Sustainable community movement organisations

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Forno ◽  
Paolo R Graziano
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sustainable Community ◽  
Current Economic Crisis ◽  
Community Movement

In the current economic crisis, social movements are simultaneously facing two types of challenges: first, they are confronting institutions which are less able (or willing) to mediate new demands for social justice and equity emerging from various sectors of society, and second, given the highly individualised structure of contemporary society, they are also experiencing difficulties in building bonds of solidarity and cooperation among people, bonds which are a fundamental resource for collective action. It is in this context that protests waves, which may be very relevant, are in fact often short-lived, and it is in this context that we detect the rise and consolidation of new mutualistic and cooperative experiences within which (similarly to the past) new ties and frames for collective action are created. This article discusses and analyses social movement organisations which focus on both the intensification of economic problems and the difficulties of rebuilding social bonds and solidarity within society, emphasising solidarity and the use of ‘alternative’ forms of consumption as means to re-embed the economic system within social relations, starting from the local level. While discussing what is new and/or what has been renewed in new Sustainable Community Movement Organisations, the article will develop an analytical framework which will combine social movements and political consumerism theories by focusing on two basic dimensions: consumer culture and identity and organisational resources and repertoire of action.

Prohibition, Legalization, and Political Consumerism

2018 ◽  
pp. 740-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Psychoactive Substance ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
Control Laws ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most commonly consumed, universally produced, and frequently trafficked psychoactive substance prohibited under international drug control laws. Yet, several countries have recently moved toward legalization. In these places, the legal status of cannabis is complex, especially because illegal markets persist. This chapter explores the ways in which a sector’s legal status interacts with political consumerism. The analysis draws on a case study of political consumerism in the US and Canadian cannabis markets over the past two decades as both countries moved toward legalization. It finds that the goals, tactics, and leadership of political consumerism activities changed as the sector’s legal status shifted. Thus prohibition, semilegalization, and new legality may present special challenges to political consumerism, such as silencing producers, confusing consumers, deterring social movements, and discouraging discourse about ethical issues. The chapter concludes that political consumerism and legal status may have deep import for one another.

scholarly journals On the preconditions for large-scale collective action

AMBIO ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 1282-1296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverker C. Jagers ◽  
Niklas Harring ◽  
Åsa Löfgren ◽  
Martin Sjöstedt ◽  
Francisco Alpizar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Collective Action Problems

Abstract The phenomenon of collective action and the origin of collective action problems have been extensively and systematically studied in the social sciences. Yet, while we have substantial knowledge about the factors promoting collective action at the local level, we know far less about how these insights travel to large-scale collective action problems. Such problems, however, are at the heart of humanity’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, large-scale natural resource depletion, biodiversity loss, nuclear proliferation, antibiotic resistance due to overconsumption of antibiotics, and pollution. In this paper, we suggest an analytical framework that captures the theoretical understanding of preconditions for large-scale collective action. This analytical framework aims at supporting future empirical analyses of how to cope with and overcome larger-scale collective action problems. More specifically, we (i) define and describe the main characteristics of a large-scale collective action problem and (ii) explain why voluntary and, in particular, spontaneous large-scale collective action among individual actors becomes more improbable as the collective action problem becomes larger, thus demanding interventions by an external authority (a third party) for such action to be generated. Based on this, we (iii) outline an analytical framework that illustrates the connection between third-party interventions and large-scale collective action. We conclude by suggesting avenues for future research.

Casing Political Consumerism

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Haydu ◽  
David Kadanoff
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Analytical Properties

In this article, we consider some of the ways in which the literature on political consumerism distinguishes this type of activism from social movements of the past. We then use three old and three recent U.S. examples of mobilization focused on food to highlight variations across cases—old and new—in how consumption-based identities are politicized and in how these movements are organized. We recommend using these variations in analytical properties, rather than broadly defined temporal periods, as the starting point for sorting and comparing cases of political consumerism.

The Successes of Political Consumerism as a Social Movement

2018 ◽  
pp. 772-792
Author(s):  
Lara Monticelli ◽  
Donatella della Porta
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
Individual Citizen ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Interpretive Frameworks

The chapter aims at providing a set of interpretive tools to analyze the outcomes of consumer activism when performed through collective action. In the last years, there has been a shift from political consumerism understood as a practice of the individual citizen-consumer to political consumerism performed by a growing number of organized collectives like solidarity purchasing groups, consumer-producer cooperatives, ecological communities, etc. This implies that a reconceptualization of political consumerism should be accompanied by renewed interpretive frameworks and methodologies. Drawing from the literature on social movements and their outcomes, the chapter proposes an interpretive compass composed of six main features (type, domain, nature, target, timing, duration) that help in understanding the effectiveness of consumer activism. The authors then underline the importance of taking into account factors like resources, media outreach, and alliances as well as political, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts.

scholarly journals FRAMING GERAKAN FORUM MASYARAKAT MINANGKABAU DAN ADVOKASI KEBIJAKAN INVESTASI DI KOTA PADANG: KASUS PT. LIPPO TBK

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Wira Hospita ◽  
Aidinil Zetra ◽  
Afrizal Afrizal
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
City Government ◽  
Community Activism ◽  
Success Strategies ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Community Forum ◽  
The City ◽  
Community Movement

Social movements are a typical form of community activism, where there is a form of collective action with a clear conflictual orientation and bound by a sense of solidarity and a strong collective identity. This article highlights the success strategies of the Minangkabau community movement that are members of the Minangkabau Community Forum (FMM) rejecting Siloam's investment, and advocating for the policies of the Padang City Government (Pemko) regarding the principle permit for utilization of room number 650.44 / Bapeda / II-2013. FMM assesses that the City Government's policy has threatened the values of the customs and religion, mobilizing collective action based on cultural issues, where Adat Bersandi Sarak, Sarak Bersandi Kitabullah is used as the main frame to mobilize the community to support advocacy.

scholarly journals Memoria y apropiación del pasado: una interpretación de la lucha en Oaxaca, México

2019 ◽  
pp. 375-411
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carlos Bautista Martínez ◽  
Iván Israel Juárez López
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methodological Difficulty ◽  
Analytical Frameworks ◽  
Movimientos Sociales

La dificultad teórico-metodológica del artículo se sintetiza en las siguientes interrogantes: ¿Cómo abordar luchas que tienen expresiones en la memoria colectiva e imaginarios populares? ¿Es posible la comprensión de estas luchas bajo los marcos analíticos de la acción colectiva y los movimientos sociales? ¿En qué términos puede justificarse esta relación? Y, si no es así, ¿qué otras propuestas teórico-metodológicas resultan útiles para comprender las luchas que buscan recuperar y apropiarse del pasado? Nuestro supuesto es que las luchas con expresiones en los imaginarios populares y la memoria colectiva están negadas en los rasgos visibles e inmediatos de la acción colectiva y los movimientos sociales que responden más bien a programas racionales y jerárquicos. El objetivo de este artículo es desarrollar una propuesta teórico-metodológica que dé lugar a la comprensión de aquellas luchas ancladas en la vida local y que también nos permita recuperar los rasgos y cualidades negados en los marcos analíticos predominantes. Para sustentar estos argumentos, se retoma la experiencia de activistas que irrumpieron en los acontecimientos en Oaxaca, entidad del sureste mexicano, a partir del año 2006. Abstract: The theoretical-methodological difficulty of the article is summarized in the following questions: How to address the struggles that have expressions in collective memory and popular imaginary? Is it possible to understand these struggles under the analytical frameworks of collective action and social movements? In what terms can this relationship be justified? And if not, what other theoretical-methodological proposals are useful to understand the struggles that seek to recover and appropriate the past? Our assumption is that struggles with expressions in the collective memory and the popular imaginary are denied in the visible and immediate characteristics of collective action and social movements that respond rather to rational and hierarchical programs. Therefore, the objective of this article is to develop a theoretical-methodological proposal that allows the understanding of these struggles anchored in local life and at the same time allows recovering the aspects that have been denied by the dominant analytical frameworks. To support these arguments, let’s recover the experience of the activists who broke into the events that took place in 2006 in Oaxaca, an entity located in southern Mexico. Keywords: sociology, social movements, memory, struggle, antagonism, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Hybridity and integration in local collective action: an analytical framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-451
Author(s):  
Gérard Divay ◽  
Youssef Slimani
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Institutional Processes ◽  
Territorial Approach ◽  
Institutional Convergence ◽  
Local Ecosystem ◽  
The Impact

Can an integrated territorial approach successfully do away with the silo structure that marks public action through the hybridisation of sectoral logics? Drawing from various strands of research, as well as an assessment of multiple studies on the impact of integrated territorial approaches on local social development, this article develops an analytical framework to address this question. We argue that integration takes place according to four regimes, whose dynamics range from the simple juxtaposition of sectoral organisations to a hybridisation of their organisational logics. The regimes we identify are operational networking, interstitial effervescence, collaborative accommodation and institutional convergence. Each emerges from an interaction between the specific dynamics of each experience in a given milieu and supra-local socio-institutional processes, which generate new ways of conceiving and organising the coordination of public and collective action at the local level. Points for practitioners This article puts into perspective the virtues of the integrated approach as an antidote to public administration silos. An integrated approach to local action only produces the expected effects if each public agency agrees to transform its organisational culture and to direct its action according to the evolution of local ecosystem processes of change in the milieu as a whole.

Brokers in Action: Transnational Coalitions and Trade Agreements in the Americas

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa von Bülow
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Network Data ◽  
Geographical Distance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Different Types

This article contributes to the literature on social movements and on transnational collective action by analyzing the roles of brokers in processes of coalition building. Brokerage is defined as bridging initiatives that link actors that are separated by geographical distance, lack of trust, lack of resources, or because they are unaware of each others' existence. This study is based on network data and qualitative research about networks of challengers of trade agreements in the Americas in the past two decades. Findings suggest there are different types of mediating roles and tasks that specific actors are expected to play in enduring coalitions. The experiences of Mexican and Brazilian brokers show that the roles of translators and coordinators are more easily accomplished and sustained through time than the roles of articulators and representatives. Paradoxically, it is when mediating skills are most needed that they seem to be hardest to accomplish.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

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