Pedagogy from and for Social Movements: A Conversation Between Theory and Practice

Much radical writing on academia is grounded in a mystified view of knowledge in which an ecosocialist pedagogy would be “theory from above.” This article argues for a different understanding of knowledge as materially situated in social and ecological relationships; oriented towards practice; developmental and contested from below, demystifying third-level education from the perspective of movement-generated knowledge. Concretely, this means starting from participants’ existing praxis and “learning from each other’s struggles”—using “frozen” movement theory and activist experience—to move towards a wider, more radical understanding. In Ireland such pedagogy is rooted in working-class community self-organising, rural environmental justice alliances, women’s and GLTBQ activism, and the anti-capitalist “movement of movements,” encapsulating Audre Lorde’s dictum, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The article focusses in particular on a “Masters for activists.” The course supports movement participants to deepen and develop their activist practice but also to situate it within these wider and more radical understandings and emancipatory alliances. Taking movement praxis—rather than “contemplative” knowledge—as a starting point raises very different questions about theory and practice, forms and distribution of knowledge and the purpose and shape of learning.     

The Theory and Politics of Contemporary Social Movements

Social movements of the 1960s have given rise to new theoretical perspectives such as Resource Mobilization Theory and theories of New Social Movements. Resource Mobilization Theory analyses the dynamics of mobilization: the effective organisation of social movements and their influence on mainstream political institutions. By contrast, New Social Movement theories seek to explain the anti-institutional nature of contemporary movements which are said to pursue radical social transformation through mainly cultural means. In this article, both theoretical approaches are examined but found to be inadequate explanations of the complexities of contemporary movements and their relationship with the political environment.     

Communicative Action in Practice: Intersubjectivity and New Social Movements

Critical theory has two distinct aims: the analysis and critique of particular existing oppressions, and the more emancipatory or reconstructive method or goal needed to move beyond current conditions. But often critical theory is too preoccupied with the first moment to consider the second. This essay examines the evolution of the notion of communicative action and a number of current debates surrounding especially Habermas's theory. It then examines two existing social change movements which incorporate aspects of communicative action into their everyday practices - the Alternative Dispute Resolution movement and the Direct Action movement-and illustrates how certain theoretical dilemmas are actually played out. The argument is that the practices of communicative action can help illuminate academic debates. Critical practice is not only an expression of critical theory, but can be used as an ongoing reflective guide for that theory.     

Micropolitics and Collective Liberation: Mind/Body Practice and Left Social Movements

This article explores the growing use of mind/body practices such as meditation and yoga in Left social movements. The analysis is rooted in interviews with activists participating in the transformative movement-building current: the growing number of organizations integrating subjective and social transformation practices. William Connolly’s work on micropolitics is put into conversation with the transformative movement-building current. The epistemological assumption undergirding this article is that textual political theory, and the knowledge being produced by activists, can benefit from dynamic exchange. My argument is that Connolly’s post-Nietzschean political theory offers a powerful justification for the political importance of mind/body practices, one that adds to activist justifications. I also argue that transformative movement-building contributes to recent theoretical debates by concretely demonstrating the integral importance of micropolitics for successful macromovements.     

优势视角:社会工作理论和实践的发展性模式

优势视角是20世纪80年代在西方社会工作领域内兴起的一种新的研究策略。认为个人、团体、家庭和社区都有优势,所有的环境都充满资源,近年来,优势视角已经被广泛应用到社会工作甚至更多实务领域,但是,相比较而言,大多数文章都是在优势视角理论下研究实务领域的一些问题,而关于单纯的优势视角的理论性研究并不多,所以笔者主要对优势视角的理论和实践方面进行系统性的介绍和说明。     

关于社会建设的理论和实践

社会建设是指社会主体根据社会需要,有目的、有计划、有组织地改善民生和推进社会进步的社会行为与过程。社会建设主要内容有：社会结构的调整与构建,社会流动机制建设,社会组织建设,社会阶层利益关系协调机制建设,社会事业建设,社会保障制度建设,社会安全体制建设,社会管理机制建设。     

Social Movements and Their Influence

The major portion of this paper concentrates on social movements, how they operate and how they are changing both locally and at the global level. In addition, an attempt is made to frame — necessarily in an overly simplistic way — a view on differences in conception in world models, conceptions about how the world should be evolving and differences of perspective that are in particular represented by the social movements.     

社会运动的策略与后果

在社会运动研究中,主流政治过程理论的结构主义倾向与狭隘的政治关注面经常遭致批评。对这些缺陷的修正并不在于抛弃"政治契机结构"概念,而是拓宽契机的类型,包括政治契机、经济契机和话语契机,并将其动态化为行动的一部分。这一论点以计算机回收运动为案例,其重大成就同它与经济、政治和话语契机结构之间的灵活互动密切相关。     

社会资本理论与社会公正问题

社会资本理论的兴起为社会公正实现的研究提供了新思路。社会资本与社会公正之间存在着结构性依赖和制约的关系。目前,我国的社会资本存在诸多缺陷,制约着社会公正的普遍形成。为此,通过转变政府职能、界定政府权力,加强制度整合、推动法治化进程,培育公民社会的公民意识和公共精神以及促进民间组织的健康发展,进而实现社会资本从传统到现代的转型,是实现社会公正的重要前提和题中应有之义。     

Women's Authority in Patriarchal Social Movements: The Case of Female Salafi Preachers

How do women gain authority in the public sphere, especially in contexts where patriarchal norms are prevalent? I argue that the leaders of patriarchal social movements face pragmatic incentives to expand women's authority roles when seeking new movement members. Women authorities help patriarchal movements by making persuasive, identity-based arguments in favor of patriarchy that men cannot, and by reaching new audiences that men cannot. I support this argument by examining the rise of online female preachers in the Islamist Salafi movement, using interviews, Twitter analysis, and automated text analysis of 21,000 texts by 172 men and 43 women on the Salafi-oriented website saaid.net. To show the theory's generality, I also apply it to the contemporary white nationalist movement in the United States. The findings illustrate how movements that aggressively enforce traditional gender roles for participants can nevertheless increase female authority for pragmatic political reasons.     

《德意志意识形态》:理论与实践的双重意蕴

《德意志意识形态》是体现马克思哲学变革的重要文本。在这本著作中,马克思确立了以生产逻辑为基础的历史唯物主义构架,这一构架特别体现在三个方面:一是社会存在决定社会意识,这为我们反思意识形态、实现社会历史批判提供了重要的理论基础;二是生产力的发展推动着社会历史的发展,特别是历史向世界历史转变,这为我们认识当代社会的走向,特别是全球化时代的社会走向提供了方法论指导;三是在生产力发展与世界历史格局的基础上,实现共产主义,这为社会发展确立了方向。重读《德意志意识形态》,不仅需要展现马克思哲学变革的内在逻辑,还要展现这一文本的历史意义。     

Theory to Practice: Policy Recommendations for Fostering Economic Development through Social Capital

Proponents of social capital theory have long argued not only that it is in the best interest of civic life to build social capital but also that social capital is vital for the economic health of communities. This has been confirmed by recent research showing that social capital, especially in its bridging form, is positively associated with job creation at the metropolitan statistical area level. At the same time, social capital is often viewed as something either inherent or absent within a community. This article takes on that assumption by presenting a policy‐based approach to developing social capital. It provides two theoretical explanations for how social capital affects economic development and identifies four lessons for economic development practitioners to use to enhance social capital. These research‐based recommendations for economic development practitioners and policy makers seek to improve the social capital and, consequently, the economic development of their community.