IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

592

Social Movement Theory and Research: Past, Present and Future

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)

Language: English

Session Type: Oral

Theory and research on social mobilization are shaped by the conditions of their times the social positions and values of researchers and theorists. The history of SMS theory has generally shown a systematic move from “irrational mobs” to the structural functional analyses of “strain” and the highly rational, self-interested actor of resource mobilization theory. The legacy of the Frankfurt school analysis of the rise of fascism, based on how alienation, character, identity, and values, primarily authoritarianism, influenced the various new social movement theories, which have attempted to see most of the newer, especially progressive social movements, based upon “project identities” that aimed to transform collective identities and values whose occupations mobilizations take place in the public sphere that would critique existing identities and values, articulate newer, more progressive subjectivities and values rather than attempt to foster social change through partisan elections in the political sphere. The recent social mobilizations of our times, the progressive mobilizations that began with the various anti-globalization protests, to Arab spring, southern Europe and Occupy, and most recently, Black Lives Matter, Me Too the left politics of Millennials and Z generations as well as the various right-wing movements today, populism’s, authoritarian nationalisms, etc. have required us to rethink the how’s and why’s of social movements, the nature of the activists, and the outcomes of these mobilizations. This session will attempt to consider some of the newer perspectives emerging to explain contemporary social mobilizations in general, and some of the specific movements of today.