Abstract
Dorothy Holland, Charles Price, and William Westermeyer draw on person-centered accounts from their ethnographic studies of three social movements in the US and Jamaica to clarify how nonelite, non-powerful people sometimes manage to go beyond political ruminations to political action. Using social practice theory, which theorizes the social formation of mind and self in practice, the co-authors analyze significant moments in the trajectories of participants becoming political actors. The chapter offers insights into how people, despite the power of the state and elite institutions, develop political identities and agency and together raise and legitimate marginalized perspectives on issues such as the environment, local government, and new forms of Blackness. These efforts at cultural and conventional politics often contribute significantly to cultural and social transformations.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Workshop on Culture and Political Subjectivity Co-organizers, Claudia Strauss and Jack Friedman, and co-editors of this book for their careful and insightful work on this chapter. Also due for thanks: an anonymous reviewer provided a key suggestion that significantly improved the chapter. The other workshop participants and discussants, with their feedback and stimulating chapters, proved invaluable.
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Holland, D., Price, C., Westermeyer, W.H. (2018). Political Becoming in Movements: Lessons from the Environmental, Tea Party, and Rastafari Movements. In: Strauss, C., Friedman, J. (eds) Political Sentiments and Social Movements. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72341-9_10
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