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Journal ArticleDOI

Movement intellectuals engaging the grassroots: A strategy perspective on the Black Consciousness Movement:

10 Jan 2020-The Sociological Review (SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England)-Vol. 68, Iss: 5, pp 1124-1142
TL;DR: This article argued that the Black Consciousness Movement (BCMSA) is better understood not by focusing on the objective status of its leadership, but by drawing upon interviews and framing theory.
Abstract: Drawing upon activist interviews and framing theory this article proposes that the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) is better understood not by focusing on the objective status of its leadership ...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Why Men Rebel was first published in 1970 on the heels of a decade of political violence and protest not only in remote corners of Africa and Southeast Asia, but also at home in the United States as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Why Men Rebel was first published in 1970 on the heels of a decade of political violence and protest not only in remote corners of Africa and Southeast Asia, but also at home in the United States. Forty years later, the world is riveted on uprisings in the Middle East, and the United States has been overtaken by a focus on international terrorism and a fascination with citizen movements at home and abroad. Do the arguments of 1970 apply today? Why Men Rebel lends new insight into contemporary challenges of transnational recruitment and organization, multimedia mobilization, and terrorism.

1,412 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Through analysis of the UK government's management of the COVID-19 outbreak, this paper offers an empirical demonstration of the principle of culture’s relative autonomy by showing how the outcome of meaning-making struggles had impacts on political legitimacy, public behaviour, and control over the spread of the virus.
Abstract: Through analysis of the UK government's management of the COVID-19 outbreak, this paper offers an empirical demonstration of the principle of culture's relative autonomy. It does so by showing how the outcome of meaning-making struggles had impacts on political legitimacy, public behaviour, and control over the spread of the virus. Ultimately, these impacts contributed to the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of UK citizens. Dividing the crisis into phases within a secular ritual passage or 'social drama', it shows how each phase was defined by struggles between the government and other actors to code the unfolding events in an appropriate moral way, to cast actors in their proper roles, and to plot them together in a storied fashion under a suitable narrative genre. Taken together, these processes constituted a conflictual effort to define the meaning of what was occurring. The paper also offers more specific contributions to cultural sociology by showing why social performance theory needs to consider the effects of casting non-human actors in social dramas, how metaphor forms a powerful tool of political action through simplifying and shaping complex realities, and how casting can shift responsibility and redefine the meaning of emotionally charged events such as human death.

36 citations


Cites background from "Movement intellectuals engaging the..."

  • ...…a step further, cultural pragmatics has emphasised the difficulties—though not impossibilities—of achieving the kinds of ritualistic ‘fusion’ that were common in more simple societies, due to the highly contingent, reflexive, and ‘de-fused’ nature of the modern world (Alexander 2004; Morgan 2020)....

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Journal ArticleDOI

13 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explore the different meanings that the polysemic term "strategy" can hold in relation to "strategies" in public intellectual engagement, and present a special section on public intellectual involvement.
Abstract: This introduction to the Special Section on public intellectual engagement has three objectives. First, to explore the different meanings that the polysemic term ‘strategy’ can hold in relation to ...

12 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1974
TL;DR: In Frame Analysis, the brilliant theorist wrote about the ways in which people determine their answers to the questions What is going on here? and Under what circumstances do we think things are real?.
Abstract: Erving Goffman will influence the thinking and perceptions of generations to come In Frame Analysis, the brilliant theorist writes about the ways in which people determine their answers to the questions What is going on here? and Under what circumstances do we think things are real? "

11,533 citations


"Movement intellectuals engaging the..." refers background in this paper

  • ...(Goffman, 1974, p. 8), and therefore allow information to be experienced in a coherent and meaningful manner....

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Book
01 Jan 1965

10,504 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The recent proliferation of research on collective action frames and framing processes in relation to social movements indicates that framing processes have come to be regarded, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity processes, as a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements.
Abstract: ■ Abstract The recent proliferation of scholarship on collective action frames and framing processes in relation to social movements indicates that framing processes have come to be regarded, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity processes, as a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements. This review examines the analytic utility of the framing literature for un- derstanding social movement dynamics. We first review how collective action frames have been conceptualized, including their characteristic and variable features. We then examine the literature related to framing dynamics and processes. Next we review the literature regarding various contextual factors that constrain and facilitate framing processes. We conclude with an elaboration of the consequences of framing processes for other movement processes and outcomes. We seek throughout to provide clarifi- cation of the linkages between framing concepts/processes and other conceptual and theoretical formulations relevant to social movements, such as schemas and ideology.

7,717 citations


"Movement intellectuals engaging the..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…refers to the ‘the linking of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue or problem’, something that can often occur through ‘the linkage of a movement organization with an unmobilised sentiment pool’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 624)....

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  • ...Strategic framing processes are typically understood as ‘deliberative, utilitarian, and goal directed’ (Benford & Snow, 2000), and their success is measured by their capacity to resonate with an audience’s pre-existent cultural beliefs (Schudson, 1989)....

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  • ...Frame amplification refers to the ‘idealization, embellishment, clarification, or invigoration of existing values or beliefs’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 624)....

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  • ...Frame transformation: Converting fear into hope At the core of BC philosophy, and standing behind many of the more specific frames mentioned above, was a concern with ‘frame transformation’, with ‘changing old understandings and meanings and/or generating new ones’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 625)....

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  • ...Frame extension via community development and labour organisation ‘Frame extension’ refers to the process of extending a movement’s framing ‘beyond its primary interests to include issues and concerns that are presumed to be of importance to potential adherents’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 625)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action."
Abstract: Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand culture's effects on action is fundamentally misleading. It assumes that culture shapes action by supplying ultimate ends or values toward which action is directed, thus making values the central causal element of culture. This paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into which this traditional view of culture leads and offers an alternative model. Among sociologists and anthropologists, debate has raged for several academic generations over defining the term "culture." Since the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), the older definition of culture as the entire way of life of a people, including their technology and material artifacts, or that (associated with the name of Ward Goodenough) as everything one would need to know to become a functioning member of a society, have been displaced in favor of defining culture as the publicly available symbolic forms through which people experience and express meaning (see Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal cultural practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life. These symbolic forms are the means through which "social processes of sharing modes of behavior and outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, 1969:184) take place.

6,869 citations


"Movement intellectuals engaging the..." refers background in this paper

  • ...This does not mean that goal-oriented ‘strategies of action’ – whether symbolic (e.g. Swidler, 1986) or material – are absent, but that ignoring the rich composite of motivations that animate social movements typically occurs through the trick of theoretically imputing motives, rather than…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization perspective, emphasizing the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations.
Abstract: Past analysis of social movements and social movement organizations has normally assumed a close link between the frustrations or grievances of a collectivity of actors and the growth and decline of movement activity. Questioning the theoretical centrality of this assumption directs social movement analysis away from its heavy emphasis upon the social psychology of social movement participants; it can then be more easily integrated with structural theories of social process. This essay presents a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization perspective. It emphasizes the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations. Propositions are developed to explain social movement activity at several levels of inclusiveness-the social movement sector, the social movement industry, and social movement organization.

5,823 citations


"Movement intellectuals engaging the..." refers background in this paper

  • ...A common risk in emphasising these agential characteristics is a tendency to instrumentalise movement intellectuals as purely rationally-calculative actors, akin to individuals or firms competing in a marketplace (e.g. McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Olson, 1965)....

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