerity measures, the book highlights the importance of considering environmental issues when designing responses to economic crisis in the future. Mobilising detailed case studies from across the world, the volume documents the ways in which austerity impacts global and local ecologies, shapes environmental conficts and gives rise to new forms and practices of social moblisation and resistance. Bringing together theoretical debates and rigorous case studies, the book proposes ‘the political ecology of austerity’ as an appropriate method of analysis that can inform our understanding of the shift in environmental protection policies and the intensifcation of growth practices (green or otherwise) that followed the 2008 global economic crisis. The Political Ecology of Austerity discloses austerity to be a globalised set of tools not only for budgetary discipline, but also for socio-environmental discipline that justifes the continuation of capital accumulation at the expense of further global environmental degradation.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of social and political sciences, environmental studies, urban studies, and political ecology.

In this chapter, the authors trace the antecedents of critical literacy by exploring how each of them arrived to the concept, and how these herstories connect with the roots and current trends in critical literacy. The authors also explore the link between popular education and critical literacy, the critiques to critical literacy, and offer three examples of global critical literacy praxis. The authors close the chapter with an invitation to rethink the current role of scholars in the advancement of critical literacies in tandem with social movements.

This book suggests that escapism – the desire to leave one’s physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative – is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukacs, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld – a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.

The topic of women and girls’ rights, access and inclusion in sport and physical activity has become a mainstay of sporting and non-sporting organisational discourse. Notwithstanding, there is little published on why, how and who enabled these topics to become politicised to this extent. For example, academic texts state key moments for the advancement of women and sport, such as conferences and resolutions, but rarely provide further detail. By explaining how transnational women and sport advocacy groups lobbied the United Nations (UN) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) into actions for women and sport in the mid-1990s, this article adds to knowledge about how advocacy groups in international sport succeeded in working together to collectively effect change despite demonstrating contention amongst one another. Data from archival analysis of papers and correspondence of key agents involved in these processes were complemented with semi-structured interviews with some of the same individuals decades later. Using terms and concepts from social movement studies, the article shows how the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG) and WomenSport International (WSI) developed in relation to each other and the political environment in which they were playing a key role in shaping. Their relationship was not straightforward, due in part to the formations and structure of each group, but their purposive efforts with other agents contributed to a collective endeavour that achieved milestones for the political legitimacy of women and sport.

COVID-19 and the related lockdown measures have had an adverse impact on the enjoyment of the right to food and nutrition worldwide, revealing how the dominant industrial food system, pre-existing crises, and structural causes of food insecurity have made our societies more susceptible to hunger and malnutrition in times of crisis, including pandemics. Those most affected by the coronavirus and the lockdown measures have been disadvantaged and marginalized groups, including women. This chapter departs from basic concepts of the right to food. It gives an overview of the impacts that the coronavirus has had on the right to adequate food and nutrition, based especially on the testimonies of communities presented to FIAN International. Furthermore, it presents the responses by a number of communities, governments, and international organizations. Finally, it analyzes the kind of food systems transformation proposed by the rural social movements. It closes with some conclusions and recommendations on the kind of measures required to make our societies more resilient to food crises and emergencies, namely a transformation of food systems that puts the people and the planet before growth and commercial profit.

This chapter provides a historical and legal description of the relationship between social workers and the sex trade in the United States through the lens of social work history, the law, historical and contemporary interventions in the helping professions, and social movements. Often referred to as prostitution, escorting, nude dancing, and pornography, sex work takes many forms. Individuals enter sex trade through choice, circumstance, or coercion, and remain in sex trades for one or more of those reasons. Social work as a profession, practice, academic discipline, and field of research, is called to engage with the complexities and nuances of people engaged in sex trade. As such, this chapter guides the reader toward an intersectional feminist approach to social work that is rooted in anti-criminalization, self-determination, sex positivity, and liberation-based perspectives. This chapter demonstrates the need for an anti-carceral feminist approach to the sex trade by examining how racism, classism, colonialism, militarism, and globalism shape our understanding of sex work.

This chapter focuses on grassroots women's resistance and struggles against corporate and state power to save their livelihood sources in the state of Odisha. It deals with the significance of women's struggle and resistance against the state and corporate power to protect their land and livelihoods. The chapter looks at two movements and discusses women's agencies and emerging political voices in the State. A feminist reading of anti-globalization is aptly described by Mohanty, who argues for a intimate, closer alliance between women's movements, feminist pedagogy and cross-cultural feminist theorizing, inter-twinning questions of subjectivity, agency and identity with political economy and the state. Basu argues that women's movements can address a variety of goals unlike feminism but its constituencies are only female where as for feminism, its constituency can be both male and female. Ray argues, women's movements are shaped and influenced by political fields, which include actors such as the state, political parties, social movements, broader actors within civil society.

Agrarian extractivism has captured growing scholarly attention in the context of heightened land grabbing dynamics. Particularly in Latin America, the concept has gained political traction within different social movements and activist circles. While several studies show extractivism’s disproportionate effects along gender lines, few works have analyzed gender’s role in setting up the conditions that allow for the implementation, maintenance and expansion of extractivist projects. By emphasizing the centrality of both the material and social conditions of reproduction, this chapter shows how gender is not subsidiary, but constitutive of agrarian extractivism. Drawing from ethnographic work carried out in the Colombian Caribbean, it examines the centrality of dispossession in the production of landscapes of oil palm cultivation. By doing so, it contributes to the conceptualization and critique of extractivism, addressing the analytical possibilities that a feminist political ecology perspective can open up in relation to its workings and potential disruption.

This chapter applies a queer gerontology framework to analyse the processes and mechanisms through which heteronormativity seeps into gerontological practice, research, and policy to shape our understanding of family and leisure across the life course. First, we describe how family and leisure has been conceptualized in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities historically. Next, we explore family relationships through the ageing process using theoretical frameworks of queer gerontology and a newly emerging queer life course approach. Finally, we examine the age-friendly community movement to discuss how a broader understanding of family and leisure informed by critical theory can shape practice and policy goals to promote and improve the lives of LGBTQ older adults. We argue that ageing-related research, policymaking, and social movements should be committed to representing complex and intersectional lives of older adults as they interact with the structures relevant to their social and physical ecologies.

This chapter attends to surveillance performed under the guise of civility, with civility being deployed as an instrument for disciplining. The techniques of repression evident in the excerpt, perfected with the mix of surveillance and calibrated control under authoritarianism, embody the normative mode of governmentality of the neoliberal university. Civility serves the Empire by disciplining dissent while simultaneously deploying the White exceptionalism of academic freedom in asserting neocolonial power. The hegemonic US-based literature on new media and democratic processes point toward the democratizing roles of new media in the context of social movements as witnessed in the Arab Spring and other similar movements globally. In the absence of existing frameworks and channels for communication, new media infrastructures such as blogs, Facebook posts, and tweets often serve as sites for resisting the hegemonic ideologies. Incivility, performed as a communicative inversion, is the reference frame for silencing dissent on new media.

From the IMF riots of the 1970s and 1980s, to the anti-globalization protests in the North and South at the turn of the millennium, and the ongoing protests against the decade of austerity that has followed the Great Recession, popular protest has always been closely linked with access to the basic necessities of life. Organizations composed of those predominately outside of the political class and formal worker's organizations have played a key, even leading role in virtually all of these society wide uprisings and/or social transformations. Informed by Social Reproduction Theory and Analysis, this chapter highlights the centrality of these historical and contemporary episodes of protest against austerity, and for an alternative to what has long been for many a protracted struggle to survive/for “life-making” in the context of a “diminishing subsistence base.”

Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book focuses on Taiwan’s most important movement party over the last two and a half decades. Despite its limited electoral impact, its leaders have played a critical role in a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear and LGBT rights campaigns. Plotting the party’s evolution in electoral politics as well as its engagement with the global green movement, this volume analyses key patterns of party change in electoral campaign appeals, organisation and its human face. The second half of the volume concentrates on explaining both the party’s electoral impact and why the party has adjusted ideologically and organisationally over time. Based on a wide range of material collected, including focus groups, interviews and political communication data, the research relies heavily on analysis of campaign material and the voices of party activists and also considers other Green Parties, such as the splinter Trees Party and GPT-Social Democratic Alliance. Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan’s politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements.

The goal of this chapter is to present the development and scope of vegan studies in sociology. It shows how field-wide trends, such as the development of environmental sociology, sociology of food, and sociology of animals and society paved the way for vegan studies in sociology. These movements allowed sociology to break from its anthropocentric foundations and consider nonhuman animals in their work, which, in turn, allowed for vegan studies to thrive in the field of sociology. The chapter starts by explaining how sociological thought evolved to get to vegan studies, after which it considers studies of institutions and issues related to vegan studies, but which do not fit into vegan studies proper. The bulk of the chapter highlights major areas of study within sociology that contribute to vegan studies: symbolic interactionist studies, sociology of culture, inequality (race and gender), and social movements. The chapter ends by outlining the myriad paths for sociologists to further contribute to vegan studies. While sociology is a strong contributor to the interdisciplinary field of vegan studies, there still exist many gaps to fill.

This chapter contributes to scholarly discourse on the potential for linking drama pedagogy with youth participation in social movements as a mechanism for nurturing critical hope and collective agency in the face of widespread despair when confronting the existential threat of climate catastrophe. Collective Forum Theatre pedagogy is introduced as a starting point to support youth in further developing theories of change, envisioning their own potential political roles and entering into participation on their own terms. Collective Forum Theatre maximizes the experiential expertise of various community members and creates opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds and distinct contexts to share their knowledges regarding political engagement. This chapter illustrates and interrogates pedagogical techniques that enable classroom communities to engage in building creative, collective, mutual learning, while also enriching the affective desire for expression and political influence.

Sustainability of community-based natural resource management regimes depends on the capacity to mobilise against external threats and participate in social movements. In this chapter we explore the validity of this conjecture via a meta-analysis of case studies where local resource user communities have mobilised against decommonisation threats. We first characterise the drivers of the threats and their impacts on the essential characteristics of commons management. We then assess the extent to which social movements contribute to “commonisation” processes. We show that, although some “decommonisation” drivers and impacts are more recurrent than others, they tend to occur in bundles and might be better studied as such. Although movements can be understood as responses to “decommonisation” challenges, their benefits usually go beyond protecting communities from the resulting impacts.

This book explores the politics of gendered labor migration in Southeast Asia through the stories and perspectives of Indonesian and Filipina women presented in films, fiction, and performance to show how the emotionality of these texts contribute to the emergence and vitality of women’s social movements in Southeast Asia. By placing literary and filmic narratives of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore within existing conversations concerning migration policies, the book offers an innovative approach towards examining contemporary issues of Asian migration. Furthermore, through rich ethnographic accounts, the book unpacks themes of belonging and displacement, shame and desire, victimhood and resistance, sacrifice, and grief to show that the stories of Filipina and Indonesian migrant women don't just depict their everyday lives and practices but also reveal how they mediate and make sense of the fraught politics of gendered labor diaspora and globalization. Contributing to the "affective turn" of feminist and transnational scholarship, the book draws insight from the importance and centrality of affect, emotions, and feelings in shaping discourses on women’s subjectivity, labor, and mobility. In addition, the book demonstrates the issues of vulnerability and agency inherent in debates on social exclusion, human rights, development, and nation-building in Southeast Asia. Offering an innovative and multidisciplinary approach to analyses of Asian migration, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Asian Studies, literary and cultural studies, film studies, gender and women’s studies, and migration studies.

This chapter begins by presenting the general viewpoint of the penal abolitionist. We then consider penal abolitionism in six hues of thinking, speaking, acting, reflecting, hearing and changing: (1) penal abolitionism as an intellectual and theoretical perspective providing a way of interpreting the world; (2) penal abolitionism as a language; (3) penal abolitionism as a social movement engaged in emancipatory praxis and direct social struggle against penal oppression; (4) penal abolitionism conceived as a form of reflexive political strategy and emancipatory political engagement that builds on abolitionist theory and direct interventions in the social world; (5) penal abolitionism conceptualised as a broader set of ethico-political values and principles that inform how we should live on a day-to-day basis; and (6) penal abolitionism as revolutionary praxis that hears and responds to the voice of subjugated social actors in a given historical conjuncture.

This chapter explores midwifery activism in Mexico in the context of social movement theory and advocacy networks. Based upon multiple empirical sources and fieldwork, the chapter discusses the activism of the so-called autonomous midwives, who defend midwifery in the context of a set of human rights as a contested terrain. Hence, the chapter shows the ways in which midwives act as political actors, not only in defending their profession, which certainly forms a significant political dimension in these struggles, but also in the sphere of professional and women’s rights. The chapter argues that the concept of new social movements, which emerged during the 1980s, remains topical in addressing the question of the link between human rights and social movements. It may also serve as a tool to investigate how women engage with political activism. By exploring the reemergence of the autonomous midwives in Mexico from the 1990s onwards, the chapter shows that the notion of autonomy is a key concept in illustrating the collective action of Mexican middle-class midwives and as part of their role in broader women’s movements for human rights. The chapter concludes by outlining different forms of autonomy, understood as both collective and individual self-determination and self-government, running from professional to (personal) bodily and (public) political ones.

East meets West, which is often a romanticized pseudonym for Hong Kong (for example, David Faure’s A Documentary History of Hong Kong in 1997), represents a narrative reversal of coercive mating of orientalism with colonialism, with opium den replaced by neoliberal skyscrapers hiding its “Global South” side in slums dispersed around the high Gini-metropolis. The day zero – July 1, 1997 – signifies the assertion of certainty that “The North” (or, as it is called in Hong Kong, The Grandfather) replaces the “West” (The Queen), and “East” (oriental relic of “Chinese-ness”) must be absorbed into “The North,” a communist–capitalist–conversative hybrid China, remaining X as “anything but … N.” This “X” sometimes represents itself as anti-North, sometimes is the relic of a non-existent “paradise Western colony,” and sometimes even with city-state ideology that “here is the origin of the East lost,” but ultimately, a hyper-reality that was rooted in the pursuit of desired object a. This chapter will illustrate how ancient Chinese philosophy “The school of name” (led by Gongsun Longzi in circa 300 bc), which proposed that “a white horse is not a horse” (fuzziness between unitary and differentiation) could be applied to critical psychology in the formation of a “Hong Kong is not China” discourse (X vs. N) in post-2014 Umbrella Movement Hong Kong. This will be juxtaposed with Lacan’s discourse on separtition (a state of not-yet separated but already parted) (Seminar X, L’angoisse, 1962–1963). The chapter describes how “social psychology” in local institutions of Hong Kong received funding to create a mirage of “post-colonial” Hong Kong by swiftly stealing “Hong Kong identification” (projects funded pre-1997) to projects that blame the curse of “blockage of upward mobility” with the ultimate “solution” as “house ownership,” which is called “youth-identity priority theme-based projects.” In this way, this covers up the issue of the “birth of Hong Konger” by providing a “solution” that “sons” must be “incorporated” by the “grandfather.” The creation of “Name of Grandfather,” which is not formed by “killing of the father” but “ascension of the father,” becomes a symbol that not only exists in the common Hong Kong language as a metaphor, but a concrete “Grand-Other” (not only big, but “Grand”). In this case, refusal to be incorporated (psychologists call this “social cleavage,” the roots of all disharmony which should be cursed) is a primal sin, which (ironically) is resisted by the social movements that adopted the colonial fantasy as the resistance to the Grandfather. The chapter concludes with Freud’s quote, “Wo Es war, soll Ich werden” (wherever the “other” is, the “I” will return).

This chapter analyzes the Baitul Maal Wat Tamwil institution (BMTI) movement with Islamic social capital in the form of networking, spirituality, norms, and trust to solve the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic Since the COVID-19 pandemic, BMTI have faced the threat of lack of liquidity due to the coronavirus outbreak and survival in the face of sudden shocks of economic downturn The chapter investigates the ability of Islamic social capital to buffer against potential financial turmoil in BMTIs in Indonesia Social capital is a sociological concept that is an indispensable resource facilitating social movement and mobilization The chapter discusses the responses from senior managers of BMTIs Based on the response received from the senior managers of BMTIs, it is essential to explore the views of the zakat institution on its relationship with BMTI The senior manager of BMTI said that BMTI should realize the members’ needs are aligned with the Islamic and cooperative principles © 2021 selection and editorial matter, M Kabir Hassan, Aishath Muneeza, and Adel M Sarea

Arab women are either doomed to an unchanging oppression, or recent changes are attributed to the transfer of Western ideas. Egypt is particularly interesting because of the various Islamist movements that mushroomed in the 1970s, which also paralleled the formation of Islamist women’s groups as part of the broader social movement. Islamist groups grew stronger and more widespread in the 1970s and have continued to gain ground since. During the 1970s, Egypt witnessed more than one group advocating an ‘Islamic alternative’. Women’s groups affiliated to the Muslim Brothers were more engaged in direct politics than women of the other semi-action oriented groups. Islamist women are also invading the mosques, previously a male domain. Through veiling women’s protests can be voiced and perhaps ameliorated in at least three dimensions of inequality: in relations of gender, class, and global position. The veil allies modest middle-class women and differentiates them from lower-class women.

In the context of both the financial crisis and the crisis of European migration politics, the notion of solidarity has gained renewed prominence and – as we argue in this book – its practice has become increasingly contentious. A series of intersecting crises have sharpened social and political polarization and have contracted simultaneously the space for migrant and minority rights as well as the rights around political dissent. This introduction builds upon social movement and migration studies to develop a theoretical framework on the two sides of “contentious solidarity”: a shrinking civic space and its contestation. It thereby maps the variety of repressive means (physical, legal, administrative, and discursive) employed by governmental and non-governmental against migrant solidarity, but also on how civil society organizations react to it through both moderation and increasing contention.

Now in its third edition, Progressive Community Organizing: Transformative Practice in a Globalizing World introduces readers to the rich practice of progressive community organizing for social change while also providing concrete tools geared toward practitioner skill building. Drawing from social movement scholarship and social theory, this book articulates a transformative approach to organizing that embraces emergent strategies and healing justice. It emphasizes framing processes and the power of stories using story-based strategy and digital activism. Embracing intersectional organizing, the book addresses topics such as identity politics, microagressions, internalized oppression, and horizontal hostility with attention to recentering and allyship as a growth-oriented journey of solidarity and liberation. Readers will engage with case studies focused on issues such as poverty, racial justice, immigration, housing, health and mental health, and climate crisis. This new edition includes: Expanded content on transformative change approaches including healing justice New content on the role of digital technology and social media in organizing Case studies of the Poor People’s Campaign and Extinction Rebellion Emphasis on the power of stories and story-based strategy for organizing and issue framing Transformative organizations with attention to feminist and decolonized organizational structures and cultures Expanded chapters on strategies and tactics focusing on power analysis and a range of tactics from direct action to resilience-based organizing The book will be of interest to students and practitioners who want to become more skilled in structural analysis, praxis, and self-reflexivity through critical and transformative engagement with historical and current social problems, social movements, and social welfare.

In the 50 years since the Stonewall Riots, psychological science has played a key role in our understanding and treatment of issues directly affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals within the United States. Of these, pertinent topics include workplace experiences of sexual minorities and gender non-conforming individuals (e.g., workplace discrimination of LGBTQ targets; Ruggs et al., 2015). In this chapter, we outline the history of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists’ interface with the LGBTQ movement through review of major research trends during four distinct eras: The Silent Era (Pre-1969); The Post-Gay Liberation Era (1970-1989); The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Era (1990-2009); and The Present Era (2010-present). We turn to major outside influences—historical social movements (i.e., the Gay Liberation Movement) and legal changes (e.g., recent change in legal interpretation of Title VII)— and ways in which these changes have informed treatment of LGBTQ workplace issues. Although this review suggests great strides in LGBTQ workplace research, we conclude by discussing implications for future research given ever-changing legal and societal treatment of LGBTQ workplace rights.

This chapter intends to introduce the reader to the varieties of approaches mapped throughout the book and discuss the theoretical assumptions and shifts that require contextualization – a concern manifested by both reviewers. Moreover, this chapter presents the importance of fostering an articulation between empirical research and social systems theory, mainly through multi-level observation – confirming the unity of the chapters of this book, since the all authors all present their own perspectives on how to articulate legal empirical research. The three parts of this volume are focused on: (1) methodological trends, such as the possibility of an empirical sociology of law or a critical approach within systems theory; (2) the interface between legal and economic institutions, policies and organisations; (3) analysis of courts, social movements and political transformations.

Building on unpublished ethnography conducted in Massachusetts, 2011–2014, this chapter compares and contrasts context-specific notions and practices of ‘solidarity’ among collaborative networks that are active in organizing alternative forms of food procurement. The terms of comparison is Grasseni’s (Beyond alternative food networks: Italy’s solidarity purchase groups. London: Bloomsbury, 2013) ethnography of Italian Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale, or Solidarity Purchase Groups in northern Italy. Recent ethnographic examples from Italy – concerning especially cooperatives – are contrasted with the US solidarity economy network in the context of the Boston local food movement and Massachusetts community-supported agriculture. The chapter unravels and juxtapose different conceptions, discourse and relevant practices of solidarity in collaborative networks that self-define as ‘solidarity economy networks’ or as ‘solidarity and green economy’ alliances, in order to show how context-bound the meaning of solidarity in collective food procurement is. By showing how ‘solidarity’ translates into different local solutions and social movements, the chapter highlights the sociocultural dimensions of these local experiments in food system transformations.