Social movement

About: Social movement is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 23103 publications have been published within this topic receiving 653076 citations. The topic is also known as: movement & syndical movement.

In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley

Abstract: This book provides an account of the lives of Bhilala adivasis in the Narmada valley who are fighting against displacement by the Sardar Sarovar dam in Western India On the basis of intensive fieldwork and historical research, this study places the tribal community in the context of its experience of state domination The author challenges current theories of social movements which claim that a cultural critique of the "development" paradigm is writ large in the political actions of those marginalized by "development"--adivasis who lived in harmony with nature, combining reverence for nature with the sustainable management of resources The complexity of adivasi politics cannont be reduced to an opposition between "development" and "resistance" The book forces us to re-examine the politics of representation within the ideology of progressive movements It will be of equal interest to scholars and social activists concerned about development environment, and indigenous peoples

Occupancy Urbanism: Radicalizing Politics and Economy beyond Policy and Programs

Abstract: This article proposes a narrative of city contestations beyond policy and programs. It considers why Indian metro elites, large land developers and international donors paradoxically lobby for comprehensive planning when confronting ‘vote bank politics’ by the poor. Poor groups, claiming public services and safeguarding territorial claims, open up political spaces that appropriate institutions and fuel an economy that builds complex alliances. Such spaces, here termed ‘occupancy urbanism’, are materialized by land shaped into multiple de-facto tenures deeply embedded in lower bureaucracy. While engaging the state, these locality politics remain autonomous of it. Such a narrative views city terrains as being constituted by multiple political spaces inscribed by complex local histories. This politics is substantial and poses multiple crises for global capital. Locally embedded institutions subvert high-end infrastructure and mega projects. ‘Occupancy urbanism’ helps poor groups appropriate real estate surpluses via reconstituted land tenure to fuel small businesses whose commodities jeopardize branded chains. Finally, it poses a political consciousness that refuses to be disciplined by NGOs and well-meaning progressive activists and the rhetoric of ‘participatory planning’. This is also a politics that rejects ‘developmentalism’ where ‘poverty’ is ghettoized via programs for ‘basic needs’ allowing the elite ‘globally competitive economic development’.

Repression, Micromobilization, and Political Protest

Abstract: Several major theories - deprivation theory, resource mobilization theory, and the theory of collective action - make different predictions about the effects of repression on political protest. The results of empirical research have been inconclusive as well: some studies have found that repression deters protest, whereas others have found a positive (radicalizing) effect of repression on protest. This article proposes a model that explains the different effects of repression, in conjunction with other incentives, on political protest. Wefirst hypothesize that repression has a direct negative (deterring) effect on protest because repression is a cost. This direct effect may be endorsed under some conditions, or it may be neutralized, or even reversed if repression leads to micromobilization processes that raise incentives for protest. 77Tese processes are set in motion if persons are exposed to repression, if repression is considered illegitimate by these persons and their social environment (whzich holds in case of legal protest), and if these persons are members of groups that support protest. Under such conditions repression indirectly increases protest by launching micromnobilization processes. These processes and their effects are specified in a model which is tested and confinned by a panel study of opponents of nuclear power in West Germany. It is generally known that repressive acts of state officials (such as those associated with the police, courts, and governments) constraining political protest are important factors in shaping the rise and decline of social movements and individual participation in social movement activities. Also well documented by empirical studies is that the effects of repression vary: increasing repression may promote or impede mobilization processes. There has been little effort, however, to develop propositions that explain under what conditions repression advances or inhibits the growth of social movements and participation in protest actions. This article suggests such propositions that focus on individual participation in social movement activities and tests these proposi

The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital

Abstract: Global in scope, but refusing a familiar totalizing theoretical framework, the essays in The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital demonstrate how localized and resistant social practices—including anticolonial and feminist struggles, peasant revolts, labor organizing, and various cultural movements—challenge contemporary capitalism as a highly differentiated mode of production. Reworking Marxist critique, these essays on Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe advance a new understanding of "cultural politics" within the context of transnational neocolonial capitalism. This perspective contributes to an overall critique of traditional approaches to modernity, development, and linear liberal narratives of culture, history, and democratic institutions. It also frames a set of alternative social practices that allows for connections to be made between feminist politics among immigrant women in Britain, women of color in the United States, and Muslim women in Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and Canada; the work of subaltern studies in India, the Philippines, and Mexico; and antiracist social movements in North and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe. These connections displace modes of opposition traditionally defined in relation to the modern state and enable a rethinking of political practice in the era of global capitalism. Contributors . Tani E. Barlow, Nandi Bhatia, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chungmoo Choi, Clara Connolly, Angela Davis, Arturo Escobar, Grant Farred, Homa Hoodfar, Reynaldo C. Ileto, George Lipsitz, David Lloyd, Lisa Lowe, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Aihwa Ong, Pragna Patel, Jose Rabasa, Maria Josefina Saldana-Portillo, Jaqueline Urla

Mobile Transformations of 'Public' and 'Private' Life.

Abstract: Most conceptions of public and private life within political and social theory do not adequately consider the networks or fluidities involved in contemporary social relations. The distinction of public and private is often conceived of as statically `regional' in character. This article, following an extensive analysis of the multiple meanings of the `public' and `private', criticizes such a static conception and maintains that massive changes are occurring in the nature of both public and private life and especially of the relations between them. We consider flows and networks that enable mobility between and across apparent publics and privates. These mobilities are both physical (in the form of mobile people, objects and hybrids of humans-in-machines) and informational (in the form of electronic communication via data, visual images and texts). We consider the transformations of public and private life that have arisen from `complex' configurations of place and space: the dominant system of car-centred automobility whose spatial fluidities are simultaneously private and public; and various globalizations through the exposure of `private' lives on public screens and the public screening of mediatized events. These mobile, machinic examples demonstrate the limitations of the static, regional conceptualizations of public and private life developed within much social and political theory, and suggest that this divide may need relegation to the dustbin of history.