Ties That Bind: Leadership of Sustained Protest Movements

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Short Description

From Martin Luther in 1517 to the 2017 Pink Hat march, protest movements have challenged power. Today, social media, disruptive technologies, ecological crises, and economic inequities fuel power and protest. This discussion will consider insights from history and many disciplines to explore leadership models for sustainable protest movements.

Detailed Abstract

500 years ago, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany to protest corruption and power and to call for debate. His protest movement spread over years and now has 900 million Protestants worldwide. Worldwide movements continue through the ages. Twentieth Century movements including the Suffragettes, Communism, Nazism, Civil Rights, Right to Life, Women’s Right to Choose. The tumultuous 21st century has seen the spawning and growth of both power and protest. In 2017, as we honor the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 97 Theses, can the Pink Hat initiative grow and strengthen in protest to challenge, debate, and change the accumulation of power of ultra-right social conservative movements? . In January 2017, Former US President Obama urged liberal activists to learn from the conservative Tea Party movement. Did the 2017 the Pink Hat march exemplify emerging forms of protest movement leadership for today’s turbulent times?


This roundtable offers an opportunity for dialogic inquiry, centered on several questions. Each question is designed to view leadership of past and present protest movements through the lenses of researchers in different disciplines

1. Do large, sustained, protest movements of the present and past, on all sides and of all philosophies, suggest a commonality? Edwin Hutchins, (1996) an anthropologist and open-ocean racing enhusiast, suggests that there are relationships between individual cognition and social culture that enable groups of individuals to coalesce in sustained, effective social movements.

2. If we view sustained protest movements through a Vernacular lens (McLaughlin, 1996: McLaughlin, 2008) do we see a powerful theoretical life-form that is knowable and shared by members of the protest movement? Vernacular theory is based in an assumption that theory is not the purview of only the scholar. Rather, every individual accomplishes theory, and active theorizing. Further, members of cohesive, sustained social movements share a theoretical understanding of their movement that is a powerful force that builds cohesion and supports sustainability.


3. In Masks of the Universe (1985) astrophysicist Edward Harrison divides known histories into sequential paradigms, and suggests that we are entering into a new paradigm where the logics, assumptions, and even values of the past might no longer apply – or even be remembers. Linguist Karen LeFevre (1987) argues that literary invention can be seen as a social act, not just a single-author enterprise. Even as Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were intended to encourage debate, so those of us who value leadership must also be open to debate new ideas that apply to the times that are ahead of us. Anderson asserts that the concept of “community” is part of a group imagining – with advantages and disadvantages for members and outsiders (2006).

4. Can liberal, pro-refugee and human rights initiatives, such as the “Pink Hat” March, generate new debates, grow, and strengthen in protest to successfully challenge, debate, and change the accumulation of power of ultra-right social conservative movements?

The learning outcomes of this Roundtable are to foster the debate and generate new ideas through revisiting earlier ideas from different disciplines. Through a deeper understanding of the nature of leadership of sustained, global protest movements, we may be able to add value to those who dare to challenge and disrupt corrupt forces.

Participants

• Dorothy E. Agger-Gupta, Fielding Graduate University

• Niels Agger-Gupta, Royal Roads University