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On 18 March 2015, the transnational anti-austerity Blockupy coalition protested the inauguration of the new European Central Bank premises in Frankfurt. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this mass protest event by highlighting the organizational differences, possibilities, and conflicts that was involved.

The paper is based on participant observation of the Blockupy event and interviews with a group of Danish activists who also participated.

The paper constructs sociospatial narrative that unfolds through three different scales of organization: the Blockupy coalition, the participating formal and informal organizations, and the activist subject. This narrative explicates the mode of organization as a “convergence space” (cf. Routledge, 2003), with different “roots” and “routes” of organization (cf. Davies, 2012).

Thus, through an analysis of the modes of organization constituting this mass protest event, this paper restates the relevance of the concept of organization, which have recently been ignored or understated in favour of master-narratives of networks or the dichotomy of horizontalism and verticality. It concludes by posing a set of questions for further discussion among both activists and sociologists.

The purpose of this paper is to question the idea of “passing a test” within activist ethnography. Activist ethnography is an ethnographic engagement with social movement organizations as anti-authoritarian, anarchist, feminist and/or anti-racist collectives. It is based on the personal situating of the researcher within the field to avoid a replication of colonialist research dynamics. Addressing these concerns, we explore activist ethnography through feminist standpoint epistemologies and decolonial perspectives.

This paper draws on our two activist ethnographies conducted as PhD research in two distinct European cities with two different starting points. While Léa entered the field through her PhD research, Claire partly withdrew and re-entered as academic.

Even when activist researchers share the political positioning of the social movement they want to study, they still experience tests regarding their research methodology. As activists, they are accountable to their movement and experience – as most other activist – a constant threat of exclusion. In addition, activist networks are fractured along political lines, the test is therefore ongoing.

Our contribution is threefold. First, the understanding of tests within activist ethnography helps decolonizing ethnography. Being both the knower and the known, activist ethnographers reflect on the colonial and heterosexist history of ethnography which offers potentials to use ethnography in non-exploitative ways. Second, we conceive of activist ethnography as a prefigurative methodology, i.e. as an embedded activist practice, that should therefore answer to the same tests as any other practice of prefigurative movements: it should aim to enact here and now the type of society the movement reaches for. Finally, we argue that activist ethnography relies on and contribute to developing consciousness about the researcher’s political subjectivity.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Coombs and Holladay’s (2012a) concern that textbooks have had a powerful and negative influence on public relations’ curricula because they have positioned public relations as a function of business, rather than as a field of knowledge and practice that plays an emancipatory role in society.

The paper is a diachronic, thematic analysis of public relations textbooks dating from 1981 to 2017. This methodology is valid because textbooks not only disseminate the knowledge base associated with a community of practice, but they are also influential legitimisers of curricula and bodies of knowledge.

The findings show that public relations textbooks are slowly evolving to include activist studies as a content area from both a strategic business perspective and a critical perspective.

The sample size is small but sufficient to indicate the beginnings of a trend. While the influence of textbooks on curricula is waning as students look beyond prescribed texts to a wider array of readings, they remain the most influential educational medium worldwide (Fuchs and Bock, 2018).

The paper calls for a greater inclusion of activist studies in contemporary public relations curricula to prepare practitioners for changes to the communications environment, as well as an opportunity for public relations to reposition itself as an emancipatory field of knowledge and practice.

Activism studies, as a curriculum field, provide a foundation for positioning public relations as an emancipatory practice.

The paper proposes that incorporating activism studies into public relations curricula is a way for public relations to reframe itself as a field of knowledge and practice that plays an emancipatory role in society.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how activists of the Spanish protest movement 15M conceptualize organizational practices in relation to the movement’s goals.

In order to theoretically understand social movement organizations (SMO), the concept of partial organization is placed within the context of the politics of prefiguration. Empirically, the paper is based on field research conducted in Spain in three consecutive years (2014-2016) that included 82 qualitative interviews and participant observation.

Activists consider the organizational practices as crucial means to achieve social change. They conceptualize SMO in a meaningful and systematic way as partial organizations, specifically, by aiming at open membership and non-hierarchical structures. As they do this to enact the movement’s goals prefiguratively in their daily organizational practices, the limits and restrictions of the practices of self-organization are widely accepted.

The research focused on studying the relatively young and often very successful organizations of the Spanish movement. It remains open to what extent the prefigurative practices will survive organizational life cycles.

By contributing to a deeper understanding of the underlying philosophy of SMO, this paper is useful for social movement activists and scholars.

This is one of the first papers, which analyzes the organizations of the Spanish protest movement with respect to both empirical and theoretical aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the forms of activist organisation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP16 in Cancún and reveals their attempts to create alternatives to a seemingly “depoliticised” response to climate change. The paper argues that existing attempts to challenge depoliticisation face problems in the form of governmental opposition, limitations on forms of organising, and internal conflicts between activists.

This paper utilises “scholar-activist” engagement with actors at alternative “popular” spaces established outside the COP16 in Cancún, Mexico. It draws upon extensive participant observation and in-depth interviews with 20 English-speaking activists.

Common among activists was a concern to try and model alternative forms of social relations, to the depoliticised and hierarchical forms found in the formal Conference of Parties, via forms of anarchist-influenced “prefigurative” practice. In spite, or perhaps because, of perceived challenges to attempts to organise their political praxis along non-hierarchical lines, many people were ambivalent about the scope of their action, revealing highly reflexive accounts of the limitations of these whilst simultaneously remaining pragmatic in trying to make the most of their involvement.

The paper helps us to better understand the potential to politicise climate change. Understanding the challenges faced by activists is important for trying to organise more effective political responses to climate injustice. It is suggested that we must understand activists’ responses to these challenges and limitations in terms of the pragmatism in response that allows them to continue to invest in activism in the face of unsuccessful actions.

Elaborates on the diversity of the people movement between the USA and Mexico and the effect on goods and resources for the two, particularly regarding HIV/AIDS collaboration. Makes observations about the US/Mexico political‐organizational field, such as the governmental, service, activist, academic and religious. Spotlights San Diego – Tijuana as binational fields which prove a sound example of what can be achieved at local and federal levels – for the benefit of both communities. Concludes with policy recommendations for effective binational collaboration on the US and Mexican sides, with the USA providing more funds for the Mexican side of the border.

In this paper, the author analyzed the repertoire of protest that cannabis activists employ in marches and mass demonstrations. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between key demands and identities surrounding cannabis movement and the repertoire of protest they normally use.

The work was designed as a qualitative case study to build a deep understanding and detailed description of the cannabis movement’s dynamics and an analysis of its repertoire of protest. Data collection was carried out in two fieldwork periods in 2016 and 2017. This phase mainly consisted of ethnographic work and semi-structured interviews. An exploratory study was also carried out in May 2016. Information was mainly collected through interviews that delved into various issues regarding the movement’s internal composition and dynamics. As such, the author conducted 23 interviews with participants in marches and mass demonstrations, as well as with current non-governmental organization members. The compiled information was analyzed according to the “documentary method.”

Although the Global Marijuana March brings together users, activists, civil society organizations and politicians, the Mexican cannabis movement has non-articulated demands, it lacks a strong common identity and limited resources for mobilization. These features find an echo in a poor repertoire of protest.

This is the first scholarly and systematic analysis of the Mexican cannabis movement in the academic literature. Further, there is a systematic analysis of the cannabis movement repertoire of protest and how cannabis activists are able to translate their demands and identities into banners, chants, performances, masks and costumes, performances, pamphleteering, and demonstrations.

The purpose of this paper is to describe three foundational concepts that contribute to conceptual heritage of the field of public relations (publics, organizations and relationships). Conceptual heritage is positioned as a type of shared public memory, a dominant narrative, that encourages adherence to the past whilst recognizing that counter-narratives can pose useful alternatives to foundational concepts.

The approach is a selective literature review that describes three dominant concept categories and presents more recently developed alternative concepts and approaches to illustrate how public memory is subjective and evolving.

The concepts of publics, organizations and relationships have grounded the dominant narrative and development of the field of public relations. Though these concepts continue to be influential as researchers rely upon and expand upon their legacies, counter-narratives can spur the innovation of ideas, measurement and practice.

The paper focuses on only three major foundational concepts selected by the authors. The importance of these concepts as well as additional examples of the field’s conceptual heritage and evolution could be identified by different authors.

The analysis demonstrates how the public memory contributes to the development and evolution of the field of public relations. Counter-narratives can offer appealing, subjectively constructed challenges to dominant narratives.

This paper describes and critiques public relations’ conceptual heritage and argues that conceptually and methodologically-based counter-narratives have contributed to its evolution.

The purpose of this paper is to explore charitable giving and receiving as a site of social class interaction in Croatia today, particularly in relation to the country’s socialist past and capitalist present.

Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in three charity organisations in Croatia. The reported material is based on participant observation, interviews and informal conversations with organisation members, activists, employees and end users.

The authors find that charity activists and recipients of aid occupy distinct but overlapping moral economies in relation to questions of poverty, charity and the role of the state.

The authors develop a unique perspective on charitable giving and receiving in a context in which memories of socialism shape understandings of the role of the state today vis-à-vis poverty relief.

Using the theory of planned behavior, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between different types of media and the intention to buy sustainable apparel and test whether attitudes, social norms, and self-efficacy beliefs may explain these relationships.

A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 681 young adults (18-26 years old).

Exposure to social media content of sustainable organizations, eco-activists, and sustainable apparel brands, and social media content of fashion bloggers and fast fashion brands predicted respondents’ attitudes, descriptive and subjective norms, and self-efficacy beliefs regarding buying sustainable apparel. In turn, attitudes, descriptive norms, and self-efficacy beliefs predicted the intention to buy sustainable apparel. Fashion magazines predicted the intention through self-efficacy. Specialized magazines did not predict the intention to buy sustainable apparel.

Results should be generalized with caution as the current study relied on a convenience sample of young adults. The cross-sectional study design limits the ability to draw conclusions regarding causality. Actual behavior was not addressed and needs to be included in further research.

The present study hints at the importance of social media to affect young consumers’ intentions to buy sustainable apparel. Sustainable apparel brands should consider attracting more young social media users to their social media pages.

This study is one of the first to examine the potential of different media to promote sustainable apparel buying intention.