CAROLINE FLEAY: Hi, everyone and welcome to Human Rights Activism, Advocacy,

and Change.
And this, our first week, we're going to focus on social movements and power.
So in this course, we'll look at the important role
played by advocates and activists in ensuring that human rights are
respected, protected, and promoted.
And we'll also explore their work through an exploration
of social movements.
So we'll provide a bit of an overview throughout the course on human rights
activism, advocacy, and social action.
We'll look at different theories and philosophies of social change.
And we'll also look at case studies, some different examples
of social movements and campaigns, to explore
some of these theories in practice.
So it's an opportunity also to reflect on activism and advocacy
that we might also engage in.
And any social movements that we are part of or familiar with.
So you might like to reflect on your own experiences
as we go through this course.
Now to start off with, this week, we're going to talk about social movements.
We'll define how social movements can be understood
and we'll also talk about this notion of power.
So we'll talk about social movements first then
we'll talk about this concept of empowerment
before finally finishing up with collectivity, action, and praxis.
So to start with then, this term, social movement.
So you might like to think about what the term social movement means
to you first.
Well, it includes both the words social and also movement.
In other words, it refers to something that's collective and also
something that is dynamic.
One useful definition, I think, is provided
by Burgmann, who says that social movements reflect
a common interest among a specific group of people against another.
And they include the non powerful in communities and societies.
Often, people are drawn to these movements
due to feelings of concern or outrage, perhaps at government policies.
Or concern or outrage about a powerful state or transnational structures.
They might feel alienated from the capitalist economy
or their own experiences of discrimination or abuse.
Mobilization to action can be brought about
due to not seeing our own thoughts, our values and beliefs
reflected in the dominant structures.
And so people might become activists or advocates within a movement.
And people tend to consider these movements operate
at the civil level rather than the political institutional level.
So when we refer to social movements, we're
often talking about referring to civil society movements and such.
Now as the movement part of social movements suggests,
social movements are not considered to be static.
In Burgmann's words, they are an enduring process of confrontation,
characterized by capacity for protest.
And there may be national and or transnational
in that they might include a range of actors
across borders who work together as a collective.
And in fact, there may be a greater chance of impact
if a social movement is transnational.
Or at least the strength of government reprisals against domestic activists
might be limited.
If a movement is transnational, as Carter argues,
given that governments might be sensitive to the actions
of other states, other governments and international organizations,
or activists overseas, if that state relies
on support in other areas such as trade and tech-ed
and Sikkink talks about this as well in addition to Randall,
if you're interested.
Now social movements often make demands on the state at the national level
or on transnational institutions.
And transnational social movements can sometimes
be seen as more radical and less institutionalized
than international non-government organizations,
although non-government organizations, such as key human rights organizations,
may be part of a broader social movement.
Social movements are also sustained over time.
They are considered to be things that are not just
transitory as opposed to a one off outbreak
of protest out of perhaps frustration.
And they usually also develop a group identity.
And this is influenced by the nature of the movement's members.
But the movement also influences the consciousness and identity
of its members.
In Burgmann's words, this is a symbiotic relationship
that exists between movement and participants.
They make each other.
So when we participate in social actions,
we can be understood as asserting our membership of a community of interest
or belief.
And through that community and perhaps also because of that community,
we construct an identity for ourselves.
And in doing so, we also construct the identity of the movement.
We can be transformed by our participation in a movement
and a movement can be transformed also by our involvement and particularly,
our collective involvement.
Now this is similar to some work that Risse and Ropp and Sikkink
did on transnational human rights networks.
And they talk about a constituted relationship
between a transnational human rights network and its members.
It's a similar sort of thing where the relationship
between the identity of its members and a network
is interlinked and very much connected.
Again, in Burgmann's words, the forging of a common self-identity enables
the group to have a political impact because it makes a collection
a collectivity--
a mass, a coherent political actor.

Now this implies though that a social movement is a unified entity.

But we could ask our social movements-- often comprised
of a range of different groups and perspectives-- are they as unified
though, as this suggests?
Now there are inevitably tensions within social movements.
Maddison and Scalmer highlight some of these well.
As they describe it, there is, in their words,
tension and creativity in social movements.
Activists face questions such as, how do we build unity, in their words.
How do we build unity and yet respect difference?
How can we balance the quest for revolution with the quest for reform?
How do we look to the global yet stay true to the local?
Now different actors or groups within a social movement
may have very diverse ideas about the means through which social change can
be brought about.
Now, Burgmann and others argues that despite being comprised
of different groups with varying agendas,
a movement can still be called such an entity because, quoting here,
because it "names a common enemy."
So there's also the sense though that something powerful
is happening within people when part of such a collective, which green
activists Brent Hoare, which is quoted in Burgmann--
he says, "sharing common cause with others in response
to the crises that affect all of us brings forth
incredible feelings of solidarity, camaraderie, empowerment, and joy.
The shared conviction that arises from standing up
against what is plainly wrong is a tremendously positive and sustaining
experience and is without doubt the most effective remedy
to feelings of hopelessness, despair, and surrender."
Maybe you've had similar experiences with different social movements
or campaigning groups you've been involved with.
Now social movements also often develop when the existing channels
are closed or blocked to a group.
So for example, when people or groups have their possibly quite reasonable
demands ignored or rejected by people in positions of power.
So if people feel they have a chance to make changes within the system
then you're probably more likely to do that first, such as letter writing,
lobbying, orderly protests, and so on.
But when formal channels are shut down or slowed to such an extent
that perhaps indigenous peoples or people
who are refugees who are locked up or trees
that are facing being demolished--
when these people and when the trees would not
be helped through due process, supporters
may feel increasingly frustrated and desperate and disillusioned
with the so-called system.
And here, their actions may become increasingly radical
and outside mainstream political, economic, and social structures.
And this is where people may begin to engage
in what's called civil disobedience, something
we'll talk about in a later week.
For example, campaigners who try to save old growth forests from logging
may chain themselves to machinery or even sabotage equipment.

Now given though that many social movements define themselves

in opposition to something else, there is
a risk of falling into a trap of being clear of what they are against
but struggling to build and share a vision of what next.
In other words, they may have a very strong critique
of what is wrong and share a strong sense
of solidarity in their shared opposition to perhaps multinational corporations,
logging, locking up people who are refugees, and so on.
But there may not be a strong sense of what
an alternative ordering and structuring of the world
would look like, or at least part of it.
And what role should we all have in responding
to issues that a transnational or international all
happening in other countries.
What should happen for example, in countries such as Australia where
in terms of responding to the treatment of refugees elsewhere.
And also, what should others in other countries
do in response to the treatment of refugees in Australia.
What should happen in the forests in various parts of the world that
are facing extinction.
And what about the people employed by the forest industry.
Should so-called sweatshop factories be closed down everywhere.
And if so, what role should we play in this.
And what about the employees of the factories and so on.
So in terms of agency here and in terms of decision making agency
in thinking about what it is that should be done
in response to particular rights abuses, there are deeper questions
here that we need to think about.
Now the construction of an alternative vision
and how to build it seems to be just as great a challenge for social movements
than seems to be as critiquing an existing structure is
and finding unity in opposition to it as well.
Now Maddison and Scalmer explore social movements.
And it's a very interesting exploration based
on interviews with 19 Australian based activists,
but drawing on social movement literature that is more international.
And they look at a range of social movements
as well as social movement theories.
And what they do is they highlight.
They seek to elevate what they call activist wisdom and practical knowledge
in understandings of social movements.
And give a call out there for this recognition of activist wisdom
and practical knowledge in addition to the development of theories
over the last century or so around social movements
They argue that practical knowledge developed by activists
is the key to a new approach to social movements.
Useful, democratic, and narrative.
They differentiate practical knowledge from theoretical knowledge.
They argue that practical knowledge, in their words, is drawn from experience.
So they're talking here about knowledge that is usually
considered to be local and intuitive.
It's not abstract or about, in their words, a series of hard and fast rules.
But what they're talking about here is practical knowledge
involved in decision making about practical tasks, such as how to act
or what to try next given what happened last time we acted in a certain way.
So for Maddison and Scalmer, practical knowledge
is in their words, local and partisan, social, intuitive, experimental,
adaptive, narrative, and very importantly, reflective.

OK, that's just a few bits and pieces there on social movements,
how social movements can be understood, some of the implications
of social movements in practice.
And also, a bit about highlighting that practical knowledge.
Knowledge drawn from and utilized by local activists
is something that is useful and very important to explore as well.
So we'll move on in the second part of this lecture
to talk about this notion of empowerment before we finish off
with collectivity action and praxis.