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1 – 10 of 363The study aims to investigate a relevant topic, but still underestimated by sociological studies: animal advocacy, namely, the organized interest in non-human animals' life…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate a relevant topic, but still underestimated by sociological studies: animal advocacy, namely, the organized interest in non-human animals' life, rights and well-being. The Italian case is discussed, with a twofold objective: to highlight the evolution of some repertoires of contention and to use this study to analyze the changes of contemporary collective mobilizations and their relation with the modernization process.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on an online survey (704 responses nationwide), 24 semi-structured interviews with relevant members of groups and associations and a protest event analysis. Furthermore, a vast empirical archive and some academic studies concerning Italian animal advocacy in its historical dimension have been consulted.
Findings
The paper underlines the current specificities of Italian animal advocacy, compared to past decades. The great importance assumed by personal action frames and repertoires of contention emerged as characterizing elements. Activism is always more individual and less related to collective organizations: the central role of veganism and of the internet as protest tool is underlined. Both the increasing possibilities offered by better discursive opportunities structure, but also the possible incorporation of more radical frames within consumer market dynamics emerged from the interviews and the survey.
Originality/value
The phenomenon of animal advocacy (and, more generally, the activities of contemporary social movements) is contextualized within some typical characteristics of modernity, looking both at structural “opportunities” (e.g.: the diffusion of post-materialist values) and “constraints” (e.g.: veganwashing operations). Based on previous definitions coming from social movements studies and following a debate hosted by this journal, the role of collective organizations and especially the centrality assumed by individual activism is critically analyzed, evaluating the new possibilities, but also the possible negative sides. Not only cultural changes, but also political and legal contexts matter. In this sense, both a focus on Italy and more general reflections on western modernities are proposed, trying to go beyond animal advocacy and reflecting on social movements and collective mobilizations more widely.
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Jim Barry, John Chandler and Elisabeth Berg
The paper seeks to offer a consideration of the adequacy of the concept of abeyance in accounting for women's movement processes in non‐social movement organisations in periods…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to offer a consideration of the adequacy of the concept of abeyance in accounting for women's movement processes in non‐social movement organisations in periods characterised by quiescence rather than insurgence.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is primarily conceptual.
Findings
By extending the political process school of social movement theory, which relies heavily on visible activism to explain movement success, to include the new social movement approach, it is contended that underlying processes of change, associated with the values and affiliations of those involved in non‐social movement organisations, become clearer. Less visible processes are identified through the variable rhythms and multiple, discontinuous experiences of women's movement supporters characterised as concealed adherents, informal networkers, and fellow travellers who can include male supporters.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations: as the paper is primarily conceptual, there is a need to develop the practical implications beyond those mentioned below. Implications: there is a need to reorient research into organisational change to take fuller account of social movement processes.
Practical implications
It is recognised that the literature on organisational and managerial change in non‐social movement organisations needs to take account of the differing experiences and potential strategies of those likely to be affected.
Originality/value
Originality of the paper lies in the use of insights drawn from the field of political sociology to enrich understanding of gender and organisational change.
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Donatella della Porta and Elena Pavan
Starting from the assumption that knowledge becomes all the more important for movements in times of crisis, as old structures are challenged and new ones envisaged and proved…
Abstract
Purpose
Starting from the assumption that knowledge becomes all the more important for movements in times of crisis, as old structures are challenged and new ones envisaged and proved feasible, the purpose of this paper is to suggest ways to expand the toolkit of social movement studies in order to empirically address knowledge practices as a meaningful part of contemporary progressive activism.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors start by arguing that, in their effort to pursue or resist social and political changes, contemporary progressive social movements form collective spaces of knowledge production that are true laboratories for innovation. For this reason, the authors begin by making a case for accounting more explicitly for knowledge production within social movement studies - not as a substitution for but, rather, as a necessary complement to current cultural approaches. Building on extant literature on the nexus between movements and knowledge, the authors then outline the peculiarities of movement knowledge.
Findings
On these bases, the authors outline the core components of what the authors call repertoires of knowledge practices - that is, the set of practices that foster the coordination of disconnected, local, and highly personal experiences and rationalities within a shared cognitive system able to provide movements and their supporters with a common orientation for making claims and acting collectively to produce social, political, and cultural changes.
Originality/value
The authors conclude by identifying some promising avenues of research to further develop the understanding of movement practices of knowledge production and transmission.
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This paper aims to examine the cycle of labour protests in Sweden, comparing the contentious actions of trade unions in public and private sectors over 40 years. Prior studies…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the cycle of labour protests in Sweden, comparing the contentious actions of trade unions in public and private sectors over 40 years. Prior studies have focused on industrial conflicts or labour protests, but a long-term perspective on the broad protest repertoire across sectors is lacking. The goal is to test the argument of diversification of action repertoire and differences between the public and private sectors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply the grievance and political opportunity theories of social movement research for explaining the cycles of labour protests and differences between sectors in Sweden over 40 years (1980–2020). The unique protest event data are combined with the official strike statistics. The research period includes the globalisation of the economy and two economic crises.
Findings
Although unions in both sectors have decreased protest mobilisation over time, private sector unions have resigned the most, whereas public sector unions continue to mobilise a diverse set of protest actions. Swedish unions have not replaced strikes with other protest repertoires. The open opportunities have allowed them to use various protests as part of “routine” operations.
Research limitations/implications
Protest event data are derived from newspapers, leading to an over-representation of large events in the urban areas. Future studies should combine data from newspapers with data about online protests.
Originality/value
By thoroughly examining all protest events mobilised by all trade unions in different sectors over 40 years (1980–2020), the paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the cycles of labour protest. The findings should interest industrial relations and social movement scholars.
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Jolanta Aidukaite and Christian Fröhlich
The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy during Soviet times, and they have implemented urban development using neoliberal market principles, provoking grassroots opposition from citizens to privatisation and marketisation of their housing environment and local public space. However, the differing conditions of democratic Lithuanian and authoritarian Russian public governance offer different opportunities and set different constraints for neighbourhood mobilisation. The purpose is to contrast local community mobilisations under the two regimes and highlight the differences between and similarities in the activists’ repertoires of actions in two distinct political and economic urban settings.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs qualitative methodology using data from semi-structured interviews conducted with community activists and state officials, presented using a comparative case study design.
Findings
Although, citizens’ mobilisations in the two cities are reactions to the neoliberalisation of housing and local public space, they take different forms. In Vilnius they are institutionalised and receive formal support from national and local authorities. Moreover, support from the EU encourages organisational development and provides material and cognitive resources for grassroots urban mobilisations. In contrast, residents’ mobilisations in Moscow are informal and face fierce opposition from local authorities. However, even in an authoritarian setting, grassroots mobilisations evolve using creative strategies to circumvent institutional constraints.
Originality/value
Little attention has been paid to grassroots urban mobilisations in post-Soviet cities. There is also a lack of comparative attempts to show variation in post-Soviet urban activism related to housing and local public space.
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The overall aim of this article is to discuss the conditions and character of collective protest in schools. When do pupils as a collective gain the ability to express critical…
Abstract
Purpose
The overall aim of this article is to discuss the conditions and character of collective protest in schools. When do pupils as a collective gain the ability to express critical views on the policies of schools, and what is that criticism about? Using Sweden as an example, I discuss this question by studying the collective organisation of pupils from the 1920s to the 1980s.
Design/methodology/approach
The article discusses and compares two phases of pupils' collective organisation in Sweden: one dominated by pupil councils, one by national organisations. The article discusses how pupil councils at individual schools arose in the wake of the 1928 grammar school charter, and illustrates its influence using a case study of a grammar school in Stockholm. Furthermore, the article investigates how national organisations, first formed in 1952, expressed their concerns about national school policies.
Findings
The first phase (ca. 1928–1951) was dominated by the idea of discipline, and the main task of pupil councils was to help teachers in maintaining discipline. The second phase (ca. 1952–1989) was instead characterised by a heightened focus on protests and democracy. From then on, the main idea was that pupil councils and national pupil organisations should change the school, making it more suited to the needs of the pupils.
Originality/value
There is much research on university students and student uprisings. However, much of the previous research on the student voice is related to the upheavals of the long 1968. By concentrating its efforts on a limited time period when protest was more obvious, previous research has arguably not been able to discuss transformations over time.
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This paper engaged in theory-building from social movement and knowledge management (KM) theories and applied the case study method to explore the role of knowledge complexity in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper engaged in theory-building from social movement and knowledge management (KM) theories and applied the case study method to explore the role of knowledge complexity in administration–society collaborations on knowledge. Complex knowledge is a kind of knowledge that consists of many interdependent elements, some of which are tacit. Complex knowledge creates challenges when external social groups attempt to transfer their knowledge to public organizations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the following question: how do social groups acting as knowledge agents transfer their knowledge if it is complex?
Design/methodology/approach
A single-case study methodology informs the theory-building in this paper. The paper examined a case of collaboration between the natural childbirthing social movement and state maternity hospitals in Russia and Ukraine. The case was constructed from interviews, primary sources and secondary sources.
Findings
Social movement and KM theories were used in a case analysis to formulate theoretical propositions about the complexity of social movement knowledge, why and how movements transfer their knowledge through collaborations with the state, and how administrators assess movement knowledge and its transfer. The case suggests that administrators’ lack of capacity to recognize and deal with complex knowledge results in the underutilization of social groups’ knowledge. In particular, administrators treat complex knowledge as simple, and they misunderstand and underestimate its effects on collaboration.
Originality/value
To the best of this author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt in public administration to engage in theory-building from social movement and KM theories.
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Maria Ceci Misoczky, Guilherme Dornelas Camara and Steffen Böhm
– The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge on strikes and collective action.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge on strikes and collective action.
Design/methodology/approach
Review of theoretical and empirical literature, including comparative literature.
Findings
Both strike activity and other forms of collective action have declined in many advanced capitalist countries. There has been a rise in the number of strike ballots and in tribunal claims but these trends do not constitute a straightforward vindication of the displacement hypothesis. However there is evidence of an increase in general strikes in parts of Western Europe and of protest campaigns involving coalitions of unions and civil society organizations.
Originality/value
The paper tries to summarize the current state of knowledge and to map out directions for future research.
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Bertrand Malsch, Yves Gendron and Frédérique Grazzini
Accounting researchers have frequently borrowed theories and methods from other disciplines. A noteworthy importation movement in recent decades involves the work of French…
Abstract
Purpose
Accounting researchers have frequently borrowed theories and methods from other disciplines. A noteworthy importation movement in recent decades involves the work of French intellectuals and philosophers, not least Pierre Bourdieu. This paper aims to contribute to the sociology of the accounting discipline by examining how Bourdieu's works have been translated into the domain of accounting research.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation is articulated through three modes of analysis. First, it evaluates Bourdieu's recognition in the domain of accounting research, through an examination of the extent to which Bourdieu's writings are cited in accounting articles. Focusing on accounting articles which rely significantly on Bourdieu's thought, the paper then examines which of his publications have been mobilized, and how researchers have articulated his ideas in studying accounting phenomena. The third line of inquiry addresses the extent to which accounting researchers have used Bourdieu's core concepts holistically, that is to say in mobilizing simultaneously the concepts of field, capital and habitus.
Findings
Several of the studies which rely significantly on Bourdieu have employed his work holistically, while others have not. Moreover, about half of the studies reviewed in the paper are characterized by a gap between Bourdieu's view of academic research as a support to political and social causes debated in the public arena versus a more dispassionate approach to research. While it is difficult to be conclusive about the implications of these translational gaps, they nonetheless make one aware of some central epistemological issues: Should accounting researchers be more concerned about bringing “the achievements of science and scholarship into public debate”? What are the pros and cons of drawing upon ideas from politically‐engaged intellectuals in order to conduct research characterized by political dispassion? Does it make sense to use certain concepts excerpted from a comprehensive system of thought in a piecemeal way?
Originality/value
The paper mobilizes and develops the notion of translation in investigating an interdisciplinary movement.
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