Politics and Social Change Commons^™

“Being Comrades And Friends”: Friendship Networks Of Activists In College, Lance Paul L. Sunga

Sociology Undergraduate Senior Theses

Friendship is often thought of as a byproduct of activism. People naturally get close and form bonds as they become involved and participate in collective action with others. While scholars have focused on how social networks influence mobilization, there has been a lack of research on the other direction of this relationship, the already commonly held assumption. Using the case of student networks at a liberal arts college, this leads to the following questions: “To what extent do variations in social movement mobilization explain patterns and outcomes of friendship network types? How does activism impact a respondent’s understanding of friendship …

“Everybody's So Punk On The Internet:” What Online Discourse On Taylor Swift’S Life Of A Showgirl Tells Us About Social Movements, Media, And Activism, Kaela Joseph, Tanya Cook

The Manuscript: Journal of Taylor Swift Studies

Taylor Swift’s twelfth album (TS12), Life of a Showgirl, broke multiple records in charting and sales (Sisario), however, early online discourse focused less on the album’s commercial success and more on Swift herself as a public figure in the current sociopolitical landscape. While some critiques were typical, discursive of Swift’s lyricism and composition, as well as the expectations set by Swift’s marketing of the album, others questioned what the album says about Swift’s sociopolitical positionality. More specifically, discourse questioned how the album contributes to, or detracts from, Swift’s role as a starticipant; a celebrity who contributes to the success …

Review Of Nevertheless, We Persist: A Feminist Public Theology, Tiffany Hunsinger

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

The Origins Of The Pax Christi International Movement: The Pax Christi In Regno Christi Crusade, François Mabille

The Journal of Social Encounters

The Pax Christi movement was created in 1944 by a French laywoman. Its original name was "crusade of prayers for the conversion of Germany", the term crusade referring to a very specific political and religious imagination, marked in particular by the intransigent Catholicism of the beginning of the 20th century and by a specious analysis of the origins of the Nazism. This article, resulting from a thesis devoted to the history of the movement from 1944 to 1983, reviews the genesis of Pax Christi, and its evolution during the first 5 years of its existence, from a "crusade of prayers" …

#Protestpolicing: Intersecting Race And Social Media Activism In The Mile High City, Nancy Rios-Contreras

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Demonstrations addressing police use of force stress the importance of revisiting the organization strategies of social movements. Fatal use of force against individuals of color continues to tarnish police-community relations. Social media helps elevate the political movement addressing police use of force, but understanding social media as an activist resource remains underdeveloped. Resource mobilization theory is applied to the conceptualization of protest activities to describe how activists use social media as a resource to initiate and create local community change. This exploratory study consists of 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with activists over 18 years old and fieldwork observation. While social …

Inciting Action By Analyzing Pachirat, Rhi N. Soto

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

The book Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat explores “the politics of sight”, or the intentional invisibilizing or transparentizing of repugnant acts in order to encourage or limit them, through the case study of a beef slaughter house in Omaha, NE. While also utilizing the politics of sight, Pachirat hopes for great political and social change concerning the immoral acts that happen at meat plants through a radical act of transparency: a narrative ethnography. Writers with similar goals of great change in social and political issues can make use of Pachirat’s techniques, which …

Res Historica, Volume 4, Lynneth Miller Renberg Phd, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta

Res Historica

The 2025 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg, Samuel Sanders, and Julia Ackerman. The cover art for this volume is an open access image.

New Cold War, New Anti-Nuclear Activism (Webinar), - Kroc Institute For International Peace Studies

The Journal of Social Encounters

The nuclear freeze movement of the early 1980s demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to influence national defense and security policy at the height of the Cold War. Today, the world is threatened by a new global arms race as the United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear weapons states are rebuilding and enhancing their arsenals, including new missile deployments. In the face of worsening nuclear dangers, grassroots movements are once again advocating for nuclear disarmament and justice.

This webinar, which took place February 11, 2025 discussed the efforts and impact of local government officials, religious leaders, and international networks …

Belonging And Disagreeing: Arab Student Activism On A College Campus, Angelina E. Baroud

Honors Capstones

There has not been sufficient research on Arab college students and their activism in the United States. This topic is especially important because of the new wave of protests across college campuses due to the Israel-Hamas war. This project focused on what made Arab students join an Arab organization at a university in the Midwest and the disagreements that exist within the group. Data was gathered through participant observations of the group meetings and semi-structured interviews with the group members. This study found that the desire to connect with their culture and find a sense of community brought Arab students …

Do Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers Engage With Homeland Politics?, Ayu Kusumastuti

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

International labour mobility has increased Indonesian female migrant domestic workers' involvement in transnational labour organisations. Because of their precarious work, advocacy and unions are crucial to protecting them overseas. This paper examines the debates on the political activism of Indonesian female domestic workers and discusses the gap that migration scholars have not yet addressed. The study's conceptual core employs the concept of migrant political transnationalism, which generates the intersection of migrant citizenship and receiving country sovereignty. The author has reviewed thirty journals using exclusion and inclusion criteria with a qualitative narrative literature review. Grassroots advocacy for Indonesian domestic workers primarily …

Theorizing Social Movement Practices, Christopher Lomelín, Anna Peterson

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay contributes to the systematic and expansive exploration of social movement practices by looking more closely at symbolic and instrumental practices, on the one hand, and works of mercy and structural transformation practices, on the other. The categories we have discussed, while far from perfect, provide valuable tools to understand social movement practices and thus movements in general. We argue that attention to practices can strengthen the systematic, comparative analysis of social movements both by calling attention to previously under-studied types of activities and by illuminating the relationships between different types of practices.

Building Sustainable Environmental Activism Programs For Youth, Aminah Habib

Master's Projects and Capstones

As the negative impacts of climate change become more and more common across the United States, many youth are experiencing eco-anxiety or other negative mental health impacts due to the state of the environment. Engaging with activism has been named as a potential mitigator of the negative impacts of climate change among youth, but the relationship between activism and youth well-being is an emerging area of research. To explore this relationship, this scoping review explored and synthesized available literature to inform the next steps. In addition to the community-level and society-level contributions that come from youth activism, there are also …

The Philosophy Of Activism And Its Paradox., Omar Arar

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Activist organizations have been at the forefront of countless progressive efforts, seeking to ameliorate social injustices, expand the rights of marginalized people, and strengthen democratic institutions. However, the efforts of activists always seem to lead to incremental victories or a minimal change to the status quo. In this paper, I argue that the primary cause of this largely stagnant social justice landscape is the professionalization of activism. Activism in its professional form, as people who make a living out of their activist efforts, brings with it numerous issues, the most problematic among them is the manifestation a paradox. Namely, professional …

Raj Karega Khalsa! - The Evolution Of The Sikh Identity, Vineet Mehmi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Generally, religion has served as a method of creating a unique identity and history for many groups across history. This concept is especially true for the Sikh community, to the point that they have carved their own niche across the different places they inhabit in the world, whether that be their homeland of Panjab or their extensive population in places like Canada or the United Kingdom. However, this expansion and development of their culture did not come without a cost, formed through countless battles, martyrdom, and revolutions. Chardi Kala, a foundational idea in Sikhi that refers to eternal optimism even …

Youth Climate Change Activism: How Activism In Youth Can Be Encouraged To Help Combat Climate Change And Reduce Youth Health Impacts, Lorely M. Ruiz

Master's Projects and Capstones

While the effects of climate change are already affecting populations throughout the world, youth will have to deal with the full array of consequences due to the inaction of people in power and environmental regulation failures. Climate change is an issue that needs to be dealt with urgently due to the disproportionate burden it has on youth and future generations. A scoping literature review was conducted to analyze existing literature on climate change activism among youth throughout the globe. Research, practice, and policy recommendations were made to help address gaps in existing literature such as limited research on youth climate …

Tiktok As A Digital Activism Space: Social Justice Under Algorithmic Control, Brittany Haslem

Institute for the Humanities Theses

TikTok, a video sharing application, has become the center of viral internet culture. The app has risen in popularity so quickly that scholarly literature investigating its vast societal impact is still nascent. TikTok is not only used to discuss popular culture topics and create trends, but also being utilized as a tool for social justice activism in the United States in the wake of a tumultuous year with major events such as the coronavirus pandemic, a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the 2020 presidential election. TikTok activism is not without critiques, ranging from concerns of foreign government …

Uncivil Disobedience And Democracy: An American Perspective, Walter J. Kendall

The Journal of Social Encounters

From the time of the Athenian democracy there has been the debated question of whether protest and dissent, especially uncivil disobedience to the law was supportive or destructive of a people’s democracy. The debate continues unabated today.

In a recent collection of essays titled Protest and Dissent, Professor Susan Stokes offered an answer to the question Are Protests Good or Bad for Democracy? (Schwartzberg, 2020, p. 269). After considering both possibilities, she concludes, as had James Madison in Federalist 10, that protests “are a natural by-product of freedoms of expression and association which, if curtailed, would threaten democracy itself.”(Schwartzberg, 2020, …

Roles Of Social Media In The Black Lives Matter Movement During Covid-19, Reilly E. Olson

Honors Projects

By definition social movements reflect unique times in history. To fully grasp the implications of a movement the social and political climate that induce them must be understood. An intersectional model should be used when framing and studying the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a modern descendant of both the NAACP and Civil Rights movement. From its inception, BLM has utilized social media as an important tool by coining #BlackLivesMatter, a hashtag that frequently comes to life offline as BLM organizers use it as a call for action and mobilization. The accessibility of social media made its role in the …

A Colonized Cop: Indigenous Exclusion And Youth Climate Justice Activism At The United Nations Climate Change Negotiations, Corrie Grosse, Brigid Mark

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Youth activists around the world are demanding urgent climate action from elected leaders. The annual United Nations climate change negotiations, known as COPs, are key sites of global organizing and hope for a comprehensive approach to climate policy. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews at COP25 in 2019, this research examines youth climate activists’ priorities, frustrations and hopes for creating just climate policy. Youth are disillusioned with the COP process and highlight a variety of ways through which the COP perpetuates colonial power structures that marginalize Indigenous peoples and others fighting for justice. This is intersectional exclusion - the …

Law School News: Remembering John Lewis 07-18-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Reflections From A Lifetime Of Activism. An Interview With Chip Berlet, Chip Berlet, Kendall Sewell, Matthew Wentz, Austin Zinkle

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Chip Berlet is a widely published independent scholar who studies right-wing movements in the United States and Europe, as well as the global spread of conspiracy theories. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and photographer. Since the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, Berlet has appeared frequently in the media to discuss these issues. For over twenty years, Berlet was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit think tank in the United States that tracks right-wing networks. Berlet is co-author (with Matthew N. Lyons) of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (Guilford 2000) and more recently editor of …

“Deserting The Broad And Easy Way”: Southern Methodist Women, The Social Gospel, And The New Deal State, 1909-1939, Chelsea Hodge

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of three decades, white southern Methodist women took on issues of labor and poverty through their national women’s organization, the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC). Between 1909 and 1939, the WMC focused their work on five groups of people they viewed as in need of their help: women, children, black southerners, immigrants, and rural people. Motivated by the Social Gospel and an intense belief that their faith led them to effect real change in the American South, the WMC intervened in people’s lives, pursuing reform that could at times be maternalistic and condescending but at other times radical …

The Cyclical Influence Of Society And Music, Bailey Gomes

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

1990s Grunge And Its Effect On Adolescents, Bailey Gomes

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Militant Antifascism | A Discussion With Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

Politics

One Peoples Project (OPP) and Providence iww General Defense Committee poster advertising an event with OPP founder Daryle Lamont Jenkins discussing how to build up anti-fascist structures in New England.

Leymah Gbowee And The Army Of Women In White, Alexis Steele Hackenberg

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper describes the founding of peace activist Leymah Gbowee’s Liberia Mass Action for Peace (LMAP) movement that helped to end the Second Liberian Civil War. It provides a biographical account of the life experiences that were crucial for Gbowee to advocate for peace and found the movement. The paper also compares the LMAP movement with the more recent #MeToo movement and analyzes Gbowee’s personal critiques of #MeToo.

Restoring Solidarity: "Accountability" In Radical Leftist Subcultures, Sarah M. Hanks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In radical left activist subcultures, ‘accountability processes’ are a form of DIY transformative justice dealing with abuse and sexual assault, focusing on the needs of the ‘survivor’ and transformation of the ‘perpetrator.’ Within activism identifying abuse is particularly difficult because it means acknowledging abuse by a person considered politically virtuous. The specifics of a process are situational and provisional. The overwhelming pattern is male identified people abusing female identified, gender non-binary, and transgender people. My research examines why activists are developing processes to address problems and whether or not they are successful.

Within the subculture, the topic is important enough …

Activism And The Fossil Fuel Industry By Andrew Cheon And Johannes Urpelainen, Alexandra Watt Simpson

The Goose

Review of Andrew Cheon and Johannes Urpelainen's Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry

For The Wild: Ritual And Commitment In Radical Eco-Activism By Sarah M. Pike, Alda Balthrop-Lewis

The Goose

Review of Sarah M. Pike's For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism

1968-2018: 50 Years Of Athlete Activism In America, Randall Norman

Honors Projects

The purpose of this project is to explore the history of athlete activism in America, as well as understand similarities and differences of race, gender, and time period as it pertains to athletes speaking out about social or political causes.