Navigating Personal and Organizational Ruptures in Social Movements: An Intimate Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: SIG-Grassroots Community and Youth Organizing for Education Reform Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

This intimate inquiry (Laura, 2016) explores what happens when social movement leaders and/or organizations experience something so disruptive as to cause personal and organizational rupture. Stories of rupture were collected from social movement leaders, ranging from frontline organizers to executive directors, via in-depth interviews, focus groups, and personal artifacts (texts, artwork, photographs). The theoretical framework that guides my study are pedagogies of rupture and heartbreak (Ríos-Rojas, 2020). The purpose of this study is to deepen understanding of how social movement leaders navigate and make meaning of their experiences with rupture within social justice movement-building spaces, the practices they utilize to process the resultant grief, loss, and trauma, what emerges from the aftermath of rupture and how it can be generative.

Author

• Emily Borg, San Francisco State University
  Presenting Author