How Do You Talk About Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Without Saying the Word “Sex?”

• In Event: 106 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 18. Tactics and Repertoires

Abstract

A push to integrate cultural sociology and social movement theory has been an ongoing project for more than two decades. In this paper, I take a multi-institutional politics approach (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008) to the anti-CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children) movement in Georgia, in order to illuminate the material and symbolic ways culture, particularly Southern Christian conservativism, can simultaneously enable and constrain social movement efforts. I also expand on Swidler’s (1986) “cultural toolkit” concept to show how regional culture can be both helpful, yet also a burden, to social movement organizations’ success. In particular, Southern Christian conservativism provided faith-based anti-CSEC organizations significant mobilization potential as well as political and social capital in the movement. Conversely, it constrained their internal organizational politics and efforts to spread awareness about CSEC, attract certain church partners, and bring about institutional change through certain legislation. This paper draws on more than a year of participant observation with a faith-based anti-CSEC organization, content analysis of movement documents, and in-depth interviews with anti-CSEC activists in Georgia. I conclude by arguing that social movement organizations must deal with the interactions between constraining macro forces like gender, sexuality, the state, and culture and the micro organizational processes of producing goals and strategies. By accounting for the cultural/political taboos and the symbolic boundaries produced by rigid ideologies, the paper shows how culture can concomitantly constrain and enable social movement processes and outcomes.

Author

• Taylor Houston, Mount Mercy University