social movements

IOL Cape Argus News wrote a piece about Elena Moore’s (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town) inaugural lecture titled Who Cares? The Directions of State–Family Relationships in Changing Times. Moore urges society to rethink the burden of care and argues that the work of care is often invisible. With a team of 40 researchers spanning across Ireland, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Malawi, Moore explores how families, government, and communities share the responsibility of care. In South Africa, Moore’s team found that there are care grant opportunities, but there are also major barriers in the application process. “We all want good care,” Moore said. “But we also want just care relations.”

Elena Moore

Abdelilah Farah (Moroccan Sociologist) wrote a commentary piece for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explaining how Morocco’s Gen Z is developing a new protest culture. The members of Generation Z are mobilizing in an age of rapid technological expansion where they have “developed their political consciousness within a globalized digital environment.” They are departing from traditional modes of protest expression and drawing on cultural influences such as anime, video games, and contemporary music. The commentary explains that “the digital protests of Morocco’s Generation Z can be understood as primarily cultural rather than purely political acts.” Generation Z  maintains a dual consciousness of being “globally connected yet locally grounded in experiences of hardship.”

Abdelilah Farah

In an article for The Conversation, Adam Coutts (Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge) argues that the U.K. government’s new action plan Protecting What Matters–which centers social cohesion–is weak and vague. Coutts explains that the “plan frames division through religion, identity and Islamophobia, which are outcomes and proxies, not root causes.” He offers a better framework centering “community resilience: the measurable capacity of neighbourhoods to absorb shocks, resist divisive narratives and recover from crises.”

Adam Coutts

Nicole Bedera (Affiliated Educator at the Center for Institutional Courage and co-founder of Beyond Compliance) wrote an opinion piece for MS Now about how ICE Watch is an effective tool to de-escalate violence. She describes how “the vast majority of men are only willing to engage in public violence if they feel like the people around them will approve of — and reward them for — that violence.” ICE Watch can de-escalate situations by clearly expressing disapproval for violence. Bedera’s research was also covered by MPR News.

Nicole Bedera

Sociology faculty at Florida International University are speaking out against their department’s requirement that they use a state-approved textbook to teach introductory courses. Matthew Marr (Associate Professor of Sociology at FIU) described the textbook as “scraped out” and “sanitized.” Marr described how the textbook omits key sociological concepts–such as structural racism: “Not only are these omissions an incorrect representation of the field, but they also fail to prepare students for majors and graduate education that require or recommend Introduction to Sociology.” This story was covered by Inside Higher Education and WLRN Public Media.

Matthew Marr

Cynthia Miller-Idriss (Professor of Public Affairs at American University) appeared on The Contrarian, discussing the connections between violence and masculinity. Miller-Idriss describes how people may gravitate toward a “protector” narrative of masculinity in times of economic hardship (when a “provider” narrative of masculinity is less achievable). Miller-Idriss notes that we are in a cultural moment of “hyper masculinity that associates being a man with being violent” and this image appears in recruitment for federal agencies. 

Cynthia Miller-Idriss

Tressie McMillan Cottom (Professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science) appeared on PBS News Hour to discuss how to fight political exhaustion. McMillan Cottom describes how we often feel tired from passively taking in negative news: “We are tired then, not from doing too much, but from doing too little.” She suggests that political action, rather than disengagement, is the antidote to political exhaustion: “People who feel agentic aren’t as tired; they are not as easily overwhelmed.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom

Ruth Braunstein (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut) featured a Q&A with Ernesto Castañeda (Professor and Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab at American University) on her Democracy is Hard Substack site, discussing the impact of the “No Kings” protests. “The “No Kings” events are loosely coordinated transnational contentious performances. The question is whether they represent the seed of a social movement and whether onlookers — the American (and increasingly global) public — see them as “legitimate” and sympathetic,” Castañeda commented. “Some critics say the marches had no clear demands; historically speaking, that is not a fatal flaw but indeed a strength.”

Ruth Braunstein

Mike Savage (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science) wrote an article for The Conversation on changes in UK personal wealth and wealth inequality over time. “The UK, like many rich countries, has become much wealthier, and these benefits are being more widely spread,” Savage explains. However, Savage argues that this increase in wealth has been largely in private hands, with limited investment in the common good. Savage argues that the idea that wealth should be treated as a private good “leads to the deeply dysfunctional view that wealth assets are free to be amassed, spent and passed on by their owners with scant encroachment in the form of taxation.”

Mike Savage

The Atlantic ran an article on the concept of “groupthink” and how it is often used as a negatively loaded term to explain catastrophic decision making. The article cites critiques of groupthink theory from Sally Riggs Fuller (Organizational Sociologist and former Professor at the University of South Florida) and Ramon Aldag (Professor of Management and Human Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business). Contrary to “groupthink” theories that suggest that quick consensus leads to poor decision making, their research suggested that “tight-knit groups—ones with that cohesive “we-feeling”—tend to make better decisions.”

Sally Riggs Fuller and Ramon Aldag

The Washington Post ran a story on how China is attracting scholars–particularly in STEM fields–in the wake of the Trump Administration’s funding cuts and immigration restrictions. The article cites research from Yu Xie (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University) and Junming Huang (Research Scientist at Princeton University), finding that “In the first six months of this year alone, about 50 tenure-track scholars of Chinese descent left U.S. universities for China” and “more than 70 percent of these departed scholars work in STEM fields.” Xie also commented that scholars relocating to China have to work in a more restrictive environment. “In China, scholars’ freedom at work is also constrained, as they are subject to bureaucratic control,” Xie said. “The university system in China is rigid.”

Yu Xie and Junming Huang

OSU News ran a feature on Ashley Railey’s (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University) work on how rural areas address substance use. “Across the U.S., evidence suggests that people who use drugs are disproportionately viewed as dangerous, to blame for their disease, and unreliable,” Railey explained. “Combined with limited availability of health care services that are often seen in rural areas, these views — or stigma — can prevent people from seeking out and receiving help, limit the provision of services, and create divisions within communities about who is deserving, or not, of treatment and recovery services.”

Ashley Railey

Wisconsin Public Radio interviewed Allison Daminger (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) about her new book, What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life. The book examines how partners split “cognitive labor”, or, the mental effort that goes into running a household. This includes “anticipating issues, identifying options, making decisions and monitoring the results.” While most couples in the study aimed for a 50/50 split of household labor, Daminger found that cognitive labor was typically imbalanced. Among heterosexual couples, women tend to take on more cognitive labor.

Allison Daminger

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University. Ruth Braunstein (Associate Professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University) appeared on WUSA9 to discuss the broader pattern of political violence in the United States. Braunstein commented that political violence has a “tremendous chilling effect on people’s willingness to go into political life, to stand up and speak out for what they believe in.” She also discussed how distrust in political institutions may lead some individuals to violence, which can further erode trust in insituions–a “vicious cycle.” Braunstein also expressed concern to the New York Times that Kirk’s murder could mobilize right-wing groups (including militia organizations): “All it will take is the slightest hint from the political leaders, including the president, but also anyone else, that this is the moment that they’re needed.”

Ruth Braunstein

Laura Garbes (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota) wrote an op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune discussing how ‘elitism’ in public media stems from a lack of public funding. “Due to decades of budget cuts led by Republican administrations, public radio has become reliant on a set of mostly white, affluent donors for its financial survival,” Garbes explains. Programming, then, is catered to donor-listeners, leaving behind working-class audiences.

Laura Garbes

Protests are sweeping across France as a part of the Block Everything Movement–a campaign driven by anger over major cuts to public spending. The movement began online among right-wing voices, but has since been embraced by the political left. Quentin Ravelli (Sociologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research) discussed the movement’s lack of a clear political identity in an RFI article: “Many movements avoid being labelled left or right. This isn’t just strategic: participants often feel that consensus around economic demands matter more than political allegiance. Urgent issues like public services, wages or inflation are seen as priorities.” The movement is drawing comparisons to the 2018 Yellow Vest Movement. Antoine Bristelle (Sociologist at the Jean Jaures Foundation) commented on the demographic differences to The Gazette: “In the ‘Yellow Vest’ movement, we had a rather vulnerable France that was struggling to make ends meet, a lot of workers, a lot of retirees. Whereas here, in terms of age, it’s many young people [that have] a certain vision of the world where there is more social justice, less inequality and a political system that functions differently, better,” Bristielle said.

Quentin Ravelli

A Threads post from Jennifer Walter (Swiss Sociologist and Mental Health Advocate) reacting to Trump’s flood of executive orders went viral across social media platforms. Walters argues that the Trump administration is using “shock doctrine” (“using chaos and crisis to push through radical changes while people are too disoriented to effectively resist”) to cognitively overwhelm citizens. “The result? Weakened democratic oversight and reduced public engagement,” Walter states.

Jennifer Walter

WTTW News ran a feature on Tonika Lewis Johnson (Social Justice Artist) and Maria Krysan’s (Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago) book Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It. The book explores how many Chicago residents have been told to stay away from the South or West side of the city and how that message reinforces segregation in the city. Johnson stated that the book aims to show the “personal” side of segregation: “It’s not just that it prevents economic investment, it hurts people’s feelings and it helps people live in fear. And we want it to offer an opportunity for people to understand how to disrupt that and how to not be offensive to people.”

Tonika Lewis Johnson and Maria Krysan

Over the past five years, Iran has faced approximately 40% annual inflation and many Iranians are struggling to make ends meet. Iranian sociologist Ardeshir Geravand warns that economic pressure may lead to social unrest in Iran. “When legitimate paths to power and wealth remain open, members of the middle class can maintain their status. However, when these avenues are blocked, it can lead to social unrest and, ultimately, revolution,” Gerevand explained. “Poverty alone does not necessarily lead to violence unless it is coupled with conditions that make living a normal, ordinary life impossible.” This story was covered by Iran International.

Ardeshir Geravand

Jamie Lee Kucinskas’s (Professor of Sociology at Hamilton College) upcoming book The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy draws from interviews with individuals who were civil servants during Trump’s first term as President. “I found that those caught in loyalty traps could not both fulfill the ethical duties that came with their position and uphold the new standards of loyalty sought by the president and some appointees,” Kucinskas explained in a Public Ethics Talks interview. The book describes the moral dilemmas that civil servants faced and their strategies for managing them. This story was covered by Leiden University News.

Jamie Lee Kucinskas

Following taunts from President Trump and other Republican officials, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took a DNA test to “prove” her American Indian ancestry last fall. However, the political spectacle did not involve the Cherokee Nation’s determinations of who can rightfully claim their heritage, and for many American Indians, DNA tests have no bearing on deciding tribal heritage. The weight placed on these tests today harkens back to antiquated concepts of race, ethnicity, or tribal status as genetics — stripping the historical, cultural, and social meanings that shape them. Outsider attacks on tribal sovereignty are also an example where American Indian identity has been defined and controlled in the United States. In a recent Weekend Edition on NPR, social scientists weigh in on how determinations of American Indian identity have changed over time, and how who is “counted” as American Indian often depends on the method used for evaluating this identity.  

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the U.S. Census has been key in tracking shifts for—and perhaps even influencing—the likelihood for one to identify as American Indian. According to census statistics, the American Indian population tripled from 1960 to 1990. Sociologist Carolyn Liebler argues that this shift is due to changes in the way the Census measured racial identity; instead of relying a census worker’s determination of someone’s race, participants were allowed to choose their own race starting in 1960. According to Liebler, before 1960 census workers

“[were] not necessarily going to see a person who’s American Indian as American Indian. And it was fairly rude, as kind of it is now, to ask someone what race they are. So the [census worker] would just write it down.”

The ability for one to self-classify, therefore, is likely part of the change in population. Anthropologist Russell Thornton, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, believes that the change may also be due to American Indian activism. He argues that the Civil Rights Movement empowered American Indians to be activists and lay claim to American Indian identity. According to Thornton,

“People that didn’t want to admit any Indian ancestry now thought it was kind of OK to be, quote, ‘Indian’ – even fashionable.”

Even the process to legitimate one’s claim as American Indian—and a citizen of a particular tribe—is debated in some tribal nations. Sociologist and member of the Cheyenne Nation, Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear states,

“[This process] has broken up families. It influences who individuals choose to partner with and have children with. It really permeates every part of our existence, in reality, as native peoples.”

Serving as an advisor for the Census Bureau, she urges policy makers and researchers to listen to American Indian communities as identities continue to shift and change.

The devastation of Hurricane Florence is not limited to the loss of human lives. It is estimated that millions of chickens and thousands of pigs died in North Carolina from the flooding. Vegan social movements have pointed to this major loss of animal life as one of the many reasons to reduce our reliance on meat and the consumption of other animal products. However, these groups face a difficult path ahead as factory farming is a massive U.S. industry. A recent article in The Atlantic highlights research by sociologists Corey Wrenn, Nina Gheihman, and Elizabeth Cherry on the many obstacles that can thwart veganism from blossoming into a large-scale social movement.

According to Wrenn, one of the main barriers to mobilization of any social movement is that they allow “free-riders”, or individuals who may identify with the movement but do not change their behavior. In the case of veganism, including “flexitarians” — people who are interested in vegetarianism or veganism but still eat meat and other animal products — waters down the cause’s overall message. Wrenn argues that including flexitarians “maintain[s] the illusion of mass support, [while] real power is reserved for core members.” Wrenn suggests that smoking cessation campaigns provide a key example of how an “all or nothing” approach can bring about meaningful change in consumption behaviors.

In the same article, Elizabeth Cherry and Nina Gheihman push back against Wrenn’s claims, advocating that incrementalism and inclusion of those who aren’t strictly vegan may lead to more success for vegan social movements. Cherry, who has a book comparing animal rights activism in France and the United States, argues that vegan social movements promoting meat reduction rather than complete elimination parallels the often incremental shift by many vegans into a plant-based diet. Gheihman agrees with Wrenn that flexitarianism may damage vegan social movements in the long-term, but also believes that including those at the margins of the movement accounts for the multiple motivations people may have for going vegan. Gheihman expands further,

“I do believe that flexitarianism as an initial approach is worthwhile, as there are many people who are not willing to adopt the ideological stance of the animal-rights movement within a society that does not yet embrace it. As well, they may have alternate motivations for following a plant-based diet, including health and environmentalism, and I believe these motivations are as valid as that of animal rights.”

Recent mobilization around gun control — epitomized through the recent March for Our Lives protests across the country — is largely associated with youth and liberal political ideologies. But sociologist Dana R. Fisher, who has been studying large-scale protests since Trump’s inauguration, challenges this assumption. In a recent article in the Washington Post, she discusses research she and her team conducted during the March for Our Lives protest in Washington, D.C. Fisher explains,

“Only about 10 percent of the participants were under 18. The average age of the adults in the crowd was just under 49 years old, which is older than participants at the other marches I’ve surveyed but similar to the age of the average participant at the Million Moms March in 2000, which was also about gun control.”

Further, Fisher found that fewer protesters were driven by politically liberal values than we might think:

“Only 12 percent of the people who were new to protesting reported that they were motivated to join the march because of the gun-control issue…Instead, new protesters reported being motivated by the issues of peace (56 percent) and Trump (42 percent), who has been a galvanizing force for many protests. Protesters were also more likely to identify as ideologically moderate. About 16 percent did so, higher than at any other protest event since the inauguration.”

While the media might have us believe differently, March for Our Lives successfully mobilized a wide crowd — both in age and political ideology. 

Americans’ views on race and racism have changed in many ways from those during the Civil Rights movement in the Jim Crow era. Today, most Americans agree that racism is not acceptable, and social norms have generally dictated that racist ideologies should not be part of the mainstream of American culture. Social norms are supported by institutions and leaders, however, and recent controversies over organized white supremacist groups call their stability into question. In The New York Times’ Upshot blog, sociologists Tina Fetner and Sarah Sobieraj describe how quickly these norms can change, especially amid criticism that the Trump administration has been slow to condemn white supremacist groups. From Fetner:

“It’s not because all of a sudden there is more racism now than there was a few weeks ago. It’s that the absolute condemnation of those most abhorrent views is crumbling away…”

And from the article:

“When norms of acceptable behavior and speech start to shift, it can disturb the shared beliefs, values and symbols that make up our culture.”

Leaders and institutions have the power to respond to controversy or to ignore it. Either way, their actions can change whether ideas appear to be part of the mainstream or the fringes of a society.

Many remain surprised by Donald Trump’s election success, and everyone has their own theory about how he pulled it off. Sociologist Scott Melzer suggests that the answer may be found by looking at the strategy used by the National Rifle Association: mobilize people over what upsets them. Melzer recently spoke to The Trace about how the findings in his 2012 book, Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War, can be used to understand Trump’s presidential victory.

According to Melzer, the NRA garners much of its power due to the fact that the organization is more of a social movement than an interest group. In other words, its large membership base is a stronger influence than its money. He explains,

“Social movements and their bases respond to either fear or hope. The NRA has cranked up the fear meter to 11 and has kept it there for a really long time. Threat is really the strongest source of mobilization.”

Melzer believes that members of the NRA feel as if they are losing their country, not just their guns, and that the NRA capitalizes on this fear by pushing a message of infringement on their member’s way of life. The NRA frames its members as victims of a country that is giving special rights to women, people of color, and LGBT communities, but not gun owners. This explains their emphasis on identity politics and civil rights. Melzer continues,

“The NRA, other social movement organizations, and certainly Donald Trump can get folks to believe messages that they’re victims of this kind of left-wing attack on their values, their livelihoods and ultimately their masculine identities.”

Trump touted a similar message throughout his campaign, empowering the NRA’s large membership base, along with others who were feeling threatened and left behind, to go out and protect a way of life that they believe to be in danger.