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Embodying Protest: Culture and Performance within Social Movements

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Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology ((PSEPS))

Abstract

Cultural approaches to the study of social movements are by now well ensconced in the pantheon of social movement theory as the field has moved beyond the overly rationalist, materialist, and institutional biases of resource mobilization and early political process traditions. Responding to the challenge of new social movement theorists and the general trend towards cultural approaches across a range of fields over the past two decades, social movement scholars have produced numerous accounts of the relationship between culture and political protest (see e.g. Fantasia 1988; McAdam 1988; Melucci 1989; Laraña, Johnston, and Gusfield 1994; Darnovsky, Epstein, and Flacks 1995; Johnston and Klandermans 1995; Jasper 1997; Rochon 1998). Despite critiques of the overly strategic and static notions of culture in many of these accounts, as well as a recognition of the productive, contested, and dialogical nature of culture (Fantasia and Hirsch 1995; Polletta 1997; Steinberg 1999), there has been little attention paid to the role of performance in forging alternative emotions, meanings, and identities among activists (but see Fine 1995; Eyerman 2006; Tilly 2008; Hohle 2009).

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Authors
  1. Jeffrey S. Juris
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CIES Lisbon, Portugal

    Britta Baumgarten

  2. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    Priska Daphi

  3. Technische Unversität Berlin, Germany

    Peter Ullrich

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© 2014 Jeffrey S. Juris

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Juris, J.S. (2014). Embodying Protest: Culture and Performance within Social Movements. In: Baumgarten, B., Daphi, P., Ullrich, P. (eds) Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385796_11

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