Da: tho@???
Oggetto: call for papers: ESA conference in Glasgow 2007
Data: 11 gennaio 2007 12:09:01 GMT+01:00
A: SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS@???
Rispondi a: SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS@???
Social Movement 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 28th February and the submission form can be found at
www.esa8thconference.com.
General Conveners: Thomas Olesen (THO@???) and Carlo Ruzza
(carlo.ruzza@??? )
1. Movements and Media (Chair: Thomas Olesen - THO@???)
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@??? )
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@??? )
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@??? o.pieroni@???)
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@??? )
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@???
carlo.ruzza@??? )
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@???-
leipzig.de)
This session will focus on anti-racist and migrant movements, raising
questions about the context and character of their mobilization.
In the post-war period European students of social movements and
collective action have abandoned the study of traditional – working
class
and peasant movements – in order to focus their attention
predominantly on
the environmental, women’s and, more recently, anti-war protest
movements.
The goal of this session is to provide a forum for researchers who focus
in their work on anti-racist and migrant selforganizing. Anti-racist
movements are portrayed as a reponse to racist movements and/or
discriminatory or ‘wrong-headed’ anti-discriminatory state policies,
while
migrant self-organizing has been understood as a quest for incorporation
or a response to the conditions of exclusion in the host societies. Some
research focuses also on the anti-racist/migrant organizing within the
transnational ‘anti-globalist’ movement and/or directed against the EU.
The internal structures, discourses and strategies of all these
movements
have – albeit to different extent - become a target of engaged
scientific
discourses. The aim of this session is to pull some of this research
together, while encouraging new questions, methods and approaches.
