Search results

In a context of increasing globalization and neoliberal restructuring and with labor's power diminishing vis-à-vis employers, American workers have turned in recent years to community-based campaigns targeting local government. These mobilizations have received considerable attention from scholars who see this emerging community orientation as a significant strategic innovation. This study, alternatively, focuses on the subjective and ideological consequences of such mobilizations for those engaged in protest. In particular, it seeks to extend social movement theory regarding the transformative impact of collective action by asking: how do distinct forms of collective action bring about particular kinds of consciousness and identity among participants?

Scholars rooted in a variety of traditions – from theorists of “post-industrial” society and “new” social movements to state theorists and geographers – have suggested that identities fostered at the local level are characterized by a “defensive,” “introverted,” or “retrospective” quality. This study examines a local mobilization, the case of a living wage campaign in Chicago, which deviates from these expectations. Through an analysis of interviews with participants, I find that instead of spurring defensiveness the campaign engendered a citizenship identity that was both active and inclusive. In explaining why my findings diverge from existing theories of identity formation, my analysis highlights three conceptual deficiencies in the literature with respect to (1) the distinction between local versus transnational collective action, (2) the relationship between social movement goals/tactics and outcomes, and (3) the prioritization of “new” social movements over the labor movement. Examining the citizenship identities that developed during Chicago's living wage campaign is instructive, finally, for understanding the sources of counter-hegemonic subjectivity within a broader context of eroding citizenship rights and a dominant market fundamentalist ideology. More generally, this analysis paves the way for a more productive engagement among theories of social movements, citizenship, labor, and globalization.

Neoliberal globalization is not a process in which capital freely moves around the globe and exploits labor tied to families, communities and nation states. Labor often moves, wants to move and has to move in this process. Labor required by the expanding circuit of capital exists as mobile labor. However, the movement of labor is allowed in a highly selective manner, depending upon the changing needs in the spaces of capital accumulation. Nation states continue to utilize borders to control labor mobility. These borders are boundaries built upon segregation between and discrimination against people of different races, genders, nationalities and residential statuses. Whereas this “bordered global capitalism” certainly made migration more costly, uncomfortable and risky process, it could not stop the increasing flow of migration. In fact, the mobility of labor has always been central to the reproduction of capitalism while the excessive mobility of labor or “escape” of labor often threatens capitalism maintained by borders as an external expression of exclusive citizenship that gives coherence to the otherwise class-divided population. This chapter looks into the ways in which migrant labor, despite all the constraints imposed upon them by borders, struggles to form “citizenship from below” by exercising social movement citizenship and thereby ruptures the fixed notion and institution of citizenship and migrant control regimes. The chapter does so by critically engaging with existing theories of labor migration and citizenship and presenting cases of the struggle of mobile labor in Hong Kong and South Korea.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the utility of different sources of learning in informal, formal and non-formal venues in lifelong learning developing under variable contextual conditions. This calls for an integration of two fields that have been isolated for too long, namely, citizenship education and peace education.

Untrue, indoctrinating and even coercive communications negate learning that contributes to the formation of convictions based in conscientization. Political awareness is imperative for strengthening the human being’s influence as an historical subject and participant in present and future social movements.

Traditionally, citizenship education focused on citizens’ understanding of and relation to national political systems and domestic affairs. This focus was later enlarged to both a sub-national civic culture and to international orientations with an increasing interest in the global dimension. Peace education originated in peace research and action embedded in an understanding of peace from a value perspective aiming at transformation towards alternative visions of the future. Learners’ perceptions of problems, conflicts and contradictions ranging from local to global levels are starting points for a politicization approach in peace education.

It is claimed in this paper that this comprehensive approach in peace education is imperative in citizenship education in any society. The rationale for this integration of citizenship and peace education is that becoming and being a citizen involves a lifelong process of learning aiming at increasing political awareness and influence.

In this chapter, I will first conceptualize social movement theory before examining the importance of student movements and student activism. I then will link social movement theory to the university in Egypt. Next, I will contextualize university activism by describing the authoritarian structures of Egypt’s university system. Then, using secondary data sources, I will characterize university activism during the three transitional political periods (under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SACF), under President Morsi, and after the ousting of Morsi), and conclude with a discussion on the implications of student activism on future university reform.

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical account of the hate crime (HC) paradigm by exploring its historical legal definition and the limitations in addressing the multiple and structural discriminations faced by minority groups. Specifically, the article focuses on the case of Italy, where in recent years a fierce debate over a proposed law on HC against LGBT+ and disabled people ended in its rejection due to neoconservative and Catholic opposition.

Drawing on critical socio-criminological literature on HC, the paper analyses the Italian debates and socio-legal context over the past two decades regarding discrimination against LGBT+ groups and its (lack of) criminalization. It also provides a secondary analysis of recent data on violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people, collected by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The analysis of the debate and the data collected shows that the criminal definition of HC is insufficient to capture the wider range of social and cultural violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people. Indeed, data analysis shows the effect of the low level of recognition of rights on the propensity of people to denounce and of social practitioners to recognize, discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people. It is therefore argued that the discussion on HC should move beyond the criminalization of individual violence to be entrenched in a broader reflection over the lack of recognition of sexual citizenship rights which perpetuates the vulnerability of LGBT+ people.

This paper contributes to the international socio-criminological debate on HC. It argues for a comprehensive framework that recognizes the structural nature of discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups by framing discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people as a citizenship right rather than a criminal justice issue.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, over 500,000 families have been evicted from their homes since Spain’s property market crashed in 2008. The response of Spanish local communities has been the emergence of a networked social movement, Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), endeavouring to build a more sustainable future through upholding the right to housing. This chapter examines the ability of the PAH social movement to uphold the right to housing and prompt social and institutional change in Spain.

This is a single-case study of the PAH social movement in Spain. The data are of three types: texts, photos, and films disseminated via the mass media, social networks, and PAH websites; informal conversations with PAH participants from Barcelona and Madrid; and observations and personal interviews held in two local PAH groups, that is, Móstoles and Elche.

In this chapter, first we explore the birth of PAH and its later spread from Barcelona to hundreds of cities in Spain and beyond, as a social reaction to the economic recession and decisions made by political, administrative, and financial institutions in response to the economic crisis. Then, by analysing the internal dynamics of two PAH groups, we discuss how networked social movements such as PAH can create spaces of citizenship that challenge taken-for-granted principles of capitalism, prompting social change. Finally, we uncover how, due to PAH’s advocacy work addressing a structural lack of emergency and social housing, the Spanish public administration is developing new roles and allocating new resources to guarantee the right to housing, a social policy area historically neglected in Spain.

New social housing offices are being established in municipalities in Spain as a result of PAH’s advocacy work.

The strengthening of social capital and movements in the aftermath of the economic crisis has the ability to prompt investment in social areas such as housing.

The purpose of this qualitative, interpretive, study is to help us better understand how a small group of Hmong immigrant adolescents conceptualize their political and civic citizenship in the United States. Three focus groups including a total of 18 Hmong middle/junior high school adolescents were carried out in order to garner data. Upon data analysis and interpretation, it was determined that study participants consider rights and responsibilities important to citizenship in a democracy and participate in various social, political, academic, and environmental activities. Study participants emphasize the community good over personal self-interests. As Hmong culture tends to be more collectivist in nature, this value orientation may be incompatible with the curriculum, instruction, and philosophy that students experience in public schools: Hmong youth may experience educational disadvantage. Adolescents in this study are developing their conceptions of citizenship within a racialized, hierarchical society and they explained their experiences with racialization and how they understand white privilege.

The popular uprising, the Aragalaya, was a response to a debt crisis as well as a catharsis of accumulated public discontent, which overlapped with the pandemic. A key lesson from the pandemic was the need to strengthen state social provisioning capacities to protect the health status of citizens. In addition, enhancing local economies and sustainable livelihoods is central to avoiding the vulnerabilities of international migrant labour and tourism. The limitations of representative politics highlight the need to strengthen democratic social movement politics. Along with cross cultural alliances, building multi-class alliances is central for strengthening politics of redistribution. In a context of integration of party politics with criminal networks, demilitarisation as well as the abolition of prisons is indispensable for democratisation. In a global scale, democratising financial markets and platform economies suggests regulation and regional experiments not simply by the state but also multiple publics. In demanding participation in representative institutions, the Aragalaya combined a protest movement with a sense of commons. In turn, it pointed towards the possibilities of a public-driven economy based on the democratisation of the state as well as markets. In framing this movement as a ‘struggle of love’, it revitalised the realm of life politics and alternative pleasures of life.

Volume 17 of Political Power and Social Theory showcases a collection of first-rate scholarship by historical, political, and economic sociologists who concern themselves with some of the most powerful movements, actors, and institutions of modern society. The papers in this year's volume are grouped around three broad themes that take us back in time to the early 20th century America, extend our analytical scope beyond national borders, and return the reader to the present and a contemporary controversy that has implications for the future of our nation and perhaps even the entire global economy.

Current events and citizenship intersect in students’ classrooms in ways both problematic and full of potential. Teachers take a range of approaches, from the passive, weekly regurgitation of news stories to the empowered use of current events to explore broader issues and inform civic engagement. Creating an open classroom climate can help teachers unlock the civic potential of current events, which aids students in building civic knowledge, internal political efficacy, and civic self-efficacy. This article begins by introducing teachers to research on open classroom climates using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Survey (ICCS). We then provide examples of the components of an open classroom climate and a survey created from ICCS items for teachers to assess their own classroom’s climate. Elements of an open classroom climate are applied to current events pedagogy with a lesson plan for young children that explores civic responses to water scarcity and features All the Water in the World, a picture book by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson.