Feminist Development Justice as Emancipatory Praxis

Social media is being employed to build support for social, economic, and political justice (Selander et al. 2016; Vaast et al. 2014) in movements such as occupy Wall Street, violence against women's movement and global sustainability movement. These movements have used social media in ways that goes beyond simple communications. As social media allows people to produce and share user generated content, they enable a certain set of affordances of these technologies (Bharati et al 2015; Bharati et al 2014). The social media affordances, available to both collective and individual actors, translate into capabilities afforded to social movements (Tufecki 2014). Research on connective action has examined the effects of digital action repertoires on interaction and engagement such as in the Tea Party and Occupy movements (Agarwal et al. 2014; Selander et al. 2016). Social media can also facilitate mobilization of movement and participation by new volunteers and oftentimes provides a transnational character by diffusing actions beyond the virtual (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010). Conversation, an essential part of social movements, shapes “social life by altering individual and collective understandings, by creating and transforming social ties, by generating cultural materials that are then available for subsequent social interchange, and by establishing, obliterating, or shifting commitments on the part of participants&x201D; (Tilly 2002, p. 122). In a personal interaction that involves repeated organized interactions between individuals, typically, leads to shared values and trust. The role of social media technologies in furthering this conversation has to be studied and its' influence on social movement ascertained. A few scholars have started to investigate social media affordances and capabilities, especially focused on discourse, during contentious collective action. Still the research has been limited to studying mechanisms of participation, development of a sense of collective identity, creation of community, and framing of political discourse (Farrell 2012; Garrett 2006). Social media data on social movements can involve impersonal “like&x201D; and “share&x201D; to more engaged conversations. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube offer a wide communicative and discourse reach in networks with text, image, audio, and video data. This social media based big data, consisting mostly of unstructured data, comes in the form of social media posts, digital pictures and videos. The symposium will discuss how formal organizational structures and practices might be integrated with social media capabilities to reinforce and enhance social movement organizations as leaders in social change movements. It will explore the characteristics of social media discourse and assess the dynamics of social movements and, subsequent, impact on real-world protests. The symposium will also demonstrate how discourse analysis can be applied visually in order to understand communication patterns. The panel symposium will focus on theoretical and methodological challenges of social media analytics, big data and social movements. Panelists will engage the audience in an interactive discussion on: 1) Theoretical challenges: a. How and why are social movement recruitment and engagement mechanisms being impacted as a result of social media? b. How do we advance theory on social media and social movements when we are overwhelmed with social media based big data? c. What approach should we undertake if big data analysis contradicts most theories on social media and social movements? d. How do we address the issue of generalizability of social media and social movement research when data collection was limited to one social media platform, albeit involving big data? 2) Methodological challenges: a. What methodological approaches have worked in the analysis of social media, big data and social movements? b. How can discourse analysis be applied visually in order to understand communication patterns evident in social media-based big data? c. How can we employ social media analytics to investigate image and video data? d. What combinations of qualitative and quantitative methodologies be employed for big data and social media analytics in the context of social movements? e. What are the limitations of quantitative data analysis techniques, such as structural equation modeling, because of an extremely large sample size? f. What are the limitations of qualitative data analysis techniques as they become extremely labor intensive and, maybe even, impractical because of big data?

Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 290 pp.The Geographies of Social is an ambitious project that seeks to use ethnography to bridge political and cultural geography with social movements studies. More specifically, Ulrich Oslender deploys critical place (17) and rich ethnographic fieldwork to analyze the social movement(s) of black communities in Colombia's Pacific Coast region. For Oslender, this means focusing first on the situated cultural, physical, and social fabric of everyday life in these communities, before then tracing the diverse ways that these everyday realities get translated into social movement discourse, practice, and ideals. As a geographer, Oslender's emphasis is on understanding the ways that black communities in Colombia's Pacific Coast articulate their understandings of territory, collective rights, and the logic underlying them. What ensues is not a detached account of Colombian geography, but rather an ambitious ethnography grounded in place and space-one that is even poetic at times.Ulrich Oslender argues that social movement scholars need to go beyond analyzing generic processes and mechanisms (5) of movements and instead account for the dynamics of place-making and the assemblages of spatial relations that occur through human and non-human (in this case, aquatic) entanglements, which he captures through his concept of This shift away from purely structural accounts of movements is of course nothing new (i.e., New Social Theory), and his focus on the geographical constitution of social movement agency (13) draws on the work of geographers like Paul Routledge (1993), Steven Pile and Michael Keith (1997) who also demanded that space and place matter in social movements research. Where Oslender truly makes a unique contribution to the literature on social movements is through his concept of aquatic space. This concept allows him to fuse an attention to space with a multi-scalar examination of the situated physical, cultural, and political contexts of everyday life while paying serious attention to the narratives people have about space. Oslender takes this as the foundation for his analysis of social movement agency.The Geographies of Social begins with an introduction to the study and manuscript, as well as a brief primer on the relevant scholarship on place and social movements. The author goes on in Chapter 1 to outline his critical place perspective by reviewing the literature, which he groups as follows: Lefebvre and the Production of Space, which following Lefebvre's (1991) theory of the social production of space is broken up into the conceptual categories of Spatial Practices, Representations of Space, and Representational Space. This section is followed by A Critical Place Perspective on Social Movements where Oslender engages the work of geographers like Doreen Massey (2005) and David Harvey (1985) to argue, convincingly, for the need to account for the relationship between space and place, in order to render the multi-scalar, grounded, and networked experiences of communities and social movements legible. What I found to be missing, however, is an explicit engagement with the literature produced by anthropologists on social movements, space, and place. I found this surprising given the book's attempt to examine social movements ethnographically. For example, I would have liked to see the author relate Arturo Escobar's (2008) use of the notion of meshwork to his own concept of I think there may be a productive engagement there, especially given Escobar's similar interest in examining territories, difference, and social movements through theories of assemblage and his vast experience conducting ethnographic fieldwork with Afro-Colombian communities in the very same region. …

In the early 1980s many social theorists claimed that the ‘New Social Move­ments’ (NSMs) were the authentic social movements of our time. This claim is discussed in relation to two traditions in the analysis of social movements. The ‘American’ tradition focuses on the single-issue movement of a protest and mobilizing character. The ‘European’ tradition focuses on the relation between major societal changes and processes of class formation, the labour movement being the classic case. In the article the women’s movement is discussed as a major cultural revolutionary movement, the different campaigns dealing with the new urban forms of socialized reproduction, housing, planning, etc., as movements for the defence of the ‘real consumption'; the green and environmentalist movements taking up the conflicting relation nature-society. Is the relation between the NSMs and the new and growing social strata of students, and employees within the welfare state, which make up their audience and activist core, to be understood as a parallel to the part played by the ‘old’ social movements in the making of the working class, the farmer class, etc? It is argued that there is no ‘necessary’ relationship between the societal changes and the NSMs, as there was between industrialization and the labour movement. The societal relations and changes around which the NSMs organize themselves - gender contradictions, socialization of reproduction, con­tradictions in the forms of modern urban living, nature society - do not single out a new social force as their ‘natural’ counterpart. They are both more encompassing in their reach and more non-partisan in character. The most likely centre for a possible coalescence of a multitude of NSMs into a major social movement, if not in the class formative sense, is the societally basic relationship, nature-society. The themes and issues raised by the NSMs can in the political process become articulated with existing political and social forces. The capacity of these forces and institutions to absorb the issues raised by the NSMs deter­mines the possibility for the NSMs to emerge as a new major social force.

Modern social movements should be considered in the context of the existing public sphere, the main theorists of which are J. Habermas and P. Bourdieu. The article analyzes various aspects of the functioning of the public sphere, examines the role of mass media in the formation of the public sphere and the orientation of public opinion. Using the example of social movements in France, the author examines how the public sphere affects the functioning of social movements. Nowadays, the media largely determines the agenda and controls public debate. Besides, the experience of each person is completely mediated by the communication means. At the same time the media is largerly influenced by politics and, as a result, the public sphere loses its functions. Nevertheless, the public of organized individuals could become an effective participant in public communication, through which it is possible to legitimize the achievement of political compromises. The author concludes that social movement's analysis should be focused not only on the political, economic and social causes of demonstrations, but also on the public sphere in which they exist. In addition, the discourse constructed by the mass media is not only imposed on society, but belongs to it. Each person contributes to its creation, and social media platforms play an important role in this. If public discourse is the result of the activity of many actors, then it is necessary to consider the possibility of interference in its construction.

La Terza Via

In this lectio praecursoria, which I presented as part of my doctoral defense at the University of Eastern Finland on 5 November 2021, I delve deep into the Brazilian anti-mining movement to understand the context in which activism take place, their main strategies and course of actions, and their ability to influence the overall mining debate in Brazil in the 2010s. It sheds light on the key challenges faced by groups fighting for more environmental and social justice in mining conflictual situations. More specific, the research covers the 2013–2017 time frame, when discussions on the mining framework and a severe tailings dam failure happened. These two cases are analyzed and their effects on anti-mining activism are explored through a twofold focus on social movements and environmental justice studies. The study contributes to scientific discussions on mining and society by seeking conceptual bridges across political-ecologically oriented studies on social movements against mineral extraction. It also expands, significantly, analyses of social movements in Brazil by contributing to the international comparative literature on the social and environmental impacts of mining, Brazilian and Latin American studies, studies on mining history, sociology of mining, and mining policy.

I analyze the historical development of the job training programs enacted during the War on Poverty. Combining insights from power resource theory, mass turmoil theory, and the polity-centered approach, I develop a theory. State transformation theory moves beyond the traditional focus of social movement theories on how the state shapes the outcome of social protest, to consider how social movements affect the process of state formation. I outline state transformations that occurred in the context of conflict between civil rights activists and organized labor over the definition of economic justice. Evidence indicates that deep structural change occurred within the state and suggests that this transformation was legitimated by ideological claims that redefined democratic rights. Recent developments in the analysis of social movements have renewed interest among sociologists in the political aspects of social movements. Although theories of social movements recognize that social mobilization is part of the process of state formation, they focus primarily on how the state shapes the outcomes of organized protest (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald

In this chapter, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is introduced as a research design which can be a fruitful tool for the (comparative) analysis of social movements. QCA is a case-study methodology that enables researchers to compare mid-sized numbers of cases in view of sufficiency and necessity set relations. It is especially suitable for the assessment of “if… then” hypotheses. It takes into account complex causal structures, referring to equifinality, conjunctural causation, and asymmetrical causality. With the fuzzy set version, it is also possible to work with those concepts which are dichotomous in nature, but which can then be more finely grained; these kinds of concepts are very typical for the social sciences in general and for social movement research in particular. The contribution also gives some examples for applied QCAs in social movement research.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979, the student protests of 1999, and the Iranian Green Movement are among the most important social movements in contemporary Iran. This tumultuous history makes Iran a prime candidate for any analysis of social movements and collective action. However, a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between studies of Iranian social movements and the larger literature on collective behavior and social movements is yet to be conducted. I divide the literature on Iranian social movements between works focusing on the Islamic Revolution and those addressing movements in post‐revolutionary Iran with a focus on the Iranian Green Movement and point out the major foci of each category. Analyses of the Islamic Revolution mostly emphasize the role of grievances, political opportunities, and Shi'a ideology. Works on post‐revolutionary movements are mainly concerned with analyzing the role of political opportunities and internet and communication technologies. Overall, studies of Iranian social movements seem to be moving towards more connection with and application of mainstream theories of social movements. Nevertheless, I identify four areas with room for improvement: (a) a continuous connection to and dialogue with the mainstream literature on collective behavior and social movements; (b) an emphasis on the use of cutting‐edge analytic techniques, especially quantitative ones; (c) increasing the number of studies that address issue‐specific social movements such as the women's and LGBT rights or environmental movements; and (d) conducting more comparative studies on Iran and a variety of different societies. In addition, I suggest that the scholarship on social movements in contemporary Iran can benefit studies of social movements in general by testing and modifying theories in a sociopolitical setting that is different from where they originally focused on.

ABSTRACTResearch on consociational power-sharing divides on whether it provides a successful model for peacebuilding or instead exacerbates antagonistic ethnic divisions. In these debates, non-sectarian movements are either invisible or rendered as actors marginalized, co-opted, stripped of agency and disempowered by power-sharing. This article moves the focus away from “either” “or” analyses of consociationalism measuring its capacity to entrench or weaken ethnic divisions. Alternatively, it examines the different ways power-sharing effects a range of issues and groups and the varying modes of engagement generated by non-ethnic social movements in response. Power-sharing creates various dynamics that can result in either hegemonic compliance, constructive engagement, or active resistance by social movement actors that cross-cut ethnic cleavages. Using Lebanon as a case study, the paper examines movements that deal with sexuality, privatization, and public goods, issues that are shaped by consociational institutions but rarely incorporated in power-sharing research.

This article examines the narratives of green energy adopted by opponents of geothermal developments in Indonesia and how they incorporate those narratives into grassroots social movements. Debates about energy transitions are more than pragmatic policy discussions; they are based on concepts of human-nature relations. Decoloniality provides a lens to engage with the energy transition debate by 1) examining to what extent energy transitions reinforce or disrupt power structures that view nature as a material commodity and marginalize affected communities, and 2) enriching social movement theories with embedded narratives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Community-based researchers in 14 locations affected by geothermal developments collected data and worked with the authors to reflect on findings. The study found contrasting narratives between energy coloniality and decoloniality in six aspects: green energy definitions, environmental impact, ownership of green energy policy, socio-cultural aspects, national development policy, and local development priorities. It found that opposition movements demonstrated decolonial praxis by 1) incorporating religious and cultural practices into creative strategies for resistance, 2) embedding local narratives of green energy, and 3) connecting economic arguments with cases for cultural and spiritual survival. The article concludes with suggestions for future empirical studies of environmental movements using decolonial frameworks.

In response to Appadurai's ‘Grassroots globalization and the research imagination’, this paper explores some of the theoretical, ethical, methodological and practical issues of developing a ‘strong internationalisation’ of research with and amongst grassroots globalisation movements. Drawing on five years of solidarity and research experience between Colombia and the UK working with grassroots social movements I explore issues relating to knowledge production, the dialogical process of working with social movements and the potential for reclaiming the western academy as a site of social criticism and resistance. While sympathetic to the content and objectives of Appadurai's position the paper argues for a more holistic integration of research into broader processes of popular resistance to neo‐liberal globalisation. It also promotes a greater recognition for the role, value and development of the intellectual ‘outside’ of the academy and ‘inside’ grassroots globalisation movements.

Power dynamics shape, and are shaped by, the tools used by participants in social movements. In this study we explore the values, attitudes, and beliefs of Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street stakeholders as they relate to their use of technology. This multi-method study applies the lens of value sensitive design [VSD; Friedman, B. (Ed.) (1997). Human values and the design of computer technology (vol. 72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] to examine stakeholder values and sites of value tension. We contextualize our findings with qualitative observation of how these values are reflected in each organization's online spaces, including Facebook, Twitter, and key organizational websites, as well as private spaces such as email.We found liberty, the value most mentioned by Tea Party members, was not reflected in the movement's organizational websites and Facebook pages, where user autonomy is frequently undermined. However, the Occupy value of equality is supported in the movement's web presence. We also found a set of shared central values – privacy and security, inclusion, and consensus – underlying both Tea Party and Occupy's approach to organization and participation. Value tensions around privacy and inclusion emerged for both groups, as some members opted not to use these tools due to security concerns and leaders struggled to adapt their communication strategies accordingly.This study provides insight into the adoption and contestation of different technological tools within grassroots social movements, how those decisions are shaped by core values, and how conflicts over the use of digital tools can result from tension between how different stakeholders prioritize those values.

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.

Reviewed by: The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa by Elke Zuern Carin Runciman (bio) Elke Zuern (2011) The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press Elke Zuern’s The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa engages in an ambitious contemporary, historical and comparative analysis of community politics in South Africa. The main thrust of Zuern’s analysis is to examine South Africa’s democracy, not from the perspective of institutions and legal norms, but from that of ordinary working class people. This volume therefore examines the everyday meanings of democracy and its influence in shaping popular struggles of the last 30 years contributing to similar debates advanced by Latin American scholars in expanding the study of democracy (see O’Donnell et al 2004, Holston 2008). The book covers three phases of popular struggle in South Africa: the civics in the 1980s, the civics during the political transition of the 1990s and an analysis of new social movements and popular struggles post-2000. Employing the comparative method, Zuern also offers an analysis of similar struggles in Mexico, Nigeria, Botswana and Argentina. Through the course of the analysis offered Zuern advances four central arguments about community-based politics. The first and perhaps most insightful argument is that, the politics of necessity is not only about material needs. Those who frame their demands in protest often begin with and emphasis basic material necessities, but their demands also include the right to be heard, to have a voice, to be consulted and to become full members of the political community. (15) [End Page 137] In recent times, there has been considerable debate over the meaning of recent protests. The ANC has argued, as in Jacob Zuma’s 2014 State of the Nation address, that protests are the result, paradoxically, of good service delivery, while myself and others (see Alexander et al 2014) have argued that such protests are illustrative of a much wider crisis in post-apartheid democracy. Zuern’s volume helps to ground these arguments historically by demonstrating how struggles over the last 30 years have concerned themselves not just with fighting against apartheid or poor service delivery but have contained much broader claims and critiques about the society in which we live. The second important contribution Zuern makes is to the under-studied and under-researched area of demobilisation. Through an analysis of the civics and SANCO during the transitional period, Zuern documents how various civic organisations became increasingly drawn into mechanisms of local government and became spaces which were less participatory. Thirdly, she argues that processes of mobilisation which encourage people to critique and debate the current order of things enhance democracy. Finally, our understanding of democracy needs to be broadened and strengthened through an analysis of the role community-based organisations have in shaping and challenging ideas about democracy. The historical account which Zuern provides on the civic movement provides a much needed caution against the ANC’s attempt to appropriate this period of struggle history. As Zuern notes, while its politics and its members played a significant role, the ANC did not control or lead this struggle movement. By providing an account of the influence of Black Consciousness politics in the formation of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO) Zuern provides a nuanced analysis of the differing and conflicting political views of the period which is often missed in other analysis. Furthermore, Zuern discusses the important class dynamics within the mobilisation of the Soweto Civic Association (SCA). Through interviews with civic leaders Zuern provides an important insight into an area of South African history which is still relatively under-researched. Although Zuern’s analysis of the transitional period and the role of SANCO has appeared elsewhere (see Zuern 2001, 2006), by grounding it within a historical analysis these sections provide an important link in understanding the civics and current forms of community mobilisation. Furthermore, by examining this period of history Zuern provides some much needed analysis of the processes of demobilisation. [End Page 138] In addition, the volume provides some analysis of the movement organisations that have emerged post-2000...