166-257 Sociology of Social Movements and Action

Note

Available as 166-357 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Normally, 25 points of first-year Sociology.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject examines major sociological approaches to the analysis of contemporary social movements and collective mobilisation, explored with reference to both postindustrial societies and social movements of the Asia- Pacific region. Major frameworks of analysis are examined, from theories of resource mobilisation and opportunity structures, exchange, sociologies of action, experience and identity, and network analysis. Research strategies framed by each these orientations are examined through a series of case studies. Key movements examined are the women's movement, ecology movements and labour movements. The sociology of counter movements is also examined, based on sociological explorations of terrorism, racism and fundamentalist communitarianism. The subject involves a team-based fieldwork exercise.

Assessment

A literature review, an essay and a fieldwork report totalling no more than 5,000 words

Prescribed Texts

Craig Calhoun (ed) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, London: Blackwell, 1994

• A. Morris & C. Mueller, Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
• L. Maheu (ed), Social Movements and Social Classes: the Future of collective action. London: Sage, 1995.
• E. Larana et.al, New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.
• Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women's Movement. New York and London: Routledge, 1992.
• Alain Touraine, Anti-Nuclear Protest. N.Y.: Cambridge, 1984.