Social Movements

3 units

How do people change the world? They organize. Social movements mobilize to change (or defend) cultural meanings and political and economic relations. This course examines movements ranging from jihadists to anti-abortionists to inner-city activists to transnational environmentalists. We compare movement origins, strategies, and effects. We ask how power and meaning are intertwined in political action and in people's understandings of themselves, how violence and other tactics work as meaningful political instruments, and why social movements are challenging formal politics around the world today. Anthropological approaches to global disjunctures between democracy and violence are at the core of our course.