Showing papers on "Social movement published in 1999"

A Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Support for Social Movements: The Case of Environmentalism

Abstract: We present a theory of the basis of support for a social movement. Three types of support (citizenship actions, policy support and acceptance, and personal-sphere behaviors that accord with movement principles) are empirically distinct from each other and from committed activism. Drawing on theoretical work on values and norm-activation processes, we propose a value-belief-norm (VBN) theory of movement support. Individuals who accept a movement’s basic values, believe that valued objects are threatened, and believe that their actions can help restore those values experience an obligation (personal norm) for pro-movement action that creates a predisposition to provide support; the particular type of support that results is dependent on the individual’s capabilities and constraints. Data from a national survey of 420 respondents suggest that the VBN theory, when compared with other prevalent theories, offers the best available account of support for the environmental movement.

Social Movements: An Introduction

Abstract: Preface to the second edition. 1. The Study of Social Movements: Recurring Questions, (Partially) Changing Answers. 1.1. Four Core Questions for Social Movement Analysis. 1.1.1. Is social change creating the conditions for the emergence of new movements? 1.1.2. How do we define issues as worthy objects, and actors as worthy subjects of collective action? 1.1.3. How is collective action possible? 1.1.4. What determines the forms and intensity of collective action? 1.1.5. Are these questions specific of social movement analysis? 1.2. What is Distinctive of Social Movements? 1.2.1. The concept of social movement. 1.2.2. Conflictual and consensual collective action. 1.2.3. Social movements, events, and coalitions. 1.2.4. Social movements and organizational processes. 1.2.5. Social movements and protest. 1.3. On This Book. 2. Social Changes and Social Movements. 2.1 Social Structure, Political Cleavages and Collective Action. 2.1.1 Economic change, social fragmentation and movements. 2.1.2. Economic globalization and social conflict. 2.2 States, markets, and social movements. 2.2.1. Territorial boundaries and social conflicts: the transnationalization of protest. 2.2.2. State and classes: the conflicts around the welfare state. 2.3 Knowledge, Culture and Conflicts. 2.3.1. Shifting boundaries between the public and the private: 2.3.2. Cultures and countercultures. 2.3.3. Between the global and the local. 2.4. Structural Transformations, New Conflicts, New Classes. 2.4.1. Still classes? 2.4.2. New middle classes for new social movements? 2.5 Summary. 3. The Symbolic Dimension of Collective Action. 3.1. Culture and Action: The Role of Values. 3.2. Culture and Action: The Cognitive Perspective. 3.2.1. Collective action as cognitive praxis. 3.2.2. Interpretative frames and ideology. 3.2.3. Sense making activities: linking values and frames. 3.3. Problems and Responses. 3.4. Summary. 4. Collective Action and Identity. 4.1 How Does Identity Work? 4.2 Multiple Identities. 4.3 Does Identity Facilitate Participation? 4.4 How Is Identity Generated and Reproduced? 4.4.1 Self- and hetero-definitions of identity. 4.4.2 Production of identity: symbols, practices, rituals. 4.4.3 Identity and the political process. 4.5 Summary. 5. Individuals, networks, and participation. 5.1. Why do People Get Involved in Collective Action? The Role of Networks. 5.2. Do Networks Always Matter? 5.3. Individuals and Organizations. 5.3.1 Exclusive affiliations. 5.3.2. Multiple affiliations. 5.4. Individual participation, movement subcultures, and virtual networks. 5.5 Summary. 6. Social Movements and Organizations. 6.1. Organizational Dilemmas in Social Movements. 6.1.1. Mobilizing people or resources? 6.1.2. Hierarchical or horizontal structures? 6.1.3. Challengers or 'service providers'? 6.2. Types of social movement organizations. 6.2.1. Professional movement organizations. 6.2.2. Participatory movement organizations. 6.3. How do social movement organizations change? 6.3.1. Patterns of change. 6.3.2. Institutional factors and organizational change. 6.3.3. Organizational cultures and organizational change. 6.3.4. Modernization, technological innovation, and organizational change. 6.4. From movement organizations to social movement networks. 6.5 Summary. 7. Action Forms, Repertoires and Cycles of Protest. 7.1 Protest: A Definition. 7.2 Repertoires of Action. 7.3. The Logics and Forms of Protest. 7.3.1 The logic of numbers. 7.3.2 The logic of damage. 7.3.3 The logic of bearing witness. 7.4 Strategic Options and Protest. 7.5 Factors Influencing Repertoire Choice. 7.6 The Cross-national Diffusion of Protest. 7.7. Cycles of Protest, Protest Wave and Protest Campaigns. 7.8. Summary. 8. The Policing of Protest and Political Opportunities for Social Movements. 8.1 The Policing of Protest. 8.2. Political Institutions and Social Movements. 8.3. Prevailing Strategies and Social Movements. 8.4. Allies, Opponents and Social Movements. 8.4.1. Social movements in a multiorganizational field. 8.4.2. Social movements and parties. 8.5. Discursive Opportunity and the Media System. 8.5.1. Discursive opportunities. 8.5.2. Media and movements. 8.6 Summary. 9. Social Movements and Democracy. 9.1 Social Movement Strategies and Their Effects. 9.2 Changes in Public Policy. 9.3 Social Movements and Procedural Changes. 9.4. Social Movement and Democratic Theory. 9.5. Social movements and democratization. 9.6 Summary. References. Index.

The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements

Abstract: Protest has become an everyday part of modern societies, one of the few recognized outlets for voicing and discussing basic moral commitments. Protest movements shape our thinking about social change and human agency. At a time when schools, the media, and even religious institutions offer little guidance for our moral judgments, protest movements have become a central source for providing us with ethical visions and creative ideas. In this book, James Jasper integrates diverse examples of protest, from 19th-century boycotts to recent anti-nuclear, animal-rights, and environmental movements, into an understanding of how social movements operate. He highlights their creativity, not only in forging new morals but in adopting courses of action and inventing organizational forms. The work stresses the role of individuals, both as lone protesters and as key decision-makers, and it emphasizes the open-ended nature of strategic choices as protesters, their opponents, their allies, and the government respond to each other's actions. The book also synthesizes the many concepts developed in recent years as part of the cultural approach to social movements, placing them in context and showing what they mean for other scholarly traditions. Drawing on lengthy interviews, historical materials, surveys, and his own participation in protests, Jasper offers a systematic overview of the field of social movements. He weaves together accounts of large-scale movements with individual biographies, placing the movements in cultural perspective and focusing on individuals' experiences.

Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory

Abstract: The study of social movements has recently been energized by an explosion of work that emphasizes “political opportunities”—a concept meant to come to grips with the complex environments that movements face. In the excitement over this new metaphor, there has been a tendency to stretch it to cover a wide variety of empirical phenomena and causal mechanisms. A strong structural bias is also apparent in the way that political opportunities are understood and in the selection of cases for study. Even those factors adduced to correct some of the problems of the political opportunity approach—such as “mobilizing structures” and “cultural framing”—are subject to the same structural distortions. We recommend social movement analysis that rejects invariant modeling, is wary of conceptual stretching, and recognizes the diverse ways that culture and agency, including emotions and strategizing, shape collective action.

The social movement society : contentious politics for a new century

Abstract: Chapter 1 A Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century Chapter 2 The Structure and Culture of Collective Protest in Germany since 1950 Chapter 3 Are the Times A-Changin'? Assessing the Acceptance of Protest in Western Democracies Chapter 4 The Institutionalization of Protest in the United States Chapter 5 Policing Protest in France and Italy: From Intimidation to Cooperation? Donatella della Porta Chapter 6 Institutionalization of Protest during Democratic Consolidation in Central Europe Chapter 7 Democratic Transitions as Protest Cycles: Social Movement Dynamics in Democratizing Latin America Chapter 8 A Movement Takes Office Chapter 9 Stepsisters: Feminist Movement Activism in Different Institutional Spaces Chapter 10 Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Movement Society

Political Claims Analysis: Integrating Protest Event and Political Discourse Approaches

Abstract: †Starting from a critique of protest event and political discourse analysis, we propose an extended methodological approach that has the quantitative rigor of event analysis but also retrieves the qualitative discursive elements of claims. Our political claims approach extends the sample of contentious actions beyond protest event analysis by coding institutional and civil society actors, and conventional and discursive action forms, in addition to protests by movement actors. This redefines the research object to acts of political claims making in a multi-organizational field. We use examples from a research project on mobilization about migration and ethnic relations in Britain and Germany to demonstrate the analytic gains that are possible with our approach. By situating protest and social movements, not just theoretically but also methodologically, in a wider context of political claims making, we are in a better position to follow the recent calls for more integrated approaches, which place protest within multi-organizational fields, link it to political opportunities and outcomes, and are sensitive to discursive messages. In the field of social movements, protest, and collective action, there has recently been convergence between the competing paradigms. The desirability of combining political opportunities (contextual factors), mobilizing structures (organizational resources), and framing processes (discursive resources) has become an accepted tenet (e.g., McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996). Given this emergent consensus, it is surprising that there have been relatively few attempts to re-address questions of method, and in particular, techniques of news analysis. Over the last two decades, newspaper reports have become a primary data source in social movement research. News reporting assigns meaning to issues by providing a continuous record of public events and visibility to the claims of actors. The public sphere is an important field where social problems are constructed and political alternatives defined. It is hardly surprising then that the news has become an important data source for researchers interested in studying political challenges in the public domain. In this article, our focus will be self-consciously directed to methods. Specifically, we will propose how recent methodological developments that often rely on collecting data from news sources might be profitably extended. Regarding the current “state of the art,” two different approaches may be identified. The first methodological school is protest event analysis, 1

Social movements in a globalizing world

Abstract: Table of Contents Social Movements in a Globalizing World: an Introduction D.della Porta & H.Kriesi PART I: NATIONAL MOBILIZATION WITHIN A GLOBALIZING WORLD Alternative Types of Cross-national Diffusion in the Social Movement Arena D.A.Snow & R.D.Benford The Gendering of Abortion Discourse: Assessing Global Feminist Influence in the United States and Germany M.Marx Ferree & W.A.Gamson A Comparison of Protests against the Gulf War in Germany, France and the Netherlands R.Koopmans The Diffusion and Adoption of Public Order Management Systems J.D.McCarthy, C.McPhail & J.Crist PART II: MOBILIZATION BEYOND THE NATION-STATE On the Relationship of Political Opportunities to the Form of Collective Action: The Case of the European Union G.Marks & D.McAdam The Europeanization of Movements? Contentions Politics and the European Union, October 1983 - March 1995 D.Imig & S.Tarrow Injustice and Adversarial Frames in a Supranational Political Context: Farmer's Protest in the Netherlands and Spain B.Kandermans, M. de Weerd, J-M.Sabucedo & M.Costa Supranational Political Opportunities as a Channel of Globalization of Political Conflicts. The Case of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples F.Passy Global Politics and Transnational Social Movements Strategies: The Transnational Campaign Against International Trade in Toxic Wastes J.Smith International Campaigns in Context: Collective Action Between the Local and the Global C.Lahusen The Transnationalization of Social Movements: Trends, Causes, Problems D.Rucht Bibliography Index

Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism

Abstract: Preface. Making Waves. Meditation I. The Rhetoric of Social Movements: A Theoretical Diagnostics and Overhaul. Imaging Social Movements. Meditation II. The Possiblities of Nature in a Postmodern Age: The Case of Environemntal Justice Groups. Meditation III. Participatory Democracy in Enemy Territory. Audience, Dissemination, and Contexts: Rereading "War in the Woods". Rhetoric and Social Change in a Postmodern Context.

Institutional Sources of Boundary-Spanning Structures: the Establishment of Investor Relations Departments in the Fortune 500 Industrials

Abstract: The authors analyze the coercive and mimetic conditions leading to the establishment of investor relations departments among Fortune 500 industrial firms during the 1984-1994 period. The results show that antimanagement resolutions brought to a vote by social movement activists significantly contributed to the establishment of investor relations departments. Intense scrutiny by financial analysts also impelled firms to create such departments. Whereas social movement activists framed shareholder rights as a problem and compelled organizations to uphold them, professional analysts subtly coerced organizations to signal their commitment to investor rights by creating boundary-spanning structures. That solution was transmitted through board interlocks to other organizations.

Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism

Abstract: Building on a critical overview of current social movement theory, this book presents a structural model for analysing social movements in advanced capitalism that locates them within global, national, regional and local structures. Buechler discusses a redirection of social movement theory that restores a critical, structural, macro-level, and historical emphasis to sociological theorizing about social movements. Clearly presented, this is a thoughtful introduction to the sociological study of social movements, linking the theoretical traditions that comprise the core of the discipline to the subfield of social movements. It is an excellent supplementary text for any advanced undergraduate or graduate class on collective action and social movements.

Bending with the Wind: Strategic Change and Adaptation by Women's and Racial Minority Organizations

Abstract: This article provides an integrated analysis of social movement organizational change and survival based on the activities of national women's and racial minority organizations during 1955‐‐85. Results demonstrate that core transitions in social change strategies are influenced in contradictory ways by the social movement environment. Older and more formalized movement organizations are more flexible, but the kinds of changes undertaken are not necessarily conservative. The benefits of transformation are limited, however, and organizational change increases the risk of failure with little evidence of a declining effect over time. In the long run, this shapes the organizational system in ways that potentially improve its legitimacy but may also limit the development of an infrastructure for future mobilization.

Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993

Abstract: Poland is the only country in which popular protest and mass opposition, epitomized by the Solidarity movement, played a significant role in bringing down the communist regime. This book, the first comprehensive study of the politics of protest in postcommunist Central Europe, shows that organized protests not only continued under the new regime but also had a powerful impact on Poland's democratic consolidation.Following the collapse of communism in 1989, the countries of Eastern Europe embarked on the gargantuan project of restructuring their social, political, economic, and cultural institutions. The social cost of these transformations was high, and citizens expressed their discontent in various ways. Protest actions became common events, particularly in Poland. In order to explain why protest in Poland was so intense and so particularized, Grzegorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik place the situation within a broad political, economic, and social context and test it against major theories of protest politics. They conclude that in transitional polities where conventional political institutions such as parties or interest groups are underdeveloped, organized collective protest becomes a legitimate and moderately effective strategy for conducting state-society dialogue. The authors offer an original and rich description of protest movements in Poland after the fall of communism as a basis for developing and testing their ideas. They highlight the organized and moderate character of the protests and argue that the protests were not intended to reverse the change of 1989 but to protest specific policies of the government.This book contributes to the literature on democratic consolidation, on the institutionalization of state-society relationship, and on protest and social movements. It will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and policy advisors.Grzegorz Ekiert is Professor of Government, Harvard University. Jan Kubik is Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University.

International development and the social sciences : essays on the history and politics of knowledge

Abstract: During the past fifty years, colonial empires around the world have collapsed and vast areas that were once known as 'colonies' have become known as 'less developed countries' or 'the third world'. The idea of development - and the relationship it implies between industrialized, affluent nations and poor, emerging nations - has become the key to a new conceptual framework. Development has also become a vast industry, involving billions of dollars and a worldwide community of experts. These essays - written by scholars in many fields - examine the production, transmission, and implementation of ideas about development within historical, political, and intellectual contexts, emphasizing the changing meanings of development over the past fifty years. The concept of development has come under attack in recent years both from those who see development as the imperialism of knowledge, imposing on the world a modernity that it does not necessarily want, and those who see development efforts as a distortion of the world market. These essays look beyond the polemics and focus on the diverse, contested, and changing meanings of development among social movements, national governments, international agencies, foundations, and scholars.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE US LABOR MOVEMENT? Union Decline and Renewal

Abstract: ▪ Abstract For many years, US trade unions declined in union density, organizing capacity, level of strike activity, and political effectiveness. Labor's decline is variously attributed to demographic factors, inaction by unions themselves, the state and legal system, globalization, neoliberalism, and the employer offensive that ended a labor-capital accord. The AFL-CIO New Voice leadership elected in 1995, headed by John Sweeney, seeks to reverse these trends and transform the labor movement. Innovative organizing, emphasizing the use of rank-and-file intensive tactics, substantially increases union success; variants include union building, immigrant organizing, feminist approaches, and industry-wide non–National Labor Relations Board (or nonboard) organizing. The labor movement must also deal with participatory management or employee involvement programs, while experimenting with new forms, including occupational unionism, community organizing, and strengthened alliances with other social movements.

GENDER AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Gender Processes in Women's Self-Help Movements

Abstract: Mainstream theory and research in the field of social movements and political sociology has, by and large, ignored the influence of gender on social protest. A growing body of feminist research demonstrates that gender is an explanatory factor in the emergence, nature, and outcomes of all social movements, even those that do not evoke the language of gender conflict or explicitly embrace gender change. This article draws from a case study of the postpartum depression self-help movement to outline the relationship between gender and social movements. Linking theories of gender to mainstream theories on social movements allows us to recognize gender as a key explanatory factor in social movements and, in turn, to identify the role that social movements play in the social construction of gender.

White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States

Abstract: Louise Newman reinterprets an important period (1870s-1920s) in the history of women's rights, focusing attention on a core contradiction at the heart of early feminist theory. At a time when white elites were concerned with imperialist projects and civilizing missions, progressive white women developed an explicit racial ideology to promote their cause, defending patriarchy for "primitives" while calling for its elimination among the "civilized." Exploring how progressive white women at the turn of the century laid the intellectual groundwork for the feminist social movements that followed, Newman's book thus speaks to contemporary debates concerning the effect of race on current feminist scholarship.

Peasants Against Globalization: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica

Abstract: Abbreviations Introduction: debt crisis, social crisis, paradigm crisis 1. The rise and demise of a tropical welfare state 2. 'Iron First in a Kid Glove': peasants confront the free market 3. Organizing in 'The Cradle of Maize' 4. 'In Jail, We'll Eat Cement': finale to a peasant strike 5. Movements evolve, organizations are born and die Conclusion: peasant movements of the late twentieth century Appendix Notes Index.

Racing for the Cure, Walking Women, and Toxic Touring: Mapping Cultures of Action within the Bay Area Terrain of Breast Cancer

Abstract: This paper offers the concept cultures of action to develop a comparative analysis of the San Francisco Bay Area's field of breast cancer activism. I draw attention to the ways in which culture within social movements is enacted, embodied, and emoted, as well as enunciated, by conceptualizing the breast cancer movement in terms of three different cultures of action. The first, represented by Race for the Cure®, draws upon biomedicine, connects breast cancer to survivor identities and the display of heteronormative femininities, mobilizes hope and faith in science and medicine, and promotes biomedical research and early detection. The second, represented by the Women & Cancer Walk, draws upon multicultural feminism, the women's health movement and AIDS activism, connects breast cancer to other women's cancers, challenges the emphasis on survival and the display of heteronormative femininities, emphasizes the effects of institutionalized inequalities, mobilizes anger against the institutions of biomedicine, and promotes social services and treatment activism. The third, represented by the Toxic Tour of the Cancer Industry, draws upon the feminist cancer and environmental justice movements, broadens the focus to include all cancers and environmentally-related illnesses, represents breast cancer as the product and source of profits of a global cancer industry, mobilizes outrage against corporate malfeasance and environmental racism, and replaces the emphasis on biomedical research and early detection with demands for corporate regulation and cancer prevention. This three-dimensional conceptualization extends our understanding of breast cancer activism and contributes to a reorientation of social movements theory around the bodily dimensions of cultural production and collective action. The main function of public spaces is that of rendering visible and collective the questions raised by movements. Alberto Melucci (1994:189)

Supreme Court decision-making : new institutionalist approaches

Abstract: What influences decisions of the US Supreme Court? For decades social scientists focused on the ideology of individual justices. This text moves beyond that focus by exploring how justices are influenced by the distinctive features of courts as institutions and their place in the political system. Drawing on interpretive-historical institutionalism as well as rational choice theory, a group of scholars consider such factors as the influence of jurisprudence, the unique characteristics of supreme courts, the dynamics of coalition building, and the effects of social movements.

The Individualization of Society and the Liberalization of State Policies on Same-Sex Sexual Relations, 1984–1995

Abstract: Over the last half century, social life throughout much of the world has been reconstituted around individualized persons, conceived to embody ultimate authority over their own lives. As individuals have become more central to society, and as models of individuated personhood have been claimed by women as well as by men, many changes have ensued, including a dramatic transformation of sex. Sex has ceased to be dominantly associated with the family and procreation and has come to be associated with the individual and pleasure. One expression of this shift is the recent rise and public legitimation of same-sex sexual relations. Gay and lesbian social movements have appeared worldwide, and many nation-states have liberalized theirpolicies on homosexual relations. Using regression models on cross-national data, we show that (1) high levels of individualization and gender equality provide a "cultural opportunity structure" that gives rise to active lesbian and gay social movements and liberalized state policies on same-sex relations and that (2) active lesbian and gay social movements and liberal state policies each facilitate the other. Competing explanations for the changes, such as economic development and democratization, receive little support.

Women and politics in Latin America

Abstract: This book provides a comprehensive view of women's political participation in Latin America. Focusing on the latter half of the twentieth century, it examines five different arenas of action and debate: political institutions, workplaces, social movements, revolutions, and feminisms. Nikki Craske explores the ways in which women have become more effective in the public arena as the context of politics has altered. Craske demonstrates how gender relations shape political institutions and practices while simultaneously being shaped by them. She examines the moments when women's action has challenged received ideas, and had a significant impact on the political life of Latin American nations. Women remain heavily underrepresented in political lie, despite their important role in popular movements against authoritarianism, Craske states, and posits that the economy is a substantial constraint on women's political participation. This powerful book analyzes the gains made since the 1950s while scrutinizing the challenges and difficulties which still constrain women's political participation.

On the Relationship of Political Opportunities to the Form of Collective Action: the Case of the European Union

Abstract: Among the hotter topics in the social sciences these days is that of ‘globalization’. Consistent with this emphasis, movement scholars have begun to freely use terms such as ‘transnational social movements’ and ‘transnational social movement organizations’, implying that here too we are witnessing wholly new phenomena born of some more general globalizing trend.

Charter Schools as Postmodern Paradox: Rethinking Social Stratification in an Age of Deregulated School Choice.

Abstract: For the last two-and-a-half years, authors Amy Stuart Wells, Alejandra Lopez, Janelle Scott, and Jennifer Jellison Holme have been engaged with a team of researchers in a comprehensive qualitative study of charter schools in ten California school districts. They have emerged from this study with a new understanding of how the implementation of a specific education policy can reflect much broader social changes, including the transformation from modernity to postmodernity. Given that much of the literature on postmodernity is theoretical in nature, this article invites readers to wrestle with the complexity that results when theory meets the day-to-day experiences of people trying to start schools. In their study, the authors examined how people in different social locations define the possibilities for localized social movements, and how they see the potential threat of greater inequality resulting from this reform within and among communities. They started with a framework that questioned how charter sch...

Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia: Engendering Transition

Abstract: This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the contemporary Russian women's movement and of the social, political, economic, historical, and international contexts that surround it. Valerie Sperling paints a vivid portrait of the women's movement's formation and development, paying particular attention to the key challenges facing a social movement in post-communist society, including the virtual absence of civil society, constant flux in political institutions, wrenching economic changes, and the movement's own status in a changing transnational environment. The author also addresses the specific challenges facing women's organizations by discussing societal attitudes towards feminism in Russia. Based on participant observation, primary source materials, and dozens of interviews conducted in Moscow (as well as two smaller Russian cities), the narrative brings alive the activists' struggle to build a social movement under difficult conditions, and sheds new light on the troubled and complex process of Russia's democratization.

“But a Local Phase of a World Problem”: Black History's Global Vision, 1883–1950

Abstract: As a scholar who owes his formative intellectual training to ethnic studies programs and Third World solidarity movements, I am intrigued by recent discussions of how "globalization" has pushed United States scholars to think beyond the nation-state, develop "transnational" and international approaches, and reconsider "diaspora" as an analytical framework.' Black studies, Chicano/a studies, and Asian American studies were diasporic from their inception, a direct outgrowth of the social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s that gave birth to those programs. Whether they are speaking of borderlands, migrations, or diasporas, ethnic studies scholars examine the hyphen between places of "origin" and America. My particular intellectual mooring, however, was the black studies department at California State Uni-