Chapter 14: Architects of Change: Reconstructing Society

Discussion Questions:

1. How do these articles portray the role of ideology?
2. How are roles within social movements linked to identity?
3. Categorize the movements discussed in each article as either a reform movement, revolutionary movement, or countermovement. For each, explain how you decided on which was the more accurate classification.

Amy Blackstone
Doing Good, Being Good, and the Social Construction of Compassion
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, February 2009; vol. 38, 1: pp. 85-116.
http://jce.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/38/1/85?ijkey=rgaz.TmheWxmw&keytype=ref&siteid=spjce
Abstract:
Activists and volunteers in the United States face the dilemma of having to negotiate the ideals of American individualism with their own acts of compassion. In this article, I consider how activists and volunteers socially construct compassion. Data from ethnographic research in the breast cancer and antirape movements are analyzed. The processes through which compassion is constructed are revealed in participants' actions and in their identities. It is through their actions (or “doing good”) and their perceptions and presentations of themselves (“being good”) that participants construct compassion as a gendered phenomenon. Together, the processes of doing good and being good raise questions about the extent to which participants' acts of compassion are or can be transformative in a way that promotes the social change which activists and volunteers seek.

Scott A Hunt & Robert D Benford
Identity Talk in the Peace and Justice Movement
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 22, No. 4, 488-517 (1994)
http://jce.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/22/4/488?ijkey=Nhlg6wTCo7UA6&keytype=ref&siteid=spjce
Abstract:
This article examines identity talk in several peace movement organizations from 1982 to 1991. Identity talk directs attention to how identity discourse concretizes activists' perceptions of social movement dramas, demonstrates personal identity, reconstructs individuals' biographies, imputes group identities, and aligns personal and collective identities. Six types of identity talk are identified and illustrated: associational declarations, disillusionment anecdotes, atrocity tales, personal is political reports, guide narratives, and war stories. These stories revolve around the themes of becoming aware, active, committed, and weary. Suggestions are offered for possible future research.

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Rugh M Mann
Emotionality and Social Activism: A Case Study of a Community Development Effort to Establish a Shelter for Women in Ontario
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 31, No. 3, 251-284 (2002)
http://jce.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/31/3/251?ijkey=aGyNEO8ndN7CY&keytype=ref&siteid=spjce
Abstract:
This article addresses the dynamics and consequences of emotionality in social movement activity through a case study of a community development effort to establish a shelter for women in a small Ontario community in the early 1990s. From the perspective of involved actors, the shelter-building initiative took on "a life of its own," producing outcomes that contravened their goals and values, as community workers and as feminists. These included two eventualities that shelter activists were particularly anxious to avoid—an "us-against-them" vilification of a male "opposition" and the stigmatization of abused women as a "problem population." Theoretical work on the interplay of social structures, cultural repertoires, and the emotionality of the self provides insight into how and why such seemingly "irrational" processes evolve.

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Annette Linden & Bert Klandermans
Revolutionaries, Wanderers, Converts, and Compliants: Life Histories of Extreme Right Activists
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 36, No. 2, 184-201 (2007)
http://jce.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/36/2/184?ijkey=8HemLnr/PNZBk&keytype=ref&siteid=spjce
Abstract:
Life-history interviews were conducted with thirty-six extreme right activists in the Netherlands (1996-1998). Becoming an activist was a matter of continuity, of conversion, or of compliance. Continuity denotes life histories wherein movement membership and participation are a natural consequence of prior political socialization; conversion to trajectories wherein movement membership and participation are a break with the past; and compliance to when people enter activism, not owing to personal desires but because of circumstances they deemed were beyond their control. Stories of continuity in our interviews were either testimonies of lifetimes of commitment to extreme right politics (labeled revolutionaries) or lifelong journeys from one political shelter to the other by political wanderers (labeled converts). Activists who told us conversion stories, we labeled converts and those who told compliance stories, compliants. The article presents a prototypical example of each type of career and suggests each prototype to hold for different motivational dynamics.

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Jerry Harris & Carl Davidson
Obama: The New Contours of Power
Race & Class, Vol. 50, 1 – 19 (2009)
http://rac.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/50/4/1?ijkey=Batx/vycKisa.&keytype=ref&siteid=sprac
Abstract:
Barack Obama's election as US president marks a historic cultural shift in US political life, and is a major victory for progressive forces. But what is the nature of the broad-based alliance that placed him in the White House, how was it forged and from what did it derive its strength? The global economic crisis has shockingly exposed the bankruptcy of hitherto dominant and unfettered neoliberalism and opened the way for setting a genuinely progressive social and economic agenda. This article analyses the challenges that face the new administration and the balance of progressive forces that could make a profound and lasting difference to US society.

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Terry Leahy
Discussion of ‘Global Warming and Sociology’
Current Sociology, Vol. 56, 475 – 484 (2008)
http://csi.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/56/3/475?ijkey=HsPW0MWWtFFmE&keytype=ref&siteid=spcsi
Abstract:
Lever-Tracy has hit the nail on the head when she points to the reluctance of sociologists to consider the social implications of global warming. Meanwhile the discussion of these issues in other disciplines grows apace. Ecological modernizers see the environmental crisis as a stimulus to capitalist societies, providing new opportunities for growth from re-tooling. Yet, sections of the environmentalist movement envisage necessary social change as much more profound. A key to this debate is the likely costs of re-tooling. This technological and financial question is a prerequisite for understanding the social implications. If the costs of re-tooling are huge, as can be argued, some drastic social changes are quite likely.

Barry Checkoway
Education For Democracy by Young People in Community-Based Organizations
Youth & Society September 2013 45: 389-403
http://yas.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/45/3/389?ijkey=GeX/Vtco0UVig&keytype=ref&siteid=spyas
Abstract:
At a time when many young Americans have reduced their civic engagement, and public schools have de-emphasized their civic mission, some youth are taking initiative at the community level, and some community-based organizations are establishing educational programs to promote their participation. These programs originate in economically disinvested and racially segregated areas whose young people require and receive “education for democracy” appropriate for their situation. This article provides perspectives on these programs, including their social purpose, curricular content, pedagogical methods, and implications for a new civics that contrasts with traditionalapproaches. It draws on analysis of educational efforts by organizations affiliated with a national project designed to increase youth participation in the South Bronx, Mississippi Delta, Albuquerque, East Oakland, and other areas.