Conceptualizing Niche Characteristics in Social Movement Families

• In Event: 277 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Movement Organizations and Fields

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to briefly review the organizational ecology literature and how elements of this theory are applicable to social movement organizations (SMO’s). Specifically, I am interested in how concepts from OE and social movements (SM) may be synthesized to examine the coexistence of SMO’s that occupy seemingly conflicting niches (e.g. generalist vs. specialist, grassroots vs. bureaucratized) within a particular social movement. The marriage of organizational sociology and social movement literature is well established (Davis et.al, 2005). However, both literatures tend to be limited by the tendency to examine single organizations (Carroll, 1985) or a case study of a specific social movement (Minkhoff, 2002). Thus, the resulting knowledge and theory of singular movements and organizations is deep; yet our theory is simultaneously limited in its’ ability to “comprehend social movements as historically variable collective mobilizations arising from ‘interorganizational fields’, ‘social movement families’ and ‘social movement sectors’” (Minkhoff 2002, p.260). I apply the concept of a 'social movement family' and niche characteristics to the Chicano Movement, part of the larger Civil Rights Movement family.

Author

• Xochitl Renee Mota-Back, University of Arizona