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Now and again: Eventful experience as a resource in senior activism.
- Source :
-
Social Movement Studies . Sep-Nov2020, Vol. 19 Issue 5/6, p576-591. 16p. - Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Shared memories shape relations among social movement participants and their organizations. However, scholars often ignore how experience operates as a means of solidifying attachment in group contexts. In contrast, I argue that activism depends on how participants publicly recall events. In this, I integrate a social memory perspective with the examination of activist movements. Through narrative, participants build engagement by presenting the self-in-history as a model for collective action. I refer to this as eventful experience, utilizing memorable moments as a resource for generating commitment. Movements depend upon members communicating the critical moments of their lives, embedding personal timelines in group culture. The linkage of personal experience and public events is a strategy by which individuals motivate collective action. Drawing on a thirty-month ethnography of a progressive senior citizen activist group in Chicago, I examine how members use an awareness of temporality to build a culture of action. Each movement group uses the past experiences of participants to build their culture – what Jasper refers to as taste in tactics, incorporating past successes, present plans, and imagined futures into a call for direct action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 14742837
- Volume :
- 19
- Issue :
- 5/6
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Social Movement Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 146195942
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1555753