The Communal Movement of the 21st Century - Essay Example

Erina Ushio Mark LaPointe and Courtney Bailey Protest & Progress in San Francisco Bay Summer 2007 “The Social Movement of the 21st Century” As we explored and examined some of the actions of social movements in San Francisco, some parts of the site of the city bring me to feel like observing some actual life-size works from the Adbusters magazine. This EL Summer trip enabled me to see the actions and practices through which people make choices, shape action, and create social movement in San Francisco. Once we step into one of the street sides, we can find some social active messages or event announcements, such as AIDS Walk, Asian Heritage Street Celebration, Union Street Festival, Fiesta Filipina, and San Francisco Gay Pride Parade as well. This most diverse city have gone through in the history throughout from increasing the wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America to America’s counterculture of Beat Generation, Hippies in Haight-Ashbury, and the gay rights movement, and experienced many various progressive social activism. In 1950s, there were the civil rights movement that black people appealed to for liberation. In 60-70s, there was the woman leap that women appealed to for liberation and ecoactivity as for 80-90s. In our time, in the latter half of the twentieth century, the term "globalization was coined, and this leads us to answer the question; what would be the ideal social movement of the 21st century? Globalization encouraged the development of networks, identities and opportunities of organizations across borders. For the matter, even when social movements never place a toe in transnational waters, the fact that their societies are affected by globalization makes their domestic actions part of global civil society. Some of have begun to posit the development of a whole new spectrum of transnational social movements; others have focused on one particular movement like human rights, the environment, or the concerns of indigenous peoples; still others focus on cultural forms, deducing from the collapse of extinct meta-narratives a groping across borders towards new cultural codes and connections. To the extent that many such networks continue to appear, we can expect to see more boomerangs whizzing across transnational space. However, it is yet unclear how they relate to the existing domestic system, to international organizations, or to domestic social actors in their "target": Do they depend indirectly on the power of the domestic social networks that they come from? Do they depend on the support of international organizations? If so, how far beyond the policies of these organizations can their campaigns go? Are they occasional interlopers in the relations between their domestic society and actors or are they becoming core links in the formation of transnational social movements among? The activisms that have attracted the most attention in the globalization literature are often referred to as "transnational social movements" (Smith, Chatfield & Pagnucco 1997), and are reflected in transnational movement organizations (TSMOs). These TSMOs are defined as "a subset of social movement organizations operating in more than two nations" (1997:43). To be transnational, a social movement ought to have social and political bases outside its target society; but to be a social movement, it ought to be clearly seen to be rooted within domestic social networks and engage in contentious politics in which at least one is a party to the interaction. Social movements are most likely to take root among pre-existing social networks in which relations of trust, reciprocity, and cultural learning are stored. This is the thesis that Tilly developed when he placed "organization" in a triangular relationship with interest and collective action in his "mobilization model" (1978: p. 57). In examining what kinds of groups are likely to mobilize, Tilly paid attention to both the categories of people who recognize their common characteristics and to networks of people who are linked to each other by a specific interpersonal bond, than to formal organization (p. 62). The resulting idea of "catnets" stressed a groups inclusiveness as "the main aspect of group structure which affects the ability to mobilize" (p. 64). As a great example, one non-profit organization in San Francisco Bay Area, The Bay Area Center for Independent Culture (BACIC), had enlarged their social network in their unique way. This is where my volunteer-work-partner Katy and I had leaned. BACIC, expanded from a low-budget initiative into a multimillion-dollar grassroots organization that serves tens of thousands of young people annually, including some of San Francisco’s poorest youth. BACIC, conceived by the philosopher Dr. Fred Newman and the developmental psychologist Dr. Lenora Fulani, provides talent show opportunities and leadership training through two supplementary education programs: the All Stars Talent Show Network (ASTSN) and the Joseph A. Forgone Development School for Youth (DSY). This overarching organization links ASTSN and DSY with other organizations that share both resources and goals, including the Castillo Theatre and the Talented Volunteers Program. This constellation of organizations enhances the success of each component by encouraging mutual support and providing further access to resources. They form a larger community that encompasses a creative theater-based community, a youth development community, and a therapeutic community. There are also strong connections to progressive political activism within all of these communities. Thus, the theatrical, youth development, and therapeutic communities are functionally related to each other, and all three are philosophically related to the progressive political community. The president of the BACIC, L. Kurlander, says: Over 25 years, we have discerned that “development” is what is needed to move our young people and our communities from chronic poverty and all of its effects. To create this development, we built a “new kind of community” in our city that includes tens of thousands of young people, donors, volunteers, parents, artists, performers and business professionals. This program unfolds within the geographical context of San Francisco, which is a center of international business and art that has developed a unique culture. Important to an understanding of the program is the vibrancy of the city’s many cultures and languages, and the pride residents take in the diversity of their city. Equally diverse are the social and economic divides that position the very rich alongside the very poor. The affluence of the city’s business life does not necessarily extend to more marginal, under-resourced communities. It is for these communities that the All Stars Project has selected as its target population. The stark contrasts between the cosmopolitan corporate world and the circumscribed and underdeveloped experiences of many young people from the surrounding boroughs are the cultural dissonance on which the ASTSN/DSY programs are based. Promoting and guiding the meeting of these two worlds is the central strategy of the development project. Another key role of interpersonal networks in movement aggregation and mobilization has obvious implications for the likelihood that social movements can form across transnational space. Even if "objective conditions" (e.g., economic interdependence, cultural integration or hegemony, or institutional diffusion) produce the preconditions for the appearance of similar movements in a variety of countries, the transaction costs of linking them into integrated networks would be difficult for any social movement to accomplish in the absence of activists. Activists here are those who ties cross-national boundaries on a regular basis and exhibit the mutual trust and reciprocity of domestic social networks. Cheap international transportation, electronic communication and lobbying, and international subcontracting provide resources for various kinds of social networks to form across national boundaries (Bob 1997; Keck & Sikkink 1998; Wellman & Giulia 1998). Moreover, sustained cooperation with actors from other countries against the actions of one or another state or international institution is the most pregnant possibility for unbundling territorial limits. When domestic activists interact routinely with others with similar claims, they can form transnational networks and identities and take advantage of international opportunities to advance these claims. Domestic social actors do not access the international system when they protest domestically against external agents; nor do they do so when they temporarily borrow the resources of external actors on their native soil, though much good can come of this resource borrowing. Outcomes that are more positive can result when domestic actors externalize their claims, seeking the intervention of transnational advocacy groups, third-party organizations, or international institutions. However, this mechanism is partial, selective and vertical, and can create a split between domestic and transnational activists. Internationalization, in contrast, forges horizontal links among activists with similar claims and is most likely to produce transnational social movements. In Conclusion, international institutions can thus play a facilitating role in all processes but are particularly important as targets and fulcra for internationalization. This leads to the paradox that international institutions can be the arenas in which transnational contention forms. I do not maintain that states create international institutions in order to encourage contention; states are more likely to delegate than to fuse sovereignty (Moravcsek 1998). However, because the norms and practices of international institutions mediate among the interests of competing states, they can provide political opportunities for weak domestic social actors, encouraging their connections with others like themselves and offering resources that can be used in intra-national and transnational conflict. Read More