Search

As the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement fights to build an alternate future characterized by racial equality and justice, a priority is studying this projected image of what society could look like and how oppressed groups and activists who fight on their behalf feel this might be achieved. This article integrates knowledge from social movement studies, critical race theory, and futures research to add to this critical discussion. Specifically, I use the concept of social movement prospectus to investigate perspectives on future social change in relation to racial justice activism. Through analysis of interviews with 36 U.S. Black millennials about BLM and its potential impact on race relations in the United States, I examine the varied conceptualizations within this group of what success would look like for this movement and whether that success is likely to occur. Broadly, I find that Black millennials are skeptical about BLM's ability to effect social change, but are more optimistic when change is viewed in terms of cultural outcomes than structural ones. I consider the implications of these perspectives for the future of the movement, as well as for scholarship that investigates how social movements produce social change and shape the future of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to analyse how social movements build alternative futures, this article explores the relationship between prefigurative politics and utopianism. A case study of the 'Indigenous Women's Movement for Buen Vivir' in Argentina will reveal how movement members shape alternative futures, while taking into account how everyday life influences their approaches to the future. Empirical data collected in 2019 shows that members define the present day as a crises-ridden dystopian age, exemplified by the conflicts they face which emerge from the resource-based development model of global capitalism. Extractivist activities are understood as destroyers of the planet and therefore are viewed as an imminent threat to human existence. Hence, the members aim to make the future possible by (re)constructing a reciprocity with nature as well as one between humans and other-than-human beings, in short, to realize Buen Vivir. To unravel how prefigurative practices and utopian imaginations intersect and co-constitute each other, I focus on how Buen Vivir is experienced in the movement through horizontality, spirituality, and autonomy. These experiences are framed by the actors as pre-colonial practices that are reconstructed in the present, as they seek to decolonise capitalist modernity 'so that there is a future'. This understanding reflects a cyclical temporality that inspires a processual, non-linear view of social change, which accompanies the indigenous women's 'prefigurative walking'. Thus, the linking of prefiguration with utopianism helps us in grasping the role of imagination, hopes, and visions for future transformations in the process of building alternative futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the multiple and shifting meanings of children's activism and addresses some of the potential benefits and disadvantages of framing a given set of practices as children's activism. After recognizing the potential dangers of overuse of the term, we offer our own conceptual understanding of children's activism, focusing on collectivity, challenging expectations and transforming power. Further, in questioning what is new and old in theory and practice on children's activism, we illustrate how scholars and practitioners supporting children's participation can benefit from established literature, strategies and tools from youth activism and broader work on social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Woody Guthrie built a strong reputation after 1942 as an artist and activist opposed to racism. From that time, he had a consistent ideology that promoted racial justice and economic equality for all. This essay examines pivotal earlier events when he was effectively confronted by two Black people for singing racist lyrics on the radio in 1937 and 1939 and also examines the roles of the "long Civil Rights Movement," the Communist Party USA, and the Black press in aiding Guthrie's development of a new racial consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the discursive strategies used by #EndSARS protesters in their tweets and Facebook comments to construct SARS officers, hold the Nigerian government accountable and demand social change. Informed by social media critical discourse analysis (SMCDA) and social movement theory, the analysis revealed three strategies: constructing SARS as oppressors, representing the Nigerian government as insensitive and issuing a clarion call for action. The analysis shows that these strategies enabled the protesters to construct the victim-aggressor categorisation, thereby legitimising their resistance to police brutality and demand for change. The study also highlights how the protesters deployed local linguistic resources and ideologies to appeal to the emotions of other Nigerians to join the protest. The study demonstrates how digital political mobilisation can galvanise reform in Nigeria, where leaders and law enforcement agencies are held accountable for their (in)actions. This study contributes to the developing interdisciplinary studies on SMCDA and digital activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the globe the amount and frequency of social protests have been increasing. However, we do not fully understand when such protests are effective. This is in part due to conflicting findings in the literature, and the lack of a framework that can integrate these divergent findings about why types of social protests are effective. We introduce a framework for evaluating effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We apply our framework to organize the literature, and in doing so find a pattern that suggests that normative nonviolent forms of action may be most effective in mobilizing sympathetic target audiences, and more extreme disruptive action may be effective at motivating policy concessions from resistant target audiences. Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We then review relevant research to suggest how the framework can help synthesize conflicting findings in the literature. This synthesis points to two key conclusions: that nonviolent protests are effective at mobilizing sympathizers to support the cause, whereas more disruptive protests can motivate support for policy change among resistant individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why develop leaders? What politics are implicit in our practice? This paper uses the history and practice of Popular Education as a comparative framework to survey the politics of intentional emergence leadership pedagogy, surfacing potential alliances for building social change movements. Using a case analysis, the article elucidates the ways the classroom embodies an opportunity to explore and enact a prefigurative politics of significant social change that upends traditional relationships to authority, hierarchy, and decision‐making. Exploring the opportunities and dangers of connecting the classroom to broader social movements, the article concludes by advocating that such connections could offer a firmer and more explicit stance to the question: why develop leaders? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements, NGOs and other political actors often mobilise the law for social change. Strategic litigation and collective legal mobilisation can be key instruments to face current political challenges like the climate crisis, human rights violations against refugees or the exploitation of workers along global supply chains. Although these struggles are framed by a societal context and have impacts on the political and juridical fields, the literature about legal mobilisation still does not decidedly engage with a social-theory-based perspective on such struggles. By developing the concept of legal struggles, the article proposes a conceptual framework to analyse both the ambivalence and the emancipatory potential of progressive struggles in the juridical field. Critical Theory, Materialist Theory and the Theory of Social Fields by Pierre Bourdieu are combined to investigate the specific form of collective legal struggles carried out in this arena. We examine repertoires and strategies of collective actors as well as the emancipatory potential of these mobilisation strategies. Our conclusions point to the structural distinctions and selectivities which define the juridical field in capitalist societies and also the conditions of possibility of political struggles using the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements like BLM and Rhodes Must Fall have recently re-emphasized the need for "working through" our collective past. I argue that we must be careful to distinguish two distinct and sometimes conflicting understandings of what it means to work through the past. An "idealist" understanding which sees "working through" as a process of self-enlightenment and moral learning through uncovering and acknowledging past moral failures and incorporating them into our collective self-image. The "materialist paradigm", in contrast, understands "working through" as a process of uncovering the ways in which the structural causes of past moral catastrophe have endured into the present. It rejects idealist calls for reconciliation with the past and present and aims at the negative goal of preventing future moral catastrophe through changing tainted social structures. I argue, finally, that effective processes of working through the past have to engage in both idealist myth-building and materialist deconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has demonstrated ways in which community events help to establish age-friendly community initiatives and strengthen their impact. We extend these insights by discussing how the design and implementation of a statewide event – the New Jersey Age-Friendly Virtual Fair – exemplifies this practice theory and extends its applicability beyond local community development toward broader state-level age-friendly ecosystems. We describe how events that are deliberately multi-organizational, multi-sectoral, and multi-level can help to further propel the Age-Friendly Movement toward systems change for aging in community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details three developments of the last decade that have had significant effects on the cultural status and sociopolitical functioning of sport in the United States: (1) an unprecedented wave of sport-based protest and athlete activism; (2) new norms and conventions in the sporting establishment for dealing with athletic protest and social issues, especially with respect to media coverage and commentary; and (3) recent Right-wing ethnonationalist engagements with sport, including targeted criticism of both activist athletes and sport as well as populist mobilizations around sport. I summarize these developments and argue that they have made social issues in, and the symbolic significance of, sport more explicit, contested, and polarized than in earlier eras. This new era of contestation and polarization, in turn, has destabilized longstanding cultural norms and ideals about sport and its relationship to politics and social change. While questions remain about how lasting these changes will be, I suggest these new conditions and the cultural politics that come with them call for a reinvigorated critical, dramaturgical theory of sport—one which sees sport as a site of ongoing social struggle that has public meaning and symbolic significance well beyond the boundaries of sport itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Progressive Era, which occurred from the 1890s to the 1920s, was a crucial time in American history and capitalism. It was characterized by industrialization, immigration, and urbanization, which brought both benefits and challenges. The era aimed to address these challenges and create a more equitable society through state intervention and reforms. This symposium explores various aspects of the Progressive Era, including the academic trajectory of influential scholars, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the role of taxation in social policy reforms, arguments against child labor, and the importance of public hygiene. The era saw significant social, political, and economic reform, with movements advocating for labor rights, women's suffrage, public health, and education. The legacy of the Progressive Era continues to inspire modern-day movements for social progress and reform. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, we explore the interaction between unconventional and conventional political participation of electoral candidates with disability who competed in Indonesia's 2019 general elections. Interviews with electoral candidates highlight that their reasons for entering the electoral race, and strategies adopted over the course of their campaigns, were shaped by their prior involvement in the disability rights movement. This connection between activism and electoral engagement demonstrates how the disability rights movement shaped political candidates' selection and use of political participation tools. The significance of these findings has bearing for others seeking to understand the political behaviour of people with disability. In particular, it illustrates that community building based on unconventional political participation can positively influence the participation of people with disability in conventional politics despite ongoing challenges posed by accessibility, public perceptions of disability, and access to resources. The 2019 election was the first national legislative election to be held after Indonesia's new disability law was passed in 2016, and many more people with a disability competed than in it compared to previous elections. Most candidates who ran did not have any previous experience running for public office, but the majority did have experience with disability activism. Candidates were motivated to run for office to build on the previous successes of the disability movement, to make sure people with disability had a voice within parliament and to use the electoral campaign to raise awareness about disability rights within the community. Candidates with a disability struggled with physical accessibility, social stigma, and costs during campaigning. Ultimately, it was the skills, networks and resources that candidates previously acquired through their links with the disability movement that helped them to negotiate these limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin America, the land has been an important issue in driving political and social change since the end of the 15th century, when European conquistadores began their colonial rule, to the present. The purpose of this study is to examine the changing meaning of land, by looking at cases of the Latin America's most representative rural social movements, i.e. EZLN in Mexico and MST in Brazil. In particular, this study distinguishes two currents of environmentalism in Latin America: elitist environmentalism and grassroots environmentalism. The former understands nature as a natural resource that can be developed or nature that needs to be preserved from a human-centric point of view, based on the ‘modern Western view of nature.’The latter understands the environment from the perspective of 'socio-nature', which is not simply a nature that is used and appreciated by human beings, but a more-than-human ecological space, that is, a space where humans and nature coexist. In this context, the meaning of land demanded by Mexico's EZLN and Brazil's MST can be better understood from the perspective of grassroots environmentalism. Both the EZLN and the MST call for land reform, which is not limited to the sense that land is arable land in the economic and social sense that must be secured for capitalist production in the process of agricultural modernisation or under a globalised system of agricultural production. Rather, their demand for land is closely related to the demand for productive justice that can sustain a human life through alternative modes of production, rather than the current mainstream model of development, and the demand for recognition of the political space(territory) that can determine these alternative modes of production and ways of life. Thus, land in these movements can be understood as territory as a political and ecological space for alternative development, beyond the meaning of economic and social arable land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the application of the concept of negative work within Movement Chaplaincy, contending that this framework facilitates engagement with negative spirituality in this sphere of ministry. Using the lens of the 'work of the negative', it examines the interplay between spirituality and political activism in Movement Chaplaincy, addressing potential resistance and inquiries surrounding the fusion of 'negative spirituality'—focused on the apophatic and mystical-paradoxical aspects—and practical collective activism. This approach emphasizes the practical and theoretical aspects of challenging prevailing narratives, investigating self-subverting methods, and unearthing layers of non-identical elements within this process. It suggests that the evolving interest in the role of spirituality within social movements, coupled with initiatives like the Daring Compassion project, signifies a synergy between academic exploration and practical spiritual care provision. Ultimately, this article seeks to interpret activist work through the lens of spiritual accompaniment, creating space for an expanded understanding of activism across diverse identities and power dynamics. It proposes that the concept of 'negative work' serves as a tool for interpreting and deepening comprehension of the intrinsic dynamics within Movement Chaplaincy, fostering an inclusive and transformative approach to social and political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically employs the case of association football in England, from 1980 to 2023, as a social movement timescape, to examine the political consciousness and long‐term mobilisations of a generation of football supporter activists, and their capacity to influence politics, and respond to new, emerging, critical junctures, through networks of trust and shared memories of historical events. This is of crucial importance to sociology because it reveals the tensions between what are considered legitimate and illegitimate social practices which characterise contemporary society's moral economy. Focusing on temporal contestations over regulation, policing, governance and cultural rituals, the article deconstructs the role of generations in social movements, and critically synthesises relational‐temporal sociology and classic and contemporary work on the sociology of generations, to show how legacy operates as a multifaceted maturing concept of power and time. In English football's neoliberal timescape, the supporters' movement has reached a critical juncture; the future will require a new generation of activists, to negotiate, resist and contest the new hegemonic politics of social control and supporter engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research develops a framework that explores how to fuel the climate movement by accelerating grassroots, community‐based climate action. Drawing on insights from consumer psychology, our framework identifies the psychological mechanisms that encourage and motivate people, both individually and collectively, to take climate action, thereby contributing to our understanding of how to advance social action and propel a social movement. Our climate action framework builds on: (1) individuals we describe as climate upstanders who rise up to take climate action with like‐minded others, and (2) communities of climate upstanders who engage in collective action aimed at addressing the climate crisis. Our framework expands the field of consumer psychology by redefining the role of consumers to include the practice of social action and broadening the study of consumers to include collective, community‐based action. We call on consumer psychologists to research individual and collective consumer practices related to social action and contribute to making social good central to the study of consumer psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding disabled youth activism is key for improving young disabled people's participation in politics and social change. Young disabled people require opportunities to situate historical and biographical experiences within broader socio-economic contexts. This will lead to a politicised consciousness surrounding disability, emancipation and social justice. This article presents empirical data from the first study on young disabled people's contemporary position within the UK Disabled People's Movement. It critically assesses three areas pertinent to youth activism: activist membership, social movement organisation and future considerations for activism. This allows for an exploration of how young disabled activists navigate collective action, influence activist claims and demands and understand the issues for sustaining a disabled people's social movement. The article illustrates young disabled activists' desire to disrupt their current position within the UK Disabled People's Movement and bring into focus a future where young disabled people's contributions to activism and social movements are accessible, valued and influential. The article argues that a failure to support young disabled people's participation within social movements will have an adverse impact on their political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the National Lawyers Guild's (NLG) extensive support for radical left activists and progressive social movements, highlighting its holistic approach to legal support beyond legal observing. Topics include NLG's diverse legal support initiatives, such as monitoring police misconduct, defending activists in court, setting up legal offices during protests, and collaborating with activist-led legal collectives and community-based groups.

In this paper, we reflect on the creativity and social change nexus in urban Poland by focusing on the recent religion-linked materialities in Kraków. Such materialities, or religious icons, are directly involved with transformations and the emergence of a new type of Polish civil society and activism. Therefore, we elaborate on the notion of religious icons involved in the recent re-emergence of the protest culture in Poland. We reframe them in terms of powerful socio-religious mediators that open the way to re-imagining and claiming new (re)configurations between social and religious fields in Poland. We acknowledge the role played by affective, creative, and semantic modalities of aesthetics vis-à-vis social change and suggest rethinking the link between creativity and religion, which we consider emblematic of current epistemologies of post-secular urbanities in Poland. We claim that the religion-creativity nexus should be included in the analytical framework examining contemporary developments of Polish civil society in general and social movements in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Gayatri Spivak's journey of subalternity, demonstrating the empirical and sociological salience of this category beyond its theoretical and epistemic features, by highlighting its potential for increasing our understanding of society and bringing about social change. This argument contests assumptions in the literature about an epistemic/empirical fracture in Spivak's work, recasting her theoretical frameworks as sociologically relevant. Moreover, it demonstrates that this sociological reading, although it goes 'against the grain' of Spivak's own reticence about understanding subalternity sociologically, is well-founded: the theoretical-epistemic aspects of Spivak's subalternity contribute to analyses about the situation of subaltern groups under colonialism and neoliberal globalisation and the means by which that subordination can be challenged. This illustrates that her conceptions of subalternity maintain sociological specificity vis-a-vis vague characterisations of subordination (e.g. oppression). Spivak's later reflections on subalternity then grapple with the sociological deadlocks of her early approach: the disentanglement between subalternity and class exploitation. Her work thus delineates an explanatory matrix, interweaving sociological, philosophical and literary tools to explore entangled aspects of the subaltern condition. This systematic reading of Spivak's approach expands and contests current scholarship, highlighting its sociologically compelling aspects and indicating the analytical and transformative potential of her matrix for future sociological debates on subalternity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across four experimental studies (NStudy 1 = 466, a hypothetical movement in Bhutan, NStudy 2 = 447, a hypothetical movement in the United Kingdom, NStudy 3 = 463, a hypothetical movement in Bhutan, NStudy 4 = 460, a real movement in the United States) and an integrated data analysis, we examined when third parties (i.e., those who are not actively engaged in the movement) will support a social movement that permits the use of violence. In Studies 1–3, third parties were more willing to support violence when it was framed as having shifted to violence when nonviolence failed to achieve their goals. Mediation analyses revealed that a shift toward permitting violence reduced support to the extent that the shift created perceived moral decline in the social movement (Studies 1–3), but increased when the shift was perceived to be a last resort (Study 3). Last, we showed (Study 4) most effects disappear when third parties are told that they may be in close proximity to the violence (Study 4). These suggest third parties can and do support the use of violence as well as when and why such support is offered. Public Significance Statement: This study suggests that people may be more supportive of a historically nonviolent social movement who recently change its strategy to violence as opposed to a historically violent movement. Moreover, changing strategy from nonviolence to violence damages the moral image of the movement and leads to receiving less support from the third party observers. Policy makers and movement leaders may take into account the history of the movement and potential consequences of changing strategy from nonviolent to violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of conceptualising social movements draws on a wealth of watery images, from protest waves and political currents, to imagining mobilisations as tides, ripples, cascades or high‐pressure hydraulics. Called upon to analyse complex processes, these waters have a life of their own, carrying analytical implications while extending a relationship to water that is never only symbolic and is material, embodied and historical. This article explores the ways water is "enrolled" to understand movements, to advance three arguments: first, these use familiar water morphologies to naturalise particular, located understandings of political change and social form; second, they imply normative claims and ideological affinities regarding political struggle; third, this has implications for our relationship to water, echoing the abstract and alienating "modern water" of capitalist world‐ecology. The article considers how critical water knowledges and subjectivities, often sustained by social movement spaces, indicate possibilities of a being‐otherwise with water and its meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the socio‐spatial practices of the United June Movement (UJM), a grassroots movement that drew inspiration from the neighbourhood forums of the Gezi Park protests. We argue that the counter‐sites of politicisation and symbolic places engraved on the social movements' memory formed the socio‐spatial base of solidarity networks and the long‐term political organising of UJM. Secondly, we suggest that in an authoritarian context, activist organisations nourishing from full‐scale protests such as UJM need to form, reshape, and sustain free spaces where they feel protected. For testing these arguments, we designed fieldwork around UJM with an ethnographic approach. We concluded that the desire for social change has the potential of generating alternative visions in a spatiotemporal context, but in the medium term, it can turn into a feeling of self‐enclosure or being besieged. Even so, such attempts leave a perpetual legacy, tagged to certain spaces and geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents research designed to support teachers in the promotion of learning practical citizenship through the provision of appropriate guidelines and strategies. Practical citizenship refers to critical participation in democratic processes for social transformation. The authors recognise schools' transformative capacity, despite their hierarchical structure and the prevalence of individuality. They contend that the analysis of how people learn and exercise practical citizenship in diverse contexts generates useful knowledge to be applied in schools.They have analysed the experiences and discourses of the stakeholders involved in participatory movements and practices: those generally located in informal and open contexts. Their interpretation of the results has drawn practical guidelines for helping teachers to make school the most democratic environment possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of social media in the context of contemporary social movements. It highlights the impact of social media on these movements and the challenges they face in navigating the digital landscape. It also mentions the rise of far-right movements and their use of metapolitics in the realm of culture and ideas.

Social movement organisations and unions can be spaces of transformative learning in which organisers research, debate, create, and put into action frameworks for social change. In this article, I engage with themes from Aziz Choudry's writings to explore learning and knowledge-making within and through the United Caucuses of Rank-and-File Educators (UCORE) network. This network has brought together organisers from nearly thirty social justice caucuses from across the United States, fuelling the development of contemporary educator movements. Drawing on over five years of research as a movement ethnographer, I argue that informal and non-formal processes of learning and knowledge production drive the growth of the UCORE network and, with it, broader educator movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the uptake of social justice and climate change as focal issues among the largest U.S. environmental nonprofits. We use 2016 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filings to identify 5,413 large environmental nonprofits of which 8% attend to issues of climate and 10% to issues of social justice. Larger organizations are more likely to attend to issues of climate change and social justice, as are groups founded more recently. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling of organizational mission statements and descriptions of major activities is used to assign groups to six distinct issue categories. Results highlight the divide between wildlife groups that are decidedly unlikely to attend to issues of either climate or justice, and the rest of the national environmental movement. Energy and natural resource groups, while strongly vested in climate issues, rarely attend to social justice. These findings have clear implications for climate and justice advocates seeking change in the environmental advocacy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes how (post)-migrant media outlets discussed the position of (post)-migrant people in France. (Post)-migrant media are periodicals, radio stations, and other forms of media produced by (post)-migrant actors and addressed to them. I argue that changes in the Global Cold War order, French national politics, and social changes in French (post)-migrant communities fostered a transition from anti-imperialist to multicultural understandings of migration in the examined media. The paper shows how these changes affected the experiences and identities of (post)-migrant people and adds a global history perspective to existing explanations about generational change and national political developments. It tracks how (post)-migrant media offered a space to negotiate the position in France against the backdrop of global developments such as the Cold War, decolonization, the disillusion with postcolonial governments, and the rising human rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is perhaps nothing more hopeful in the world than to attempt to develop a truly meaningful relationship with another human being. The formation of authentic relationships can be powerful for many reasons including contributing to the formation of collective movements and social change. But, what does an authentic relationship look like in an inherently time-limited community-engaged learning (CEL) experience? I utilize the case of a CEL class, rooted in some of the aims of the Jesuit Justice Circle (experience, understanding, imagination), which offers the opportunity for college students to enjoy early morning walks to school with youth.2 I analyze student data from their relationship development journals and semester-long writing assignments to describe patterns in their development of relationships with fellow classmates and community members. In so doing, I offer an initial descriptive account of what the critical CEL aspirational concept of authentic relationships looks like "on the ground.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do women who have faced housing instability interpret and set up strategies to access housing? This article reflects on biographical narrative interviews conducted with women who have experienced compulsory housing removal and with women who were living in squats organized by social movements in the city of Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil. These interviews were further analysed through the use of the biographical case reconstruction method. This method aims to comprehend the interviewees' past and present perspectives on experiences of struggle related to housing, and its connection to individual and family stories and broader socio-historical processes. The two cases discussed in this article show that to access formal housing through social policy, not rarely women confront socially and politically legitimate discourses and practices by adopting strategies beyond legal or formal means. The selected cases have demonstrated distinct perspectives on similar conditions, revealing that women who have faced housing instability can interpret and experience the consequent processes of temporariness and of changing geographical and social ties in different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What characterizes the administrators (or admins) of social media groups dedicated to social change and protest against institutional injustices? The article analyses the characteristics of such admins using the activism for justice for Roman Zadorov in Israel as a case study. The findings demonstrate a phenomenon of 'ad-hoc activism': The background of the admins is heterogeneous, with most having no history of activism before their involvement in the activism for justice for Zadorov. In addition, these admins have negligible involvement other activism causes – they gather 'ad hoc' only through justice for Zadorov activism. The socio-demographic and other characteristics of the admins are discussed. Implications regarding the character of contemporary online activism and of the people leading it are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literary responses to Mexico’s 1968 sociopolitical movements tend to focus on male perspectives, resulting in a largely masculine version of the events. This study expands on this rather homogeneous response by focusing on two plays by women: Sócrates y los gatos by Elena Garro and Octubre terminó hace mucho tiempo by Pilar Campesino. Both works problematize the male-centered sociopolitical movement that advocated equity and inclusiveness while marginalizing women’s contributions to social activism. By focusing on personal relationships in parallel to political discourse, the two pieces underscore the political as explicitly intrinsic to gendered concepts and structures. Through their critique of Mexico’s political ideology, Garro and Campesino accentuate a male-centered social stratification that severely discounts women’s contributions to social change. Their plays propose an understanding of gender inequality as an encounter between a paternalistic nation-state, a tradition of masculine ideology as the center of Mexican thought and social movement, and a patriarchy embedded in identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social structure of an animal population can often influence movement and inform researchers on a species' behavioral tendencies. Animal social networks can be studied through movement data; however, modern sources of data can have identification issues that result in multiply-labeled individuals. Since all available social movement models rely on unique labels, we extend an existing Bayesian hierarchical movement model in a way that makes use of a latent social network and accommodates multiply-labeled movement data (MLMD). We apply our model to drone-measured movement data from Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus) and estimate the effects of sonar exposure on the dolphins' social structure. Our proposed framework can be applied to MLMD for various social movement applications. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasingly being used by academics to address urban health and inequity. While its foundational literature emphasizes CBPR's role in eschewing the traditional balance of power between communities and institutions, some scholars and grassroots activists note that it has not consistently delivered community-led, action-oriented strategies. Here we examine gaps between theory and current practice of CBPR. First, we assess its fundamental practices through social movement theory. Second, we examine narratives from grassroots leaders who have utilized CBPR in their environmental justice efforts. Three key facilitating factors are often cited for authentic applications of CBPR: (1) grounding research within community-specific opportunities for change, (2) collaborating with a strong community partner, and (3) facilitating flexibility in research processes. Building on previous scholarship, we investigate the complexity of CBPR implementation that may dampen its potency as a social change strategy and highlight the need for nuanced and critical application of best practices to suit local contexts. This is accomplished by pairing the theoretical framework with the experiences of four community leaders who are members of the Moving Forward Network (MFN). Narratives from their experiences with partnering with academic institutions speak to how theoretical complexities with CBPR occur in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It remains to be seen whether the American Psychological Association's new apology and resolutions on racism will help redress longstanding inequities in the field. To be sure, critiques of psychological science vis-à-vis racism have been around for decades, despite being ignored by psychological science, even when spoken by Dr. King—in his profound meditation on science, psychology, and racism in a speech delivered to the APA—or by psychiatrist Frantz Fanon—who has had a foundational influence on the broader history of anti-racism scholarship but remains relatively disregarded in his own psy-fields. This article addresses the viewpoints of these and other people of color on psychological science, which have yet to be adequately incorporated into the perspectives of psychological science. We also address traditions of communities of color that have become absorbed or consumed by psychological science but often after their cultural and historical origins are erased, like Buddhism. We locate these racial and scientific dynamics, and associated patterns of neglect and erasure, within a longstanding aversion in and by psychological science—here understood as a collective actor unto itself—to perspectives of people of color. Consequently, the promise not only of diversity, but of desegregation, has yet to be fulfilled within psychology. We conclude by discussing the psychosocial power of social movements—including South Africa's apartheid-related Truth and Reconciliation process as personally experienced by our second author—to suggest elements of pathways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do those seeking social change stand to gain or lose when they turn to litigation? Scholars of legal mobilization have addressed how litigation can shape social movements through its indirect effects, as going to court can unite, mobilize, or legitimize activists and their opponents. But these previous studies tend to disregard the nuts and bolts of litigation, instead focusing on judicial decisions or treating lawsuits as monolithic events. In contrast, this Note attends to the process of litigation in all its complexity, arguing that particular elements of litigation— namely claiming, discovery, and record building—are critical sources of indirect effects. This Note further argues that while such elements offer activists distinctive opportunities to draw extralegal benefits from legal action, these benefits are enabled and constrained by the procedural rules and norms that structure litigation. By constructing a new approach to legal mobilization that highlights the centrality of procedure, this Note challenges the terms of the debate over the utility of courts to social movemen [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the landmark Urgenda case, European social movements and legal networks have increasingly turned to courts to compel governments to more ambitious mitigation policies. The rapid proliferation of Urgenda‐like cases in the most diverse European jurisdictions, makes a compelling case to investigate the motivations and goals animating European climate litigators, especially when facing high legal barriers. While timely legal analyses of high‐profile climate litigation abound in the literature, an emerging body of research has focused on the genesis of climate cases , their strategies, and societal impacts. To contribute to this latter thread, the article investigates how legal barriers and considerations, and social movements' motivations and goals,have shaped a diverse range of legal strategies in high‐profile climate lawsuits inspired by Urgenda in Europe. The article shows that courts might turn into very different arenas to pursue social change, in which actors elect cautious or daring strategies, depending on the legal system and tradition they refer to, but also their vision and objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of this article are: first, to review the quantitative indicators used in the literature to measure bonding, bridging and linking types of social capital; and, second, to review its operationalization process. It takes into consideration the methodological ambiguity with which these concepts are treated. It is argued that there is a good number of indicators that do not represent the theoretical concepts, based on: (i) the overlapping of chosen indicators between the dimensions of the concept; (ii) the theoretical ambiguity of social capital in its definition (especially from the communitarian approach); (iii) the empirical ambiguity in the choice of indicators; (iv) the lack of an ad hoc design to measure social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opposition driven by social movements rooted in native or peasant communities against mining projects, such as the Conga's ones (Peru), shows a special difficulty for the analysis due to the importance of ceremonies in which entheogens are used to contact with spirits and to enable the production of information, diagnoses and plans. This kind of social movements require a cultural analysis that underlines the cultural gaps between the collective actors that also affects the ideological frameworks and the theoretical models that are used by the activists and the researchers. At the end, the article concludes that the four-ontology map proposed by Descola, which establishes four relationships between the human and the non-human, is very useful in order to analyze conflicts in terms of ontological gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a consideration of physical activity within the contexts of social movement philosophies, decision making, strategies, and tactics through an examination of the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Drawing from interviews with twenty activists on the Great Peace March, the author argues that physicality and endurance actions—literally, but also symbolically—signify particular meanings of movement for social movements, such as persistence, focus, and determination, to stretch sociopolitical limits and boundaries. Participants endeavor to accomplish difficult physical challenges and maintain the solidarity of their communities to analogize the coming into existence of equally extraordinary visions of social or political transformation. Physical and symbolic expressions of what the author terms "endurance activism" sustained the marchers' vision of community and the survival of their organization. The article encourages sport historians to use a wider framework to interpret the links between physical activity, social activism, and oppositional movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses some elements proposed in the book "The Great Transformation of Sociology" (Torres, 2021), focusing on the link between social sciences and social change. For that purpose, I return to the concept of mediations elaborated by Marcuse (1993), as a key to thinking about connections between social sciences, subjects and socio political processes. I go deeper into this discussion by analyzing some features of feminist social sciences, particularly the way they relate to feminist social movements and the way they articulate theoretical development and the will of changing patriarchal relationships. As a corollary, I reflect on the possibilities of recovering some learnings from the feminist thinking in order to revitalize critical social sciences, pointing out the connection between academic development and political commitment as a prominent feature, based on the strong bonds it has with such an expanding social movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local food movements rely on engaged farmers, gardeners, and shoppers to challenge the conventional food system through consumer-based tactics by advocating food systems change to reduce social injustice and environmental harm. While much literature engages in debate over the efficacy of such "lifestyle movements" to effect change, little analysis to date considers the rationale for and contexts in which lifestyle politics are used as an approach to address the socio-ecological impacts of conventional food production and consumption. Using interview data and participant observation collected from 57 leaders in eat-local initiatives in three Canadian cities, we analyze why leaders in the movement rely on consumer-based strategies to both initiate and sustain engagement from actors that might not otherwise engage in social movement mobilizations for food system change. We found that many "eat-local" leaders are aware of the political limitations of shopping for change tactics, but withhold explicit critiques of power in the food system from public debate. They do so in order to maintain a perception of optimism that they perceive as central to maintaining and increasing engagement of consumer actors in eat-local initiatives. This study advances research on informal participation in food movements by demonstrating how convivial engagement at the everyday level can sustain political participation and simultaneously obscure critical political talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social trust has been compromised locally, nationally, and globally, and very recently more and more social scientists, ethicists, theologians, and civic leaders have highlighted its necessity for the function of social life. This article reviews the ways that social trust has been jeopardized and engages indicators that attempt to find where the trust is most at risk and what the better responses to it might be. It then turns to two collective gatherings, populism and synodality, to consider how we might better respond to these different forms of collective movements or gatherings so as to further the restoration of social trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research examined the perspectives of both White and Black racial justice activists on the roles of White allies in the struggle for justice for Black people in the United States. Study 1 used Q methodology, a mixed‐methods approach, which identified four distinct perspectives about the role of White allies from a sample of activists (33 White and 22 Black Americans): (1) mobilize to support Black leadership, (2) interpersonal activism, (3) avoid dominating Black people's efforts, and (4) lifelong learning. In Study 2, we interviewed activists (22 White and 12 Black Americans) to understand their evaluation of, and preference for, each of perspective identified in Study 1. Thematic analyses showed that each perspective had its pros and cons regarding considerations of how to best use ingroup advantages without dominating the movement. Our findings contribute to our understanding of potential tensions in solidarity‐based social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the commitments and outcomes of municipal access without fear policies in Canada over the past decade. The potentials and limitations faced by sanctuary cities are evaluated through an analysis of municipal policies, peer-reviewed scholarship, and grey literature. In particular, I focus on three conceptual framings that are commonly associated with sanctuary city policies––sanctuary-as-defiance, sanctuary-as-protection, and sanctuary-as-inclusion––and ask: to what extent can these be observed in the discourses and actions of Canadian sanctuary cities? I find that while municipal access without fear policies do constitute valuable expressions of solidarity with residents without immigration status, municipalities have faced several challenges in living up to their expectations. I conclude by suggesting that we might look toward grassroots social movements, advocacy organizations, and community networks for examples of these fundamental commitments to defiance, protection, and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada and many other countries, voices from across the political spectrum are using the metaphor of "war" to describe contentious debates on a diverse range of topics. While the socalled culture wars are poorly defined, there is certainly evidence of increasing affective polarization (strong negative feelings toward out-group members). Many conflicts prominently feature destructive approaches based on ineffective theories of change. Even social change movements fighting for goals that are closely aligned with those of peace workers--achieving more egalitarian societies that respect the dignity and human rights of all and overcome systemic discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identity characteristics--appear to urgently need the knowledge that exists in fields like peace and conflict studies. The reasons for this, and the particular insights that peace and conflict experts have to offer to those seeking to achieve positive interpersonal and intergroup peace (i.e. peace grounded in justice), will be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has seen the rise of new kinds of grassroots social movements. Movements including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter. Sunrise. and #MeToo pushed back against long-standing political, economic, and social crises, including income inequality, racial inequality, police violence, climate change, and the widespread culture of sexual abuse and harassment. As these social change efforts evolve, a growing body of scholarship has begun to theorize the role of lawyers within these new social movements and to identify lawyering characteristics that contribute to sustatining social movements over time. This Article surveys this body of literature and proposes a typology of terminology that names, identifies, and distinguishes the underlying characteristics and principles of prominent models of social change lawyering. Our typology is intended to create common conceptual ground in the field. The Article then applies this typology to the case study of one social change campaign to illustrate the ways scholars and advocates can use the framework to think strategically about tailoring goals and strategies to various sociological and theoretical factors. By mapping advocacy to theories of social change lawyering and tailoring such work to socio-legal factors, our goals are several We hope our typology will launch a conversation that enables scholars and lawyers to evaluate diverse lawyering modalities in light of lawyers' conception of their roles, their theory of social change, and the contexts in which they work. We also hope that our typology provokes engagement and correction, in the spirit of collectively imagining new ways of inhabiting the lawyering role that support critical social change efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previously rare events, mass protest movements have become popular vehicles for those seeking political, economic, and social change. How do we evaluate movement success? Most studies addressing movement outcomes are grounded in the goal attainment approach, where movement success is dependent upon fulfilling one's stated demands. The models derived from this approach heavily rely on visibility and transparency in the policymaking process. These offer limited analytical utility for scholars studying movements in authoritarian states, where policymaking is shrouded and media is state-controlled. Evaluating movements solely on their fulfillment of mission goals is highly problematic, as movements produce more outcomes than their intended goals. Movements also produce unintended benefits: concessions unrelated to the movement's mission. These include negative consequences, or societal costs. Since movements produce both positive and negative unintended outcomes, any evaluation of a movement should also incorporate the costs associated with new gains. I argue a cost–benefit approach improves scholarly conceptualization and measurement of protest success. I conceptualize protest success as multidimensional and comprised of protest gains and societal costs. I develop a 21-point scale of protest success using Mokken Scale Analysis. AISP diagnostics indicate gains and costs comprise separate subscales, which are collapsed to produce total sum scores. I score 34 nonviolent movements in authoritarian states between 2002 and 2013 on an additive scale. Protests in authoritarian settings attain considerable accomplishments; however, those gains come with significant cost. Most total success scores are negative, indicating considerable backlash is common during and immediately after the demobilization of movements in authoritarian states. Success scores improve upon the canonical binary measure by: (1) offering improved discrimination between movements, (2) identifying cases of regime 'ignoring', and (3) pinpointing misclassified cases. By incorporating negative consequences into our evaluations, we advance our understanding why movements deemed successful by scholars are disappointments to their home publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New religious movements in almost all societies, especially in the USA and Western countries, are attracting attention with their rapid increase day by day. New religious movements are classified according to their origins, singleness or doubleness, and their view of the world. As E. Durkheim pointed out, the cause of one social event is another social event. As a social protest movement, many factors such as social, cultural, religious, economic can be mentioned in manifestation of new religious movements. Secularism, modernism, postmodernism, laicism, economy, globalization, social change, lack of religious knowledge etc. are the dominant concepts that are directly related to the new religious movements. In a different way, there is an extremely intricate and complex causal relationship between these phenomena and the emergence of new religious movements. Considering that these relations take place within the principle of mutual interaction, it is understood that the issue is extremely comprehensive and pushes the boundaries of research in this aspect. For this reason, only a few of the factors mentioned in our study have been pointed out. Factors such as modernism, postmodernism, secularism, globalization, exclusivity, inclusiveness, religious pluralism, social change, a sense of deprivation, laicity, economics, indifference to religion and lack of religious knowledge among them were focused on and the necessary discussions were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]