Newsletter of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements,

American Sociological Association

Volume 29 (1) http://www.asanet.org/sectioncbsm/Spring, 2004

Book Reviews

Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994, by Elizabeth Armstrong. University of Chicago Press. 2002.

Reviewer: Nella Van Dyke, Washington State University

Armstrong’s Forging Gay Identities makes a number of important contributions to the study of social movements and gay and lesbian studies. Armstrong not only answers the question Josh Gamson asked in his 1995 Social Problems article titled “Must Identity Movements Self Destruct?” (the answer is No), she also tells us how the gay and lesbian movement was able to avoid doing so. Armstrong takes a cultural-institutionalist approach to studying the development of the gay and lesbian rights movement in San Francisco, analyzing a rich set of data on gay and lesbian political, cultural and social organizations.

Armstrong argues that a historical perspective is necessary in order to understand the successful longevity of the gay and lesbian rights movement, and organizes the book around two time periods. The first, from 1950-1973, chronicles the development of a gay identity movement. The second section follows the gay identity movement as it grows and survives a number of challenges from 1974 through 1994. In the conclusion, Armstrong discusses how her theoretical approach can be applied to other social movements.

Armstrong makes an important contribution by analytically unpacking the cultural and political elements of the gay identity movement’s ideology . . . She argues that one key to the movement’s longevity is its ability to blend identity and interest-oriented politics (along with pleasure-seeking).

As Verta Taylor and others have argued for years, the GLBT rights movement blurs the lines between politics and culture by viewing the two as inextricably intertwined. This combination of politics and culture is evident in both the organizational composition of the movement and in the movement’s ideology. Identity movements have posed a challenge to social movement scholars working with the resource mobilization / political process paradigm, in that movement activity involves many cultural events and organizations that do not engage in protest activity targeting the state. Armstrong’s use of a cultural-institutionalist approach enables her to study the full breadth of the gay and lesbian movement. By studying organizational fields, Armstrong is able to examine collective challenges to the status quo that occur in a variety of social arenas including political, medical, and cultural domains, among others. Thus, Armstrong’s organizational dataset includes gay bars, archives, libraries and parade organizing committees, in addition to the more strictly “political” organizations typically studied by social movement scholars.

Armstrong makes an important contribution by analytically unpacking the cultural and political elements of the gay identity movement’s ideology. She demonstrates that the combination of both identity and interest-oriented politics was not inevitable for the movement. In fact, she argues that one key to the movement’s longevity is its ability to blend identity and interest-oriented politics (along with pleasure-seeking). In the first section of the book, Armstrong chronicles the shift from the interest group focus of the early homophile movement to an identity politics logic, after a period of turbulence and competing political logics. This shift in the movement’s orientation was critical for its survival. The identity politics emphasis on individual identity affirmation as the ultimate source of social change helped generate a large public constituency for the movement, something that the interest group focus prior to 1970 had been unable to achieve. In the second portion of the book, Armstrong documents how the wide range of cultural and identity focused organizations that emerged during the 1970s helped the movement withstand a number of political challenges during the 1980s.

Another key to the movement’s longevity is its philosophy, combining individual expression with a celebration of diversity. The Gay Pride parade, the movement’s unique tactical innovation, exemplifies this philosophy. Gay Pride parades, which were first held in New York City in 1970 and now occur in cities across the country, typically involve participants and organizations from all segments of gay life, including bars and cultural organizations in

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Book Reviews (continued)

addition to more interest-group oriented political groups. The parades bring together the full diversity of the movement in a collective celebration of gay and lesbian (and increasingly bisexual and transgendered) identity. However, in spite of an ideology celebrating diversity, the gay rights movement was dominated by middle class white men during the 1970s, resulting in a focus on issues of concern to this segment of the population and the exclusion of people of color and lesbians. The apparent contradiction between the philosophy of diversity and the reality of the movement generated a number of challenges throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, the flexibility of the philosophy allowed the movement to expand its boundaries to encompass wider interests, and allowed the movement to continue and even thrive.

Partially because of her focus on the cultural and organizational dynamics of the movement, Armstrong pays less attention to how political context shaped the movement. In chapter 2, Armstrong describes how authorities prevented homophile activists from using basic organizational tools to mobilize in the 1950s and 1960s: homophile groups were often denied meeting space; obscenity laws prevented them from distributing organizational materials; and so on. Armstrong highlights how a lack of organizational tools was an impediment to organizing rather than discussing why gay activists were denied these tools: homophobia. An extreme lack of political opportunities prevented homosexuals from mobilizing, and this fact deserves explicit attention. An under-developed analysis of political context is also notable in Armstrong’s discussion of how policy makers, religious leaders, and the gay community responded to the AIDS crisis. She argues that the success of the gay identity movement in building a visible gay community led policy makers and others to view AIDS as a gay disease. However, it is highly likely that policy makers and right-wing religious leaders would have responded to AIDS with homophobia and inaction even in the absence of a visible gay identity movement. Gays and lesbians experienced homophobia and discrimination on the basis of their same-sex sexual activity for years before the emergence of a widespread gay and lesbian social movement. Thus, the book would have benefited from more attention to political context.

Overall, this is an outstanding and highly readable book. Armstrong makes a number of important theoretical contributions to the study of social movements and gay and lesbian studies. Her focus on organizational fields produces a methodology that encompasses the full organizational range of the GLBT community. Her insistence on analytically unpacking ideological elements of the movement enables her to identify how the unique construction of ideology within the movement provided the movement with the flexibility to survive through the decline of the New Left, challenges from the Christian Right in the 1980s, as well as internal conflict throughout the entire time period of the study. This book is must reading for anyone interested in social movements or gay and lesbian studies, and would be excellent in an undergraduate or graduate course on either topic.

Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, edited by Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper. Rowman & Littlefield. 2004.

Reviewer: Kathleen M. Blee, University of Pittsburgh

Rethinking Social Movements is like a good day in the bleachers at Wimbledon: the players are fit, well matched, and eager for the contest. You might cheer for a favorite to win, but real fun is a close game. A service ace is best appreciated after a set of long rallies.

This volume begins with a series of six articles first published in Sociological Forum in March of 1999. It leads off with Goodwin and Jasper’s piece, dramatically titled “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine,” a blast at what they see as the structuralist bias in political process theory (PPT). Although positioning themselves as sympathetic critics of PPT, Goodwin and Jasper open with a slam serve, labeling PPT (at least as it is generally used) “tautological, trivial, inadequate, or just plain wrong.” Their criticisms of PPT are hard hitting but thoughtful. In addition to denouncing what they regard as the tendency of PPT to engage in “sweeping, transhistorical formulas and invariant models” and to focus on state centered movements, Goodwin/Jasper usefully engage in several exercises to sort what are, essentially, structures from aspects of the political environment of social movements that are better regarded as strategies and develop a number of suggestions to move beyond structuralism in social movement research.

Goodwin and Jasper’s opening salvo is followed by a series of counters from major figures in PPT: Tilly, Tarrow, Meyer, and Koopmans, and a last rejoinder by Goodwin/Jasper. I won’t belabor the tennis analogy too much longer, but, at its best, reading Goodwin/Jasper and their critics is like watching the best players in the finals competition. There are a few moments when the volume has the dreary “she did”/ “no I didn’t” character of court TV (does PPT support invariant models or is this an unfair charge? is frame analysis overly instrumental and blind to culture or are its detractors exaggerating?), and you might prefer that they work it out in private, but these moments are few and are far outweighed by the intellectual excitement of seeing social movement scholars at the top of their game. We get not only explications of the possibilities and problems of PPT, but also ideas for new directions for social movement work, setting the stage for the later revisions and deviations from PPT. This section nicely situates the debate over political opportunities and political processes approaches, clarifying the antecedents of recent work in and against the PPT framework.

The second section of the book, appropriately titled “Beyond Dominant Paradigms,” turns to some of the best scholars of social movements whose work, for the most part original to this volume, moves beyond the structuralist vs. culturalist dichotomy. Francesca Polletta’s piece “Culture is Not in Your Head” makes an excellent case for the role of culture in creating political opportunities and explaining movement emergence, while Deborah Gould uses her work on ACT UP to show the powerful advantages of understanding the emotional aspects of social movements and protest. Taking off from Goodwin/Jasper’s snarling vine metaphor, Mark Steinberg’s “The Intellectual Challenges of Toiling in the Vineyard” respecifies the terms structure and culture to develop a more relational and historical sense of causality. Charles Kurzman proposes clear and innovate means by which constructionism can shape the methods, not only theories, of social movements and Richard Flacks reflects on what is missing and what can be done in social movement research, proposing, for example, renewed attention to the role of committed activists. The section ends with Marshall Ganz’s “Why David Sometimes Wins,” an argument for focusing on the strategic capacity and resources of social movements.

The volume ends with three reflective pieces. Doug McAdam revisits his influential work on the U.S. civil rights movement through a more dynamic and cultural lens. Aldon Morris and Myra Marx Ferree and David A. Merrill’s important pieces, both originally in Contemporary Sociology, encourage greater attention to the internal dynamics of social movements and the gendered discourses within which social movements are discussed and studied, respectively. This is an important volume, very useful for both social movement scholars and students.

Rethinking in the Classroom: Notes on Teaching Goodwin and Jasper

Maryjane Osa, Northwestern University

Polemics can be fun, but are they useful? Whether Rethinking Social Movements spurs the sociological imaginations of practitioners remains to be seen. Here I'd like to report on my experiences using Goodwin and Jasper's edited volume in the classroom.

As professionals, we are accustomed to heated theoretical debates in which sarcastic swordplay and the mental “touché!” have, at least, some entertainment value. My students’ shocked reactions to the lambasting of the political process theorists in the book's Introduction are a reminder that undergraduate audiences are not so jaded.

Rethinking Social Movements was our last book of the quarter; we had covered the usual: collective behavior, resource mobilization, political process and political opportunity theories and studies. My students seemed to appreciate the political process approach and were taken aback by Goodwin and Jasper's slicing and dicing in their first chapter. Some students thought that Jasper and Goodwin “were just restating problems that people were already aware of” and that their perspective was “petty and didn't add anything to their points.” One student pointed out “clearly Jaswin has riled up a lot of political process theorists” and wondered if that wasn't the major point of the book; then he added, “even so, people are being forced to talk about the model, examine it critically, and defend their positions.” As we got into the later chapters, several students vigorously debated conceptions of culture and how these figured into social movements and social movement theories. The question of whether Hip-Hop should be analyzed as a movement or as a subculture was particularly contentious. (cont. on page 8)

Book Reviews (continued)

Our class did not come to a consensus regarding the relative strengths or deficiencies of political opportunity/political process models. Yet there was a strong agreement that the volume was helpful as a stimulant for discussion. Students who favored the political process approach were forced to defend their positions (and their heros); the skeptics felt encouraged to poke holes. As one student put it: "Overall, I thought the book allowed us to think for ourselves and tied the entire course together."

The two turgid “explanatory” tables in the Introduction notwithstanding, Jasper and Goodwin’s broadside is an effective way to challenge students to confront the “received wisdom” of the political process literature. Although Dynamics of Contention contains a more nuanced and substantive theoretical critique, undergraduates seem to grasp the essence of the dissenting view from the bold presentation by Jasper and Goodwin.

Calls for Papers

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, an annual volume published by Elsevier Science/JAI Press, encourages submissions for Volume 26. This volume will be non-thematic: submissions appropriate to any of the three broad foci reflected in the series title will be considered. To ensure consideration for publication in Volume 26, submissions must arrive by July 15, 2004.

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (RSMCC) is a fully peer-reviewed series of original research that has been published annually for over 25 years; we have published the work of many of the leading scholars in social movements and social change. Although RSMCC enjoys a wide library subscription base, Volume 26 will be the first volume to be published both in book form and also on-line, as will all subsequent volumes of the series. This will ensure wider distribution and easier access to your scholarship while maintaining the book series at the same time.

Send submissions to RSMCC editor, Patrick Coy, Center for Applied Conflict Management, Kent State University, PO Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242. Full submission guidelines are available on the RSMCC website, where you may also access abstracts of papers in recent volumes of the series: http://www.personal.kent.edu/~pcoy/.

Be on the lookout in late 2004 for Volume 25 of the series guest edited by Daniel Myers and Daniel Cress. This special 25th anniversary volume of the RSMCC series is focused on selected papers from the ASA’s Collective Behavior and Social Movements section conference on “Authority in Contention,” held at the University of Notre Dame.

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

Scott A. Hunt is the editor-elect for the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. JCE publishes theoretically, methodologically, and substantively significant studies based upon participant-observation, unobtrusive observation, intensive interviewing, and contextualized analysis of discourse as well as examinations of ethnographic methods. Submissions from all substantive areas and theoretical perspectives are welcomed. Email manuscript submissions (in Word or WordPerfect format) may be sent to sahunt00@uky.edu. Hardcopy submissions and all other correspondence should be sent to Scott A. Hunt, Editor, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0027. A processing fee of US$10 must be submitted via a check or money order made payable to the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH NETWORK ORGANIZING MEETING

Saturday, August 14th, 6:30-8:00pm

at the ASA Annual Meeting

Are you currently involved or interested in community-based research (participatory action research)?  If so, please join us for a community-based research network organizing meeting to be held at the 2004 ASA Annual Meeting.  We’ll be gathering Saturday evening, August 14th, 6:30-8:00 pm. We invite you to join us to share experiences and interests, as well as to organize working groups for a Community Based Research Conference to be held in 2005.  For more information contact Mary Tuominen (tuominen@denison.edu), Randy Stoecker (randy.stoecker@utoledo.edu), Sam Marullo (marullos@georgetown.edu), Adam Flint (flint@igc.org).

Fellowship Opportunities:

United States Institute of Peace

The United States Institute of Peace invites applications for the 2005-2006 Senior Fellowship competition in the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace.  The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan institution created by Congress to strengthen the nation's capacity to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict.  Twelve to fifteen fellowships are awarded annually to scholars and practitioners from a variety of professions, including college and university faculty, journalists, diplomats, writers, educators, military officers, international negotiators, NGO professionals, and lawyers.  The Institute funds projects related to preventive diplomacy, ethnic and regional conflicts, peacekeeping and peace operations, peace settlements, democratization and the rule of law, cross-cultural negotiations, nonviolent social movements, U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century, and related topics.  This year the Institute is especially interested in topics addressing problems of the Muslim world, post-war reconstruction and reconciliation in Iraq, and responses to terrorism and political violence. Projects which demonstrate relevance to current policy debates will be highly competitive.  Fellows reside at the Institute in Washington, D.C., for a period of up to ten months to conduct research on their projects, consult with staff, and contribute to the ongoing work of the Institute.  Books and reports resulting from fellowships may be published by the USIP Press. The fellowship award includes a stipend of up to $80,000, travel to Washington for the fellow and dependents, health insurance, an office with computer and voicemail, and a half-time research assistant.  The competition is open to citizens of all nations.  Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. All application materials must be received in our offices by September 15, 2004.  For more information and an application form, please visit the Institute’s website at <www.usip.org/fellows>, or contact the Jennings Randolph Program, U.S. Institute of Peace, 1200 17th Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036-3011, USA, phone:  202.429.3886, fax: 202.429.6063, e-mail: jrprogram@usip.org.

The United States Institute of Peace invites applications for the 2005-2006 Peace Scholar dissertation fellowship competition of the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace.  The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan institution created by Congress to strengthen the nation's capacity to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict.  The Peace Scholar program supports doctoral dissertations that explore the sources and nature of international conflict, and strategies to prevent or end conflict and to sustain peace.  Dissertations from a broad range of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields are eligible.  Peace Scholars work at their universities or appropriate field research sites.  Priority will be given to projects that contribute knowledge relevant to the formulation of policy on international peace and conflict issues.  Citizens of all countries are eligible, but Peace Scholars must be enrolled in an accredited college or university in the United States.  Applicants must have completed all requirements for the degree except the dissertation by the commencement of the award (September 1, 2005).  The dissertation fellowship award is $17,000 for one year and may be used to support writing or field research.  All application materials must be received in our offices by January 10, 2005.  For more information and an application form, please visit the Institute's website at <www.usip.org/fellows>, or contact the Jennings Randolph Program, U.S. Institute of Peace, 1200 17th Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036-3011, USA, phone:  202.429.3886, fax: 202.429.6063, e-mail: jrprogram@usip.org.

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Political Opportunities, Violence and Rhetorical Framing Among Shi‘i Movement Groups in Iraq

Stephen Poulson, Washington and Lee University

In the last issue (Fall 2003) of the Critical Mass Bulletin, I described a Shi‘i Muslim cultural narrative concerning the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (680 A.D.). In particular, each year during the tenth month (Muharram) of the Muslim calendar there are processionals that recreate Imam Hussein’s battle against the Sunni Caliph’s army at Karbala (in Southern Iraq). The most dramatic celebrations occur on the day of Ashura, the day Hussein was martyred, when men in processionals self-flagellate with chains struck upon their back. Overall, the Ashura processional is an emotionally charged event wherein the Shi‘i community experiences the death of Hussein in personal terms (Chelkowski and Dabashi 1999). In the past, particularly among Shi‘i believers in Iran and Lebanon, the Ashura rites have been used as an occasion to organize popular protests (see Fischer 1980).

The Ashura celebration in Iraq this past year was marred by political violence. In fact, the most destructive attacks against Iraqi civilians to date occurred during coordinated bombings in Karbala and Baghdad. Close to 200 people were killed and many more wounded. Targeting the Ashura rites was a logical strategy for groups that want to impose hardships on the occupying forces (e.g. foreign fighters and terrorist organizations), or those who fear the increasing political strength of the Shi‘is (e.g. Sunni groups and former Bathists). Following this violence many Iraqi Shi‘is in Baghdad threw stones at the U.S medics who arrived at the Khadamiya mosque blast site in Baghdad. Thousands then marched to an American troop compound and were eventually dispersed by smoke grenades. Others marched to the local hospital chanting, “We defy you, America and Israel.” Likewise, anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-occupation slogans were broadcast from some mosque loudspeakers (see Chandraskaran, Shadid and Cha 2004; Burns and Gettlemen 2004).

My primary assertion in the Fall CMB newsletter was that during Ashura it was likely that the popular narratives of Hussein’s death were going to be used by some Shi‘i movement factions to frame the meaning of the American occupation of Iraq. Indeed, before the violence it does appear that some Shi‘i pilgrims participated in anti-American sloganeering during the processionals (see Vincent 2004). But overall I expected groups associated with the clerical leadership of Muqtada Sadr to be much more provocative with respect to anti-American sloganeering during the Muharram processional period. In particular, I thought more radical Shi‘i movement factions would use the processionals to try and pressure moderate Shi‘i leaders, such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani, to more openly oppose the American occupation. But, had the violence against the pilgrims not occurred it appears that the Muharram processionals would not have been marked by well-organized anti-American demonstrations. Still, the anti-American frames adopted by groups associated with Muqtada Sadr, who has most recently begun to compare his organization to Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, has placed increasing pressure on moderate Shi‘i factions to demonstrate their independence from Americans (see Shatz 2004:29).

Long repressed groups now have an opportunity to exert political influence and are competing with one another in an attempt to gain greater political legitimacy. To gain legitimacy, these groups have to frame the meaning of the new social conditions in Iraq . . .

At this writing (June 2, 2004), the most important struggle among Shi‘i movement factions concerns control of the shrine city of Najaf and the Imam Ali mosque. During the recent attempt by the American occupying forces to arrest Muqtada Sadr, his supporters immediately moved to occupy important shrine sites in Najaf. Sporadic fighting between American troops and Sadr’s supporters has been ongoing during the past month.

Overall, I believe that the current factional struggles among the Shi‘i groups in Iraq acts as a nice exemplar with respect to how political opportunity affects social movement framing. Greater political opportunity is often facilitated by structural change that makes movement success more probable. In Iraq, the elimination of the Bathist regime is clearly the most important structural change that has provided political opportunity for movement factions within Iraq. Long repressed

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Political Opportunities in Iraq

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groups now have an opportunity to exert political influence and are competing with one another in an attempt to gain greater political legitimacy. To gain legitimacy, these groups have to frame the meaning of the new social conditions in Iraq, particularly as it relates to the American occupation of Iraq.

Generally, those Shi‘i organizations most likely to be excluded from participation in a future Iraqi governance, who also generally represent the poorest segments of the Shi‘i community, have been the most provocative with respect to using anti-American rhetoric and violence as a means of mobilizing support. In this respect, a clear strategy of some Shi‘i organizations is to gain greater legitimacy by framing their movement as militantly opposed to the American occupation. Conversely, other Shi‘i organizations that were once militantly opposed to various American policies (e.g. The Supreme Assembly for an Islamic Revolution) have moderated their positions because they are the likely beneficiaries of the American occupation. There has also been a well-coordinated effort by the moderate Shi‘i leadership, particularly groups associated with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to minimize the most incendiary anti-American rhetoric used by their followers. For example, during protests organized by supporters of Ayatollah Sistani to oppose the electoral caucus system proposed by American administrators, the demonstrators were explicitly instructed to be peaceful and not to engage in any anti-American rhetoric (Shadid 2004).

Violence can force movement groups to choose sides, and is therefore regarded as an effective tactic by some social movement actors and state security forces.

The current situation in Iraq also provides an opportunity to observe why some groups choose to employ violence as a movement strategy. Violence has been a common feature of much social movement activity and repertoires of violence are common in many cultures. Likewise, state actors often regard violence as a tactic that can be legitimately employed against oppositional movement groups. Generally, the use of violence, by state actors or by movement groups, splinters support. But an escalation in violence can also polarize groups into either supporting a challenging movement, or supporting the state’s authority to use “legitimate” violence to suppress a movement. Violence can force movement groups to choose sides, and is therefore regarded as an effective tactic by some social movement actors and state security forces. In the coming months, how the Shi‘is of Iraq respond to the escalation of violence will likely be an important factor in which Shi‘i factions gain greater legitimacy.

Burns, John F., and Jeffrey Gettleman. 2004. “Blasts at Shiite Ceremonies Kill at Least 143.” New York Times, March 2.

Chandrasekaren, Rajiv, Anthony Shadid and Ariana Eunjung Cha. 2004. “Scores Die in Multiple Blasts at Iraqi Shiite Shrine: Attacks Timed to Coincide with Major Religious Event.” Washington Post, March 2.

Chelkowski, Peter and Hamid Dabashi. 1999. Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. New York: New York University Press.

Fischer, Michael 1980. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Shadid, Anthony. 2004. “Shiites organize to block U.S. Plan; Spurred by Sistani, Iraqi Clergy Mobilizes Followers Against Constitution.” Washington Post. Section A01, March 29.

Shatz, Adam. 2004. “In search of Hezbollah.” New York Review of Books 51 (8): 26-29.

Vincent, Steven. 2004 “Bloody Ashura: An American at a deadly bombing in Iraq.” National Review Online. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/vincent 200403050848.asp. April 29.

Deadline for the Fall 2004 Issue

of Critical Mass Bulletin: October 1

Send submissions to hull@umn.edu.