Social Movements: Identity, Culture, and the State David S. Meyer Nancy Whittier Belinda Robnett, Editors OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Social Movements This page intentionally left blank SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Identity, Culture, and the State Edited by David S. Meyer, Nancy Whittier, & Belinda Robnett 1 2002 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and an associated company in Berlin Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Social movements : identity, culture, and the state / edited by David S. Meyer, Nancy Whittier, Belinda Robnett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514355-8; ISBN 0-19-514356-6 (pbk.) 1. Social movements. I. Meyer, David S. II. Whittier, Nancy, 1966– III. Robnett, Belinda, 1956– HM881 .S63 2001 303.48'4–dc21 2001036973 98 76 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Zena, Jonah, David and Jonah This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments We are grateful to a number of people and institutions for their help in this project. The workshop that led to this volume was partly supported by a small grant from the American Sociological Association/National Science Founda- tion Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline and was organized under the auspices of the American Sociological Association Section on Collec- tive Behavior and Social Movements. Manisha Desai, Rob Kleidman, Paul Lichterman, and Jo Reger helped organize that workshop. We appreciate the excellent services provided by Teresa Brown, Coordinator of the UC-Davis Conference and Event Services, without whom the workshop could not have taken place. We had research and clerical assistance from Meg Chilton and Morgan Lynn at Smith College, supported by the Smith College Committee on Faculty Compensation and Development, and from Jeanne Batalova Treigherman and Yuki Kato at the University of California–Irvine. We are also grateful to the Center for the Study of Democracy, at the University of California–Irvine, which provided help when it was most needed. Finally, we appreciate the efforts of the contributors, many of whom not only wrote their own chapters but provided useful comments that helped to shape the book. This page intentionally left blank Contents Contributors xiii part i. introduction 1. Opportunities and Identities: Bridge-Building in the Study of Social Movements 3 David S. Meyer part ii. states and policies Introduction to Part II 25 2. State Repression and Democracy Protest in Three Southeast Asian Countries 28 Vincent Boudreau 3. Mobilization on the South African Gold Mines 47 T. Dunbar Moodie 4. Multiple Mediations: The State and the Women’s Movements in India 66 Manisha Desai 5. The Contradictions of Gay Ethnicity: Forging Identity in Vermont 85 Mary Bernstein 6. Creating Social Change: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement 105 Kenneth T. Andrews [...]... study of social movements is increasingly embraced by the academy, however, practitioners and scholars now face the challenge of using this hard-won legitimacy to afford the time and space to ask and answer important questions about collective action and social movements: How and why do movements emerge? Why do they take the forms they do? When and how do protest movements bring about meaningful social. .. at movements from the inside out, that is, starting with the self-conscious decisions and values of those within movements and their lives prior to and through social movement participation A broader perspective will help us understand the process and politics of social protest and will reveal the meaningful realities of social protest You cannot understand the reality, genesis, and outcome of a movement... articles on social movements, gender, and family politics Michael Lavalette teaches in the sociology, social policy and social work studies department at Liverpool University He writes on child labor, Marxism and social policy, and collective action Among his publications on social movements are Leadership and Social Movements (edited with Colin Barker and Alan Johnson, forthcoming), Solidarity on the Waterfront... open, we find they agree on much less Now think about the state and identity In this case, the state makes “dissidents,” creating common cause and thus an identity To ignore government policy in creating causes and constituencies is to essentialize identity and ignore the importance of possibility and human agency Only by understanding structure and constraints can we have a meaningful and ultimately... that a collective identity of any dissident group is in constant and dynamic interaction and redefinition in relation to mass culture and the state Understanding of collective identity and social structural opportunities must focus on this dynamic interaction There is much work to be done in subsequent studies of social movements; the chapters that follow pursue some of them In all the following cases,... Family, and Social Movements (Pine Forge Press, 1998), and a number of articles about abortion politics and social movements in the United States and Canada Marc W Steinberg teaches sociology at Smith College He is the author of Fighting Words: Working-Class Formation, Collective Action and Discourse in Early Nineteenth-Century England (Cornell, 1999) and a number of articles on class conflict, social movements, ... optimism on these matters The chapters all 3 4 Introduction emphasize building bridges and cutting corridors between generally separate paradigms in the study of social protest and advance synthetic understandings of the material at hand In this case, the material at hand ranges from women working within, and outside, the state in India (Manisha Desai), to weavers in nineteenth-century England (Marc... the political climate of the 1980s, which made the Pentagon a likely site for protest As the political landscape changes, activists reconsider their choices of issues and tactics After the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the first strategic arms agreement (SALT) and the antiballistic missile treaty in 1972, there was no large and visible peace activism during the following decade (Meyer... promoted social change Sensing the need to act, they pick the most promising and available activity they can find, even if the connections between the Common and, say, the National Security Council seem attenuated What seems promising or available depends on one’s social location, embedded networks, and ideology Yet every weekend in the town common, well before the freeze, and for years after the peak... academic work on the horizon and a call to remain mindful of the inherent professional and political responsibilities of studying social protest The Challenge of Bridge-Building If we mean to define a synthetic and comprehensive approach to the study of social movements, we should first set out the specific challenges delineated in the last few decades of research A few challenges stand out; the work in . Sociol- ogy and the American Sociological Review, focuses on sexuality, social movements, and the law. Her recently published edited book Queer Families, Queer Politics, Challenging Culture and the State. space to ask and answer important questions about collective action and social move- ments: How and why do movements emerge? Why do they take the forms they do? When and how do protest movements. recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Social movements : identity, culture, and the state / edited