Pragmatism, Activism, and Cynicism: Logics of Engagement with Strategies to Reduce LGBT Tobacco Use

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 19. Sexual Orientation and Health

Abstract

This paper addresses engagement in collective action to improve community health, using insights drawn from prior research on civic engagement, political participation, and social movement recruiting. It proposes that people use cultural “logics” of pragmatism, activism, and cynicism in assessing which collective health strategies are worth their support and involvement. Qualitative data comes from four focus group discussions of potential strategies to reduce tobacco use in Atlanta’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community. Echoing prior studies, analysis shows that while focus group participants used all three logics in evaluating tobacco strategies, pragmatism was used most often, followed by activism, with cynicism as a distant third. The frequency with which the logics were used varied by specific focus group and by the strategy under discussion (specifically, whether it was framed as involving individual or institutional change), but not by either dimension of personal identity examined here (whether speakers were current, former, or non-smokers and whether they identified as activists or not). Counter to prior research, discussion of the personal impact of strategies (pragmatic logic) was not as common as expected, and it often led directly to discussion of ethical principles (activist logic) rather than stifling such debates.

Authors

• Amanda K. Damarin, Georgia Perimeter College

• Zack Marshall, Memorial University-Newfoundland

• Lawrence Bryant, Georgia State University