Sessions at the ESA Conference in Glasgow, 3-6 September 2007

Here is the list of social movement sessions and their organizers. Paper abstracts need to be submitted to the general conveners through the official website, indicating the preferred session and if desired an alternative session in case of non- acceptance from the first session. The deadline is 28^th February and the submission form can be found at www.esa8thconference.com.

General Conveners: Thomas Olesen (THO@ps.au.dk) and Carlo Ruzza (carlo.ruzza@soc.unitn.it )

1. Movements and Media (Chair: Thomas Olesen - THO@ps.au.dk)

Social movement organizations lack the institutional, military and economic resources that their opponents typically control. This, as we know, does not mean that they do not sometimes get what they want. It is thus useful to think of their power as a public and discursive type of power. Movements exercise power when they are able to activate public debate and put their opponents on the defensive through a combination of hard facts and moral arguments. This is a public process and therefore one that involves the media as central actors.

This session invites papers that explore the relationship between movements and media from a variety of angles. It especially welcomes papers that address these questions: How can we theorize the power of social movement organizations from a public and media perspective? Comparatively speaking, how do different national media and political structures impact the relationship between media and movements? The literature seems to suggest that the media generally distort and misrepresent movement messages, but is this always the case? Under what conditions may media and movements co-operate or at least work toward the same goals?

2. The Outcomes of Social Movement Action (Chairs: Catrine Uba and Lorenzo Bosi - L.Bosi@kent.ac.uk )

The interest in social movements is largely motivated from the assumption that they represent important actors in the process that leads to social and political change. However, despite this argument, little systematic attention has been paid to the study of the consequences of social
movements for quite some time. The aim of the session is to advance our understanding on how collective action matters, probably the most problematic area of inquiry in the field.

 

We will particularly focus on: How does collective action influence social movement participants? How do socio-political context relate to social movement outcomes? How could we measure the interdependency of social movement outcomes (i.e. how different outcomes domains mutually influence one another)? And how does the repertoire of action influence political change. We are also keen to attract papers that do not specifically focus on these questions, but are concerned with consequences of collective action. Theoretical, methodological and empirical papers are welcome.
 

3. Innovation and Protest (Chairs: Thomas Kern and Sang-hui Nam -   kern@giga-hamburg.de )

In modern societies, social movements are widely considered as a major source of innovations. But they are not only a source of social transformation; they also change rapidly in and by themselves. Consequently, movement scholars frequently stress that internal innovations are crucial for the evolution of protest waves. While the mainstream of movement research is mostly occupied with the relation between the political opportunity structure and the diffusion of contentious collective action, we know only little about the impact of these internal innovations on social movements.

The aim of the session is to examine how innovations are generated: What are the different stages of the innovation process? What structures are conducive for innovations? To what extent have single innovations contributed to a transformation of social movement industries or sectors? What types of innovations can we distinguish? How can we assess the scope of innovations? All papers which address these or other interesting questions related to innovation and protest are welcome.

 4. Rural Movements (Chairs: Osvaldo Pieroni and Annamaria Vitale –  a.vitale@unical.it o.pieroni@unical.it)

Traditionally, urban-based movements (as for example worker movements) have been considered at the centre of social transformations, and as ‘modernizing’ agents. Thus, urban collective action has been set at the centre of theoretical investigation, while rural movements have been considered derivative phenomena. However, new trends are taking place. Relations between individuals and their social environment is increasingly centered on strong locally-based communal relations and is cemented by a politicized identifications with the natural environment. This has sparked a wide variety of grassroots movements which often connect the environmental and social aspects of territorial belonging. These movements focus both on the political opportunities to protect and enhance alternative lifestyles, on the construction of local civil society and on the related identities. A growing number of present collective daily practices have to do with what has been traditionally related to ‘rurality’: healthy lifestyles, organic food, critical consumption, food crises and the environmental implications that they entail. In brief, the relationship between individuals, their community and nature is a contested terrain that has frequently sparked a set of political protests at local level.

Beyond the boundaries of Europe, these collective practices take the form of organized grassroots movements  For example, in Latin America, movements as  ‘Los Sin Terra’ (Brasil),  the ‘Movimiento Mapuche’ (Cile), and ‘Las Mujeres Agropecuarias’(Argentina) are transforming the composition of civil society, opening new spaces of participation and changing the political and institutional orientation of the whole continent. Reclaiming their commons and demanding greater local autonomy, they often challenge conventionally held beliefs on nation, representative democracy, justice and development.

Participants to this session are welcome to bring forward theoretical hypothesis and empirical evidences on European and non-European rural movements, in relation to actors’ visions, political opportunities and collective strategies.

5. Contentious Coalitional Politics (Chair: Abby Peterson -  abby.peterson@sociology.gu.se )

Contemporary political contention demands a new flexibility and all-roundness of collective action.  Various types of contentious coalitions are being formed in order to address these new action demands.  The construction of more or less stable contentious coalitions — understood as both communication and action networks — has been the response by activists across the globe in order to best lodge their political challenges.  This session encourages papers which deal either theoretically and/or empirically with event coalitions, i.e. coalitions formed to coordinate protest during a specific event (i.e. specific one-off protest events, so-called ‘days of protest’); or campaign coalitions, addressing a specific issue (such as a ban on the use of landmines); or what can loosely be called resistance coalitions, directing their resistance against a common target or adversary with the goal of ousting that adversary from power (such as the ’Orange Revolution’ in the Ukraine).

6. Social movements, institutional actors and policy making (Chairs: Mario Diani and Carlo Ruzza – mario.diani@soc.unitn.it  carlo.ruzza@soc.unitn.it )

This session will explore the interaction between social movements, civil society organisations and policy-makers. We are seeking to include work on European movements at the local, national and EU levels.

Over recent decades many social movements groups underwent processes of professionalization and institutionalization, which have put them in collaborative but also competitive relations with public interest groups and other advocacy-oriented organizations. During the same period, third sector organizations have also become more professionalized and have supplemented their service-delivery role with a more politically informed approach.  This has lead to the formation of mixed advocacy coalitions, and to the emergence of articulated action repertoires and complex relations with policy makers. This session will explore the interactions between social and institutional actors in a variety of contexts, paying particular attention to the consequences of institutionalization and professionalization of social movements and third sector organizations for forms of mobilization, political activism and more broadly for participation in decision-making processes.

7. Anti-racist and migrant movements (Chair: Helena Flam flam@sozio.uni-leipzig.de)

 This session will focus on anti-racist and migrant movements, raising questions about the context and character of their mobilization.