Pilots as Privileged Allies: Exploring the Conditions Under Which Unaggrieved Individuals Join Social Movement Organizations

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Global Cases of Gender Based and Feminist Movements

Abstract

Allies play instrumental roles in social movement organizations, yet sociologists undertheorize the unaggrieved’s mobilization and seldom explore the role of social group identity on movement participation. Challenging this undertheorization, I ask: Under what conditions do the unaggrieved join social movement organizations that fight sociopolitical changes that do not directly affect them? To answer this question, I leveraged the overturn of Roe v. Wade and interviewed 35 White, male volunteer pilots who fly people to obtain abortions and gender-affirming-care across state lines. Drawing on qualitative data, I introduce a multi-stage theory of the unaggrieved’s mobilization and argue that the unaggrieved mobilize under three distinct conditions: (1) political awareness and generalized concerns; (2) privilege awareness and cultural concerns; and (3) the perception of a valuable contribution. In offering this theoretical framework, I deepen our understanding of how the unaggrieved can become allies and help ameliorate inequities from which they have historically benefited.

Author

• Lorena Aviles Trujillo, Stanford University