50429 - Enduring Social Movements

Description

Some social movements persist over time. Others are short lived. This panel focuses on the former. We consider examples of social movements that managed to endure, at least more than a decade and sometimes considerably longer, despite changing resources and political circumstances. We refer to them as “Enduring Social Movements.” Taking examples as diverse as the US, Argentina, and Tunisia, we ask what strategies allowed these movements to maintain a public presence and sustain activities. The panel contributes to the study of social movements in raising a question that has received insufficient attention. More often than not, the focus has been on short-term wins or losses, rather than on a movement's ability to weather both and mobilize over the long run. The panel moves the inquiry to the consideration of issues that are central to the development and potential effectiveness of social movements in reaching their stated objectives. Across the proposed papers, we identify a number of key strategies through which social movements persist. In raising little studied yet critically important questions and offering a comparative, longitudinal perspective, the panel opens new venues for research on social movements.

Sub Unit

• Special Session

Presider

• Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas-Austin

Individual Presentations

• Feminists Strategies under Authoritarianism: From the 1970s to the 2010s in Tunisia - Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas-Austin

• Online Abeyance Structures and the Persistence of US Feminism - Alison Dahl Crossley, Stanford University

• The Endurance of Feminism and Environmentalism as Social Movements - Suzanne Staggenborg, University of Pittsburgh; Chie Togami, SUNY

• How the grassroots grow: Sustaining horizontal practices in environmental organizing in Argentina - Allison Fraser Lang, University of Texas-Austin

Discussant

• Allison Fraser Lang, University of Texas-Austin

Session Organizers

• Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas-Austin

• Allison Fraser Lang, University of Texas-Austin