Risks and ethics of social movement research in a changing political climate

2010 ◽  
pp. 43-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Blee ◽  
Tim Vining
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Climate

scholarly journals The Challenges of Representing Rural Migrant Workers in China: Factors Influencing the Goals and Strategies of Labour NGOs in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan Province

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ao Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Yunnan Province ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Rural Migrant Workers

<p>Labour NGOs operating in mainland China have played the role of de facto representatives of rural migrant workers since their emergence in the 1990s. After their rapid development for almost two decades, the introduction of the Overseas NGOs Management Law in 2017 restricted all foreign sponsors of labour NGOs, which were their main funding source. This has greatly influenced their goals and strategic choices when representing migrant workers. However, due to increased political sensitivity, few studies have explored the current challenges they face since the law was implemented. This study identifies both the pre-2017 and post-2017 goals and strategies of labour NGOs operating in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan Province. It also analyses six factors affecting the NGOs’ goals and strategic choices after 2017. A case study research method is used to draw on 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the founders, managers and staff working in 10 different labour NGOs in the three regions. The research results challenge the applicability of four main social movement theories learnt from the west – Resource Mobilisation (RM), Political Opportunity (PO), Transnational Advocacy Networks (TAN) and Stakeholder theory – to explain Chinese grassroots labour movements conducted by labour NGOs. The results also show that labour NGOs are experiencing a significant decline after the introduction of the Overseas NGOs Management Law, but have not withdrawn from the historical stage. Many NGOs are adjusting their goals and strategies to adapt to the changed political climate and survive. Finally, this study advocates the development of a new social movement theory which could accurately guide grassroots labour movements in the context of China.</p>

Radical Visions, Structural Constraints

Affilia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Feminist Organizations ◽  
Funding Agencies

Based on a qualitative study of two feminist organizations located in Ontario, Canada, this article considers the tensions that state-funded organizations must negotiate in their efforts to engage in anti-oppressive (AO) practice. The rise of neoliberalism and neoconservatism in Canada has produced a political climate that threatens feminist organizations’ social justice mandates. This climate undermines feminist organizations’ efforts to advocate for their communities, to create inclusive organizations, and to provide compassionate service informed by AO principles. However, to argue that feminist service organizations are depoliticized through their relationship with state funding agencies simplifies the complexity of state-social movement relations. This article illustrates the contradictory influence state funding has on AO practice in feminist organizations and examines the ways organizations navigate challenges presented by their political climate. Despite the structural constraints facing AO practice in feminist organizations, I argue that AO frameworks can provide organizations with a renewed focus on their social justice mandates.

REPRESENTASI IDEOLOGI POPULISME DALAM PEMBERITAAN TEMPO CO

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-165
Author(s):  
Daniel Deha
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Political Democracy ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Media Politics ◽  
Descriptive Approach

This research discusses about the representation of populist ideology in the Tempo.co’s reporting on #2019GantiPresiden social movement. It uses a critical constructivist paradigm with a qualitative-descriptive approach. The research method used is the framing analysis method with Robert N. Entman’s framing analysis model. The results show that Tempo.co uses a language that is unique and synonymous with the concept of populism through words, sentences and images. These dictums not only show Tempo.co’s ideology, but simultaneously represent a populist ideology in its reporting. Tempo.co described the mass demonstration (social movement) as a dualism of the Indonesian political democracy system. On one side, Indonesia’s political climate is not yet familiar and passionate about populism issues, but on the other side, Tempo.co actually anticipates disruption due to the radicalism of religious-fundamentalists group. Tempo.co’s ideology represents the whole face of media politics in Indonesia which regards populism as a deviant ideology.

scholarly journals The Challenges of Representing Rural Migrant Workers in China: Factors Influencing the Goals and Strategies of Labour NGOs in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan Province

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ao Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Yunnan Province ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Rural Migrant Workers

<p>Labour NGOs operating in mainland China have played the role of de facto representatives of rural migrant workers since their emergence in the 1990s. After their rapid development for almost two decades, the introduction of the Overseas NGOs Management Law in 2017 restricted all foreign sponsors of labour NGOs, which were their main funding source. This has greatly influenced their goals and strategic choices when representing migrant workers. However, due to increased political sensitivity, few studies have explored the current challenges they face since the law was implemented. This study identifies both the pre-2017 and post-2017 goals and strategies of labour NGOs operating in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan Province. It also analyses six factors affecting the NGOs’ goals and strategic choices after 2017. A case study research method is used to draw on 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the founders, managers and staff working in 10 different labour NGOs in the three regions. The research results challenge the applicability of four main social movement theories learnt from the west – Resource Mobilisation (RM), Political Opportunity (PO), Transnational Advocacy Networks (TAN) and Stakeholder theory – to explain Chinese grassroots labour movements conducted by labour NGOs. The results also show that labour NGOs are experiencing a significant decline after the introduction of the Overseas NGOs Management Law, but have not withdrawn from the historical stage. Many NGOs are adjusting their goals and strategies to adapt to the changed political climate and survive. Finally, this study advocates the development of a new social movement theory which could accurately guide grassroots labour movements in the context of China.</p>

Die Bewegung für Klimagerechtigkeit und Energiedemokratie in Deutschland.

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (184) ◽  
pp. 403-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Sander
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Historical Materialist

This article argues that social movement research must be renewed by a historical-materialist perspective to be able to understand the emergence and effects of the relatively new climate justice movement in Germany. The previous research on NGOs and social movements in climate politics is presented and the recent development of the climate justice movement in Germany is illustrated. In a final step two cases of climate movement campaigns are explained by means of the historical-materialist movement analysis proposed by the author.

The origins of the Catholic Social Guild in Scotland: ‘We have not attacked the Socialists professedly’

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Potocki
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Socialist Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Main Activity ◽  
Social Message ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
The Catholic Church

The activities of John Wheatley's Catholic Socialist Society have been analysed in terms of liberating Catholics from clerical dictation in political matters. Yet, beyond the much-discussed clerical backlash against Wheatley, there has been little scholarly attention paid to a more constructive response offered by progressive elements within the Catholic Church. The discussion that follows explores the development of the Catholic social movement from 1906, when the Catholic Socialist Society was formed, up until 1918 when the Catholic Social Guild, an organisation founded by the English Jesuit Charles Plater, had firmly established its local presence in the west of Scotland. This organisation played an important role in the realignment of Catholic politics in this period, and its main activity was the dissemination of the Church's social message among the working-class laity. The Scottish Catholic Church, meanwhile, thanks in large part to Archbishop John Aloysius Maguire of Glasgow, became more amenable to social reform and democracy.

Risk, Desire and Adaptation: The Paradox of Queer Solidarity and the Political Possibility of Death Under Neoliberalism and Homonationalism

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sexual Rights ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Strategy I

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.

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