University of Oxford

Department of International Development

Queen Elizabeth House
2016

Optional Course in
Social Movements and Radical Change
(SMRC)

Updated on:
27.01.2016

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Course Convenor: Rosana Pinheiro-Machado

Office Hours: After class or arranged by appointment

Course Hours: Tuesdays, 2-4pm (week 1,3,4,5,6, and 8 – see alternative dates for Weeks
2 and 7)
Course Location: Music room, 3 Mansfield Road, Room TBC

Introduction:
The theme of social movements is central for development studies as it seeks to
understand the potential of collective action in promoting social change and justice.
Topics such as power, agency, resistance, hegemony, identity will be covered throughout
the course. This is an interdisciplinary course, which aims to compare different waves of
social movements around the world. The course does not have a particular emphasis on
any geographical region.

There will be a theoretical introduction to the basis of social theory of radical change,
focusing on Marxism (e.g. Marx, Gramsci) and Anarchism (e.g. Bakunin, Graeber), and
how these schools have been influencing (or not) social movements around the world
since the beginning of the 20th century. After these introductory lectures, contemporary
theories on social movements will be covered (from 1980s to the present). The
functionalist/rational choice theories will be presented and critically discussed. Itwill be
followed by new approaches on identity and social movements (ethnicity, gender, anti-
globalisation movement, grassroots movements, worker unionism, World Social Forum,
etc.) The last lectures will cover key mass protests that emerged during the 21st century, as
well as urban social movements and the struggle for land and property.

Learning Outcomes:
With respect to theoretical learning outcomes, upon completion of the course the students
should be able to analyse the influence of major social theories on radical change and
critical theory, and also understand how these debates are being dialectically modified by
social reality.
At the practical level, the students are expected to have a comprehensive understanding of
the nature of social movements since the turn of the century.
At the end of the course, the students are expected to answer the following question: What
can theory on social movements teach us on the mass protests of the 21st century? Use
different theoretical approaches to explain them.

Course format:
The course will have the structure of seminars. There will be a short introduction of the
topic by the lecturer, which will be followed by paper presentation and group discussion.

Course assessment:
The course is assessed by means of a written examination in Hilary Term, date to be
confirmed. The written examination, which takes place at the end of the year and requires
students to answer a total of three questions.
Coursework for Social Movements and Radical Change consists of two essay of 2,000

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words. The essays are due in the week 3 and 8 (Friday, noon). The coursework will be
graded although the marks are ‘informal’. They are meant to help in gauging progress and
preparing for the exam and the thesis. All course work is compulsory.

2nd essay (w8) has a fixed question:

Week 8 - What can theory on social movements teach us on the mass protests of the 21st
century? Use different theoretical approaches to explain them.

Summary Schedule for SMRC, HT 2016

Week 1: Introduction to Social Movements

Week 2: Major theoretical foundations: Marxism and Anarchism
Week 3: From Rationality to Emotions: An Overview of Sociology of Social Movements
Week 4: Social Movements and Identity
Week 5: The Right to the City: Urban Social Movements
Week 6: Guest Seminar
Week 7: 21st Century-Mass Protests
Week 8: Case Studies: Mass Protests

HILARY TERM 2016

Week 1 (Music Room, 19 January, Tuesday 2:30-4pm)

Introduction to Social Movements

 **Montagna, N., & Ruggiero, V. (2008). Social movements: a reader. Routledge.

 *Goodwin, J., & Jasper, J. M. (Eds.). (2014). The social movements reader: cases
and concepts. John Wiley & Sons.
 *Nash, J. (1996) Social Movements, an anthropological reader. Introduction
 Crossley, N. (2002). Making sense of social movements. McGraw-Hill Education
(UK). Guidebook
 Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2009). Social movements: An introduction. John
Wiley & Sons.
 Edelman, M. (2001). Social movements: changing paradigms and forms of
politics. Annual Review of Anthropology, 285-317
 Smith, G. (1999). Confronting the present: towards a politically engaged
anthropology. Oxford: Berg
 Tilly, C. (2005). Social Movements, 1768-2004.

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Week 2 (Music Room, 27 January, Wednesday, 12:30-2pm)
Theoretical Foundations and The Classics

Questions:
o Outline the main differences between Anarchism and Marxism*
o Explain the ways though which Marxism and Anarchism influenced social
movements over the years*
o Discuss the role played by Anarchism and/or Marxism in contemporary social
movements
o Anarchism is back and it tends to be the main current of thought in the social
movements of the 21st century. Critically discuss it.
o How does theory influence practice?

 Bakunin, M. A. (1950). Marxism, freedom and the state. K. J. Kenafick (Ed.).

London: Freedom Press.
 Chomsky, N. On Anarchism. Any version
 Day, R. J. F. (2004). From Hegemony to Affinity. Cultural Studies, 18(5), 716–
748. doi:10.1080/0950238042000260360
 Day, R. J. F. (2005). Gramsci is Dead: Anarchists Currents in the Newest Social
Movements. London: Pluto Press and Between the Lines.
 Graeber, D. (2004). Fragments of an anarchist anthropology (Vol. 5). Chicago:
Prickly Paradigm Press.
 Graeber, The new anarchists. New Left Review.
 Gramsci, A. (1995). Further selections from the prison notebooks. U of Minnesota
Press –
 Gramsci, A. Notes on Italian History/ The Modern Prince
 Kropotkin, P. A., & Kropotkin, P. (2002). Anarchism: A Collection of
Revolutionary Writings. Courier Corporation.
 Lenin, V.I., (1999) Imperialism: The highest stage of capitalism. Resistance
Books.
 Lenin. The State and Revolution
 Lenin, Essential Works of Lenin
 Marx, K. Engels, F. The Capital. Any version. Selected chapters.
 Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1967). The communist manifesto (1848) London: Penguin.
 Marx, K. A contribution to the critique of political economy. Preface. Any version
 Marx, K. The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
 Thompson E. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth
century. Past Present 50:76–136
 Trotsky, L. An appeal to the toiling, oppressed, and exhausted people of Europe
 Grubacic, Andrej. Toward another Anarchism http
http://www.choike.org/documentos/wsf_s107_grubacic.pdf

Anarchist papers - Invisible Committee and others (to be read for week 7 again)
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 http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-committe-to-our-friends
 https://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/
 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_cancer_of_occupy_20120206
 https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/concerning-the-violent-peace-
police/
 Chomsky on anarchism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB9rp_SAp2U
 http://monthlyreview.org/2001/09/01/anarchism-and-the-anti-globalization-
movement/
 Epstein, B. Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement
http://monthlyreview.org/2001/09/01/anarchism-and-the-anti-globalization-
movement/

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Week 3 (Music Room, 02 February, Tuesday, 2:30-4pm)
From Rationality to Emotions: An Overview of Sociology of Social
Movements

Questions:
o Elaborate critical essay on rational choice and other functionalist theories on
SM
o What are the main contributions of Contention Politics to the field of SM?
o From Structure to Emotion. Discuss.

Rational choice
 Gilbert, M. (2006). Rationality in Collective Action. Philosophy of the Social
Sciences, 36(1), 3–17. doi:10.1177/0048393105284167
 Hardin, R. (2008). Are Homo Economicus and Homo Politicus Identical
Twins? Public Choice, 137(3), 463–468.
 Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. science, 162(3859), 1243-1248
 Klandermans, B. (1984). Mobilization and Participation: Social-Psychological
Expansisons of Resource Mobilization Theory. American Sociological
Review, 49(5), 583. doi:10.2307/2095417
 Oberschall, A. (1994). Rational Choice in Collective Protests. Rationality and
Society, 6(1), 79–100.
 Olson, M. (2009). The logic of collective action (Vol. 124). Harvard University
Press.
 Ostrom, E. (1998). A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of
collective action: Presidential address, American Political Science Association,
1997. American political science review, 92(01), 1-22.
 Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for
collective action. Cambridge university press.

Resource mobilization
 McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). Resource Mobilization and Social
Movements: A Partial Theory. American Journal of Sociology, 82(6), 1212–1241.

Political opportunity structures

 Meyer, D. S. (2004). Protest and Political Opportunities. Annual Review of
Sociology, 30(1), 125–145. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110545
 Meyer, D. S., & Staggenborg, S. (1996). Movements, Countermovements, and the
Structure of Political Opportunity. American Journal of Sociology, 101(6), 1628–
1660.
 *Tarrow, S. G. (1998). Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious
Politics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contentious politics and repertoires of collective action

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  McAdam, D., Tilly, C., & Tarrow, S. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. (S. G.
Tarrow, C. Tilly, & S. Tarrow, Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Tilly, C. (1978). From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: Random House.
 Tilly, C. (2006). Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
 *Tarrow, S. G. (1998). Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious
Politics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

New social movements

 Offe, C. (1985). New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of
Institutional Politics. Social Research, 52(4), 817.
 Pichardo, N. A. (1997). New Social Movements: A Critical Review. Annual
Review of Sociology, 23, 411–430.
 Touraine, A. (2008). Introduction to the Study of Social Movements. In V.
Ruggiero & N. Montagna (Eds.), Social Movements: A Reader. London: Routledge

Culture and Identity

 Calhoun, C. (1991). The Problem of Identity in Collective Action. In J. Huber
(Ed.), Macro-Micro Linkages in Sociology(pp. 51–75). London: Sage.
 Calhoun, C. (1994). Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
 Castells, M. (2010). The Power of Identity. The Information Age Economy Society
and Culture (2nd ed., Vol. 2). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
doi:10.1002/9781444318234
 Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and Agency
in Cultural Worlds. London: Harvard University Press.
 Hunt, S. A., Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (1994). Identity Fields: Framing
Processes and the Social Construction of Movement Identities. In New Social
Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
 Laraña, E., Johnston, H., & Gusfield, J. R. (1994). New Social Movements: From
Ideology to Identity. In E. Laraña, H. Johnston, & J. R. Gusfield (Eds.), New
Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity (pp. 185–208). Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
 McDonald, K. (1994). Alain Touraine’s Sociology of the Subject. Thesis
Eleven, 38, 46–60.
 Melucci, A. (1995). The Process of Collective Identity. In H. Johnston & B.
Klandermans (Eds.), Social Movements and Culture (pp. 41–63). Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
 Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Meyer, D. S., Whittier, N. E., & Robnett, B. (2002). Social Movements: Identity,
Culture, and the State. New York: Oxford University Press.
 Polletta, F., & Jasper, J. M. (1995). Collective Identity and Social
Movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 283–305.
 Snow, D. A. (2001). Collective Identity and Expressive Forms. In N. Smelser & P.
Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences.
London: Elsevier Science. doi:10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/04094-8

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  Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. E. (1992). Collective Identity and Social Movement
Communities. In A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers in Social
Movement Theory (pp. 104–129). London: Yale University Press
Back to Emotions and Culture
 Jasper, J. M. (2008). The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity
in social movements. University of Chicago Press.
 Goodwin, J., Jasper, J. M., & Polletta, F. (Eds.). (2009). Passionate politics:
Emotions and social movements. University of Chicago Press. Intro and Chapter 1
by Collins
 Goodwin, J., Jasper, J. M., (Eds.). Rethinking Social Movements: Structure,
Meaning, and Emotion – Intro and chapter 1 by Tilly, and Chapter 11 on Emotions

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Week 4 (Music Room, 9 February, Tuesday 2:30-4pm)
After all, what does Anthropology have to say about Culture and
identity?
o Discuss the influence of Foucault on social movement theory and practice
o Discuss culture in an anthropological sense and its application to social movement
practice
o Why was not Anthropology strongly engaged in Social Movement debates for a
long time?

The power of the micro dimensions

 Baumgarten, B., & Ullrich, P. (2012). Discourse, power and governmentality:
Social movement research with and beyond Foucault (No. SP IV 2012-401). WZB
Discussion Paper. https://www.wzb.eu/sites/default/files/u13/fsiv2012-
401_zeng_ullrich-baumgarten.pdf
 Deleuze and Foucault. Intellectuals & Power. Available online @
https://libcom.org/library/intellectuals-power-a-conversation-between-michel-
foucault-and-gilles-deleuze
 Foucault, M. Selected Works of Michel Foucault.
 Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts.
Yale university press.
 Scott, J. C. (2008). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance.
Yale university Press.

Culture, Identity, and Transnational Grassroots Movements

 Alvarez, S. E., Dagnino, E., & Escobar, A. (Eds.). (1998). Cultures of politics,
politics of cultures: re-visioning Latin American social movements (p. 293).
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
 Alvarez, S., & Escobar, A. (1992). The making of social movements in Latin
America. Identity, strategy, and democracy. Oxford: Westview Press.
 Eckstein, S. (2001). Power and popular protest: Latin American social
movements. Univ of California Press.
 Escobar, A. (1998). Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation,
and the political ecology of social movements. Journal of political ecology, 5(1),
53-82.
 Escobar, Arturo. (2012) Encountering Development. Princeton – Intro and
Conclusion 2012 Edition
 Kuper, Adam. Culture. Chapter 7
 Nash, J. Anthropology of Social Movements. A reader. Intro and selected papers.
 Nash, June. 2001. Mayan Visions: The Quest for Autonomy in an Age of
Globalization. New York: Routledge

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  Sahlins, M. D. (1995). Sentimental pessimism" and ethnographic experience: or,
why culture is not a disappearing" object.
 Stephen, L. (2001). Gender, citizenship, and the politics of identity. Latin
American Perspectives, 54-69.
 Swidler, A. (1995). Cultural power and social movements. Social movements and
culture, 4, 25-40.
 Turner, T. (1993). Anthropology and multiculturalism: what is anthropology that
multiculturalists should be mindful of it?. Cultural anthropology, 8(4), 411-429.

World Social Forum: Transnationalism of SM, Anti-Globalisation Movements

 Film: Zapatista by Richard Rowley and Staale Sandberg (1998)
 Appadurai, A. (2000). Grassroots globalization and the research imagination.
Public culture, 12(1), 1-19.
 Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1999). On the cunning of imperialist reason.
Theory, Culture & Society, 16(1), 41-58.
 Castells, M. (2010). The Power of Identity. The Information Age Economy Society
and Culture (2nd ed., Vol. 2). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
doi:10.1002/9781444318234
 Della Porta, D., & Tarrow, S. (2005). Transnational processes and social activism:
An introduction. Transnational protest and global activism, 1.

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Week 5 (Music Room, 16 February, Tuesday 2:30-4pm)
The Right to the City: Urban Social Movements

o What are the factors that contributed to the revival of the city as crucial
theoretical variable to understand inequality and SM in the 21st century?
o Space and inequality are socially produced. Discuss

Classics
 Le Bon, G. The crowd: A study of the popular mind. Fischer.
 Weber, M. The city
 Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (Vol. 142). Blackwell: Oxford.

Studies on Urban landscape and conflict

 Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2015). Towards a New Epistemology of the
Urban? City, 19(2-3), 151–182. doi:10.1080/13604813.2015.1014712
 Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of
Urban Social Movements. London: Edward Arnold.
 Escoffier, S. (2015) Mobilisational Citizenship: Memory, Identity, and Political
Contention in Chile’s Poblaciones. DPhil Thesis, Oxford University.
 Escoffier, S. (2015). Re-claiming the Right to the City: Popular Mobilization in
Chile. Global Dialogue, 5(1), 18–19.
 Hannigan, J. A. (n.d.). Alain Touraine, Manuel Castells and Social Movement
Theory a Critical Appraisal. The Sociological Quarterly, 26(4), 435–454.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4106097.pdf?acceptTC=true
 Harvey, D. (2008). The Right to the City. New Left Review, 53, 23–40. Retrieved
from http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city
 Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution.
Verso Books.
 Holston, J. (2008). Insurgent citizenship: Disjunctions of democracy and
modernity in Brazil. Princeton University Press. James Holston. (1999). Cities and
citizenship. Duke University Press
 Lowe, S. (1994). Urban Social Movements: The City After Castells. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
 Marcuse, P. (2009). From critical urban theory to the right to the city. City,13(2-3),
185-197.
 Mitchell, D. (2003). The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public
Space. London: The Guilford Press.
 Sassen, S. (2005). The Repositioning of Citizenship: Emergent Subjects and
Spaces for Politics. Globalizations, 2(1), 79–94. doi:10.1080/14747730500085114
 Sassen, S. (2008). Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global
Assemblages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
 Smith, N. (1996). The new urban frontier: gentrification and the revanchist city.
Psychology Press.

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Week 6 (Music Room, 23 February, Tuesday 2:30-4pm)
Resistant Cities: Guest Seminar TBC

Simon Scoffier (Oxford)

Erick Omena (Oxford Brookes)

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Week 7 (Music Room, 03 March, Thursday, 4-5:30 pm)
Occupy! 21st century mass protests, networks and decentralization
Questions:
o Is class back?
o Discuss the role that Anarchism plays in current mass protests
o Discuss the role that social networks plays in current mass protests

 Butler, Judith (2011) Bodies in Public. In Occupy! Scenes from Occupied

America. Keith Gessen, Carla Blumenkranz, Mark Greif, Sarah Leonard, Sarah
Resnick, Nikil Saval, Astra
 Castells, M. (2013). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the
internet age. John Wiley & Sons.
 Chomsky, N. (2012). Occupy. Penguim
 Collins, J. (2012). Theorizing Wisconsin's 2011 protests: Community‐based
unionism confronts accumulation by dispossession. American Ethnologist, 39(1),
6-20.
 *Day, R. J. F. (2004). From Hegemony to Affinity. Cultural Studies, 18(5), 716–
748. doi:10.1080/0950238042000260360
 Day, R. J. F. (2005). Gramsci is Dead: Anarchists Currents in the Newest Social
Movements. London: Pluto Press and Between the Lines.
 Della Porta, D. (2015). Social movements in times of austerity: bringing capitalism
back into protest analysis. Chapter 3 on Culture and Class
 Graeber, D. (2009). Direct action: an ethnography. AK Press.
 Juris, J. S. (2012). Reflections on# Occupy Everywhere: Social media, public
space, and emerging logics of aggregation. American Ethnologist, 39(2), 259-279.
 Karatzogianni, A., & Robinson, A. (2010). Power, Resistance, and Conflict in the
Contemporary World: Social Movements, Networks, and Hierarchies. London:
Routledge.
 Razsa, M., & Kurnik, A. (2012). The Occupy Movement in Žižek's hometown:
Direct democracy and a politics of becoming. American Ethnologist, 39(2), 238-
258.
 Standing, G. (2014). The Precariat-The new dangerous class.
 *Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Empire. Harvard University Press.
 Tilly, C. Social Movements. 1768-2012. Chapter 5 on 21st century
 http://ecsocman.hse.ru/hsedata/2014/07/01/1309600213/JISP_12_2_Schwartz_Cos
ta_Fleck.pdf
 http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/208-revolution-and-counter-
revolution-in-egypt-a-year-after-january-25th
http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/63-occupy-anthropology-and-the-
2011-global-uprisings

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Week 8 (Music Room, 08 March, Tuesday 2:30-4pm)
Comparative Perspectives: Global Networks of Hope and Change

Questions:
o *What can theory on social movements teach us on the mass protests of the 21st
century? Use different theoretical approaches to explain them.
o Analyze the local and the global dimensions, differences and similarities among
different mass protests that are taking place in the 21st century
o What are the political consequences of such protests in national politics?

 US Occupy
 Arab Spring
 Spain, Indignados
 Brazil, June 2013
 Hong Kong

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