Contentious Cogovernance and Prefiguration: A Framework for Analyzing Social Movement–State Relations in Public Education

This article offers a framework for analyzing social movement participation in public education through a focus on universities in Brazil. It builds on the literature on social movement–state relations, participatory governance, and community organizing in schools, drawing on the case of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement and the National Program for Education in Areas of Agrarian Reform (PRONERA) to illustrate the need to recenter the idea of conflict as a central and ongoing process of social movement participation in public schools and universities. The article also introduces the concept of prefiguration and highlights how students can prefigure in the formal public school system the types of social and economic practices they hope to build in the future. Contentious cogovernance and prefiguration are tools not only for improving educational equity but also for increasing the strength and internal capacity of social movements, paralleling the role Paulo Freire envisioned for nonformal popular education within grassroots organizations.

Transition as Cultural Revitalization

This article explores the Transition movement for climate change resilience as a cultural revitalization movement that is unfolding in response to the unique problems and prospects of the Anthropocene era. Drawing on ethnographic research, I suggest that personal well-being and community cohesion are essential motives for environmental movement participation. As Transition participants work to generate more satisfying cultural options, they relieve existential angst, reclaim the possibility of a positive future, create a safe space for radical resistance, and engender a simultaneously local and global sense of community. Ultimately, I argue that embracing environmental and (inter)personal action as both complementary and inextricably intertwined is essential if we are to catalyze the broad behavioral changes needed to evade catastrophic climate change and socioecological collapse.

EXHIBITION ACTIVITY OF RUSSIA’S OPTICAL COMPANIES IN THE 19TH CENTURY

The relevance of the presented topic is due to the presence of analogies between the heyday of the exhibition movement in the 19th century and the rise of the movement of exhibitions, expositions, forums in the early 2000s. Many modern processes of marketing communication have a prehistory in the exhibition movement of the 19th century. The authors relied on the modernization theory. The exhibitions were considered not from a narrow economic point of view, but in a broader socio-cultural context. Their influence on the development of Russia’s optical industry is analyzed. The following research methods are applied: historical-genetic, comparative, narrative, sociohistorical. One of the most important factors in the development of Russia’s optical industry was the participation of optical workshops in Russian and international industrial, artistic and scientific exhibitions. Russian and international exhibitions became a platform for the exchange of information between the bourgeoisie, scientists, representatives of zemstvos and city selfgovernment, scientific and educational institutions. Exhibitions performed an educational function, increased the social activity of merchants, entrepreneurs, public structures, and ensured live communication between different strata of the population. Optical workshops became participants of industrial exhibitions from the very beginning of the exhibition movement. Participation in exhibitions stimulated inter-industry cooperation, trade in optical products, expanded the target audience, accelerated marketing communication. In a broad socio-cultural context, the exhibitions contributed to the development of trade, the spread of new technologies, and the enrichment of business practices of the bourgeoisie.

Environmental migrants and social-movement participation

The displacement of people due to climatic changes (environmental migration) presents major societal and governance challenges. This article examines whether and how climate-induced rural-to-urban migration contributes to social-movement participation. We argue that the mainly forceful nature of relocation makes environmental migrants more likely to join and participate in social movements that promote migrant rights in urban areas. Using original survey data from Kenya, we find that individuals who had experienced several different types of severe climatic events at their previous location are more likely to join and participate in social movements. This finding has important policy implications. National and local authorities should not only provide immediate assistance and basic social services to environmental migrants in urban settings, but also facilitate permanent solutions by fostering their socio-economic and political integration in order to prevent urban conflict.

Detached Attachment: Burnout and Commitment among Caregivers in the Immigrant Rights Movement

The increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers reaching the U.S.–Mexico border since 2014 has strained local nonprofit organizations helping them. Lack of material and human resources along with uncertain policy implementation by the government generates frustration and burnout among caregivers working in local nonprofits. Nonetheless, turnover as a result of burnout is surprisingly low. To answer why so few caregivers make efforts to help migrants and asylum seekers on the border, I analyze how caregivers respond to burnout in this resource-scarce context. I find that caregivers practice what I call detached attachment, the process of physically and emotionally distancing oneself from care work, while maintaining a cognitive attachment to it. Caregivers seek space to process their negative emotions and manage their relationships with care recipients to reduce intensity, while also reflecting on their normative attachments to the work. Paradoxically, then, the negative experience of burnout ends up renewing caregivers’ commitment to the immigrant rights movement. This article highlights the significance of everyday practices of care in sustaining social movement participation.