XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

811

Emotions and Collective Actions in Contexts of Violence and Crime: Social Movements Responses to Violent Absence and Ambiguous Loss

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

Language: English and Spanish

It is widely documented that emotions and collective actions can develop processes of memory, recognition and solidarity between victims in environments of violence. Also, it is well acknowledged that actions of violence such as kidnapping and enforced disappearances induce extreme suffering inside communities because of the uncertainty and the incapacity of families to find closure and come to terms with the disappearance of their loved ones, creating processes of ambiguous loss.

In this session we would like to explore and compare socio-historical evolutions of victims´ organisations of violence, crime and armed conflict around the world. The aim is to analyse how the relationship between emotions and collective actions developed by victims’ social movements can impact upon dimensions of social recognition, trust in justice, and solidarity. Particularly, in this session we want to comprehend how victims’ groups claim human rights in the public sphere in response to processes of violent absence and ambiguous loss in contexts of high levels of violence and crime.

We invite theoretically driven or empirically grounded papers addressing the following topics: 

• Theoretical reflections regarding the relationship between emotions and collective actions developed by victims’ social movements.

• Initiatives that are examining how constructions of cultural memory, social recognition and civic solidarity influence collective actions in contexts of high levels of violence and crime.

• Cases studies of victims´ organisations of violence, crime and armed conflict.

• Examples of collective actions developed by victims’ groups regarding kidnapping, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances.