This article focuses on consumer movements that seek ideological and cultural change. Building from a basis in New Social Movement (NSM) theory, we study these movements among anti‐advertising, anti‐Nike, and anti‐GE food activists. We find activists’ collective identity linked to an evangelical identity related to U.S. activism’s religious roots. Our findings elucidate the value of spiritual and religious identities to gaining commitment, warn of the perils of preaching to the unconverted, and highlight movements that seek to transform the ideology and culture of consumerism. Conceiving mainstream consumers as ideological opponents inverts conventional NSM theories that view them as activists’ clients.

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Adversaries of Consumption: Consumer Movements, Activism, and Ideology

In the last decade the framing perspective has gained increasing popularity among social movement researchers and theorists. Surprisingly, there has been no critical assessment of this growing body of literature. Though the perspective has made significant contributions to the movements literature, it suffers from several shortcomings. These include neglect of systematic empirical studies, descriptive bias, static tendencies, reification, reductionism, elite bias, and monolithic tendencies. In addition to a critique of extant movement framing literature, I offer several remedies and illustrate them with recent work. The articles by Francesca Polletta, John H. Evans, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Ira Silver in this special section address several of the concerns raised in this critique and, in so doing, contribute to the integration of structural and cultural approaches to social movements.

An Insider's Critique of the Social Movement Framing Perspective*

This article uses social movement theory to analyze environmental justice rhetoric. It argues that the environmental justice frame is a master frame that uses discourses about injustice as an effective mobilizing tool. The article identifies an environmental justice paradigm and compares it with the new environmental paradigm. In addition, the article discusses why the environmental justice movement grew so fast and why its adherents find the environmental justice frame so appealing.

The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses

The authors present the Annual Oral Cancer Campaign of Araraquara promoted by the Oral Medicine Service of the Araraquara Dental School – UNESP. This campaign is an extension activity which, since its beginning, in 1993, has been expanding.The campaign provides background for teaching and research as well as benefits to the regional community. In 1999 this activity was conducted, for the first time, in a public fair visited daily for thousands people. This opportunity, which started in 1999, promoted the expansion of benefits and contributed to legitimate the campaign as an authentic extramural extension activity.

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Campanha de prevenção do câncer bucal em Araraquara: uma iniciativa de extensão consolidada em 11 anos de experiência

This article offers an overview and assessment of the utility of new social movement theories for analyzing contemporary forms of collective action. The article beings with a brief overview of the ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4120774.pdf

New social movement theories

Resource mobilization theory became the dominant paradigm for studying social movements in the 1970s because it was better able to account for the 1960s cycle of protest than previous theories of collective behavior. After almost two decades of theoretical development, the resource mobilization framework is now under increasing challenge. Drawing on research on women's movements in the United States, this article identifies ten issues which collectively pose a major theoretical challenge to the dominance of resource mobilization theory and which may initiate a paradigm shift to a new framework for the study of social movements.

Beyond resource mobilization: Emerging trends in social movement theory.

In thirteen succinct chapters, Buechler traces movement theories from the classical era of sociology to the most recent examples of transnational activism. He identifies the socio-historical context, central concepts, and guiding logic of diverse movement theories, with emphasis on: Comparisons of Marx and Lenin; Weber and Michels; and Durkheim and LeBon The Chicago School of the inter-war period The political-sociological approaches of the 1950s The varieties of strain and breakdown theories at the dawn of the 1960s Major paradigm shifts caused by the cascade of 1960s social movements Vivid examples of movements worldwide and coverage of all major theorists Critiques, debates, and proposed syntheses dominating the turn of the 21st century Recent trends (such as cyberactivism and transnational movements) and their theoretical implications"

Understanding Social Movements: Theories from the Classical Era to the Present

Drawing from a wide selection of classic and contemporary works, the editors have chosen readings that reflect the major approaches and central debates in the field of social movement.

Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues

Critical thinking is often presented as a generic technique. This article develops an alternative that links critique more closely to the sociological perspective. I suggest three answers to the above question: that the sociological perspective is critical for comprehending complex issues, that all sociology is implicitly critical by virtue of its debunking tendency, and that some sociology is explicitly critical by virtue of value commitments that lead to a critique of domination. The article identifies some basic themes of what it means to think sociologically, discusses sociology's “double critique” in more detail, illustrates the critical potential of scientific, humanistic and critical approaches to sociology, and explores some implications of this approach for how we teach sociology. It concludes by suggesting that the goal of fostering critical thinking in our students might better be met by returning to the critical roots of our own discipline.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0092055X0803600402

Steven M. Buechler

Papers

New social movement theories

Beyond resource mobilization: Emerging trends in social movement theory.

Understanding Social Movements: Theories from the Classical Era to the Present

Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues

What is Critical About Sociology