Suchergebnisse

How do researchers and/or practitioners know when change efforts are bringing about significanttransformation? Here we draw on a theory of change put forward by the feminist economicgeographers, Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson. Proposing "a postcapitalist politics" thatbuilds on possibility rather than probability, they direct theoretical attention and communityengaged action research to recognizing and supporting non-capitalist economic practices andsensibilities that already exist despite the dominance of capitalism that keeps them hidden andignored and to understanding the "reluctant subject" of change efforts. We enter into aconversation with their theory of change by inferring criteria for assessing significance and usingthose criteria in dialogue with two social movements we have researched: the feminist movementin Bogotá in the 1970s and 1980s and the contemporary local food movement in North Carolina.Lessons from these movements, in turn, help refine the criteria. Gibson-Graham are unusual – andconsequently resonant with cultural-historical activity theory and related social practice theoriesof identity – in that they bring into dialogue theorists of the political and those interested inembodiment and the micro-politics of everyday life enabling both to better understand and supportconditions for positive social and economic transformation.

Collective identity entered the social movements literature as an early recognition of the importance of meaning-making in shaping movement participants and influencing movement actions In this article, we go against the more usual practice of treating movements as unified actors, and instead, take a decentered, dialogic approach that recognizes the difficulties and contentiousness of producing movement identities amidst multiple discourses and practices. We illustrate this framework with three ethnographic cases from Canada, Scotland and Nepal, which highlight collective identity and meaning-making through place-based, contingent cultural processes. The cases use the concepts of figured worlds, alter-versions of identity, and cultural artifacts to show how collective identity develops dialogically in practice both within and outside of movements.

In this article we argue that while new kinds of political activism are flourishing in local areas, increasing partnership with economic development interests poses serious challenges to the political efficacy of environmental activism. We examine the shifting terrain of local political activism within the context of the American Heritage Rivers Initiative, a new federal program designed to facilitate environmental preservation, economic development, and cultural preservation along U.S. rivers. This article is based on research done along the New River in North Carolina and Virginia with a collection of local groups organized into a regional partnership. That partnership exemplifies emerging forms of local political action under new regimes of state power and hybrid partnerships. We argue that if hybrid forms of environmental activism spread, with their emphasis on neoliberalism and ecological modernization, they will likely pose challenges for grassroots politics and, as has been the case along the New River, blunt the critical edge of the environmental critique.

Mikhail BAKHTINs theoretische Konzepte – Heteroglossie, Stimme und Dialogizität – sind von einer herausragenden Bedeutung für die Untersuchung persönlicher und sozialer Komponenten der menschlichen Entwicklung, und zwar im besonderen für die Untersuchung der Identitätsentwicklung innerhalb (unterschiedlicher) kultureller Welten. Bisher sind methodologische und analytische Verfahren zur Rekonstruktion von "Stimmen" in individuellen Selbstdarstellungen noch vergleichsweise unerforscht. In unserem Beitrag werden wir zu zeigen versuchen, wie BAKHTINs Konzepte in einem narrationsanalytischen Ansatz verwandt werden können, der die Untersuchung kulturbezogener Identitätsbildung und Positionierung zum Ziel hat. Wir verdeutlichen dies am Beispiel der selbstbezogenen Narrationen eines nepalesischen Jugendlichen, die im Rahmen einer großen ethnographischen Studie in einer ländlichen Gemeinschaft in Nepal erhoben wurden. Es soll – in einem engen Nebeneinander von Theorie und Methode – gezeigt werden, wie Personen ihnen verfügbare kulturelle und soziale "Stimmen" verwenden zur Kreation ihres Selbstbildes und zur Antizipation ihrer künftigen sozialen Position in ihrer Kultur. Unsere Studie der jugendlichen Narrationen legt nahe, dass soziale "Stimmen" gewählt und transformiert werden zur (Re-) Konstruktion vergangener, gegenwärtiger und zukünftiger Selbstbilder und kultureller Bedeutungsgehalte. Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrages steht die Bemühung, Forschende auf theoretische Konzepte und auf methodische Verfahren aufmerksam zu machen, die wesentlich dazu beitragen können, diese "Stimmen" und ihre Inszenierung wahrzunehmen und zu verstehen.