Читать книгу Gender and Social Movements - Jo Reger - Страница 9

We know that social change happens in a variety of ways and is sometimes unintentional – for example, shifts in societies occur when new economies, populations, and/or technologies are introduced. However, sometimes social change is intentionally sought and can be the result of social movements. Social movements are made up of individuals who come together in organizations, communities, and/or networks with the goal of making or resisting change happening in society (Tarrow 1998). What makes these “social movements” versus other efforts to change society is that they are in opposition to some segment of society. Aspects of society targeted by social movements include the powerful elites who control institutions and the rules, laws, or cultural norms that disadvantage a societal group. Some social movements challenge the state working to change laws or policies. For instance, movements on both sides of the abortion debate work to change the laws around access to abortion with a focus on the Supreme Court, as well as on state laws. Social movements also challenge cultural ideas and work to change social norms. For example, some participants in the women’s movement in the 1970s sought to change the language used to refer to women, arguing that calling women “girls,” “chicks,’’ or “foxes” was denigrating (Mallinson 2017). Overall, social movements are about changing the social order, which entails personal as well as collective change, and cultural as well as institutional transformation. For example, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and beyond movement (LGBTQ+) not only worked to change laws but also to change social norms around the acceptance and portrayal of LGBTQ+ people and worked to create a sense of pride versus marginalization in individuals. In either case – the focus on institutions or the focus on culture – the key to understanding social movements is that they are not spontaneous but are often the result of generations of organizing. Social movements are also not chaotic but instead have some sort of organizing structure, which can often vary depending on the beliefs and goals of the organization. As such, social movements can survive for long periods of time and engage multiple generations of activists (Reger 2012; Rupp and Taylor 1987; Taylor 1989; Whittier 1995).

To achieve their goals, social movements draw on a variety of actions called tactics. Those tactics can range from large-scale demonstrations such as marches on Washington, to the more individual such as legislative lobbying. Tactics can also be more symbolic and use everyday actions such as embracing an activist identity in daily life, through actions such as recycling or wearing a T-shirt connected to a movement. Movements often draw on more than one tactic, in what social movement scholars call a “tactical repertoire” (Taylor and Van Dyke 2004). Important in the creation of that repertoire is the overall strategy, or plan of action, embraced by the movement activists. For example, if the movement adopts the strategy of non-violence as the means to achieve their goals, the corresponding tactics would include those that endorse non-violent civil disobedience such as sit ins or street theater.

Strategy and tactics emerge from individuals’ interactions within the movement, along with the sense of being a united group sharing a set of common values and interests. Identified as a collective identity (Melucci 1989), this sense of belonging emerges from the construction of a sense of who “we” are as a group, as opposed to “them,” the opposition or target. This shared activist identity emerges from three processes: the development of a group consciousness with common values, beliefs, and goals, the delineation of boundaries between “us” and “them,” and the negotiation across those boundaries in pursuit of the overall goal (Taylor and Whittier 1992). The creation of collective, or activist identities, is essential in sustaining movements and directing the course of action.

While we often think of social movement dynamics as face-to-face interactions, like the rest of society social movements moved into new dimensions on the internet. Social movement scholars turned their attention to virtual activism as the internet grew. For example, Alan Schussman and Jennifer Earl (2004) studied “strategic voting” in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Websites popped up that allowed individuals to coordinate their votes, ensuring that “blue” or largely Democratic states would go to Al Gore, while allowing left-leaning, third-party voters to cast their ballots for Ralph Nader. The overall goal was to keep George Bush from the presidency. While the overall goal of strategic voting failed, the political activism on the internet caught the attention of researchers. Schussman and Earl coined the label “e-movements” to identify this new terrain for activism. Despite the fact that the term “e-movements” didn’t catch on; the internet is now the home to much social movement activism. Activists use the internet to recruit, educate, and advocate for actions either online, such as e-petitions, or to attend in-person events and demonstrations. The lines between virtual and in-person spaces for activism often becomes blurred. For instance in 2011 when Occupy Wall Street – a social movement focused on income and wealth inequality – emerged, it focused on in-person encampments as a main tactic but also had a lively internet presence through the more than 1,500 Facebook pages established across the globe (Gaby and Caren 2015). As platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are developed, activists find a way to move into those spaces.

While websites and other digital spaces connect activists and serve as virtual organizing areas, hashtags promote issues and topics and connect people through subject matter. Hashtag activism results when # is added to a phrase or word as a way to spread a message or topic key to a movement, usually done through Twitter. The scenario at the start of this chapter – #MeToo – is an example of hashtag activism that is linked to a larger social movement. Hashtags organize social media content by allowing people to search for particular topics and notifying them on what is trending. Indeed, young people often turn to their social media instead of more traditional outlets for news. One of the most influential hashtags to develop is #BlackLivesMatter (BLM), which was tweeted in 2013 and became the label for one of the largest protest cycles in U.S. history. As #MeToo and #BLM illustrate, social media can be the impetus for the start of social movement organizing and protests. The United States has been the site of campaigns and movements sparked by a single tweet such as #MeToo and #BLM but hashtags play a global role as well. Examples of this include #ArabSpring and the uprisings in Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and Bahrain, #StopFundingHate, a pro-immigrant campaign in the U.K., and #BringBackOurGirls, a campaign to return kidnapped girls to their families in Nigeria. Overall, “[The internet] speeds up the processes of organizing and network building, creates and nourishes communities across geographic divides, and introduces new tactics and strategies” (Crossley 2017: 127).

Scholars of social movements often view their work through theoretical lenses that provide explanations for movement origins, goals, and outcomes. Those frameworks often take different views of what movements need to emerge and achieve their goals. Resource mobilization theory argues that social movements emerge when organizations and groups are able to accumulate the resources they need to build an infrastructure to support the mobilization of activists (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Jenkins 1983). The political process lens views social change as emerging when there are openings or opportunities in a society. Called “opportunity structures,” these openings allow movements to emerge at times that are optimal, despite historical and long-lasting long-term experiences of discrimination or prejudice (Tilly 1978; McAdam 1982; Tarrow 1998). Scholars also argue that when one movement emerges, it often can foster other movements. Through what are called “cycles of protest,” movements can interact with each other sharing ideas, tactics, and organizations, and consequently create more protest opportunities (Meyer and Whittier 1994). Another approach used by scholars is to examine the ways in which identities and group cultures are important to social movements. This perspective illustrates how being engaged in social movement communities is meaningful to the individual, sustaining activism (Buechler 1990; Taylor and Whittier 1992). Finally, the contentious politics approach views social movements as made up of public protest events such as demonstrations and sees movements as connected to other forms of collective action such as unions, strikes, and revolutions (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). These different frameworks tell us that the study of social movements, similar to the study of gender, examines social movements from all levels and asks a variety of questions making more complex (and interesting) answers.