Group formation, styles, and grammars of commonality in local activism

Abstract

This article argues that in order to analyse democracy as a pattern constantly processed in a given society, it is useful to look at activist groups' agenda setting and recruitment principles, group bonds and boundaries, and how these actions direct and influence ways of creating the common. Based on an ethnographic study on bicycle activism in Helsinki, Finland, it describes a local critical mass movement that was successful in promoting a bicycle friendly and sustainable city, yet dissolved due to lack of people involved, and the bicycle demonstrations stopped at a moment of high public interest. This empirical puzzle is addressed by combining three theoretical perspectives: Kathleen Blee's work on path dependencies in nascent activist groups; Nina Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman's work on group styles, and Laurent Thévenot's work on the grammars of commonality. These theoretical tools help understand the sense of what is deemed possible, desirable and feasible in activist groups, and the consequences thereof to social movement 'success' and 'failure'. The article claims that everyday practices and interaction are crucial in understanding the 'democratic effects' of social movements. It concludes that following specific processes of politicization and their conditionings in activist groups provides keys to understanding contextual differences in democracies without resorting to methodological nationalism or to exaggerated global isomorphism, and thus may contribute to figuring out how to succeed global action plans over wicked, pressing problems like global warming.

Green Justification and Environmental Movements

“…Furthermore, these contributions clarify the breadth and depth of the ecological crisis as a major cultural, political, and technical/scientific challenge that calls for a rethinking of concepts of justice from the perspective of care and responsibility for future generations and nonhuman living beings. This challenge, which is planetary, remains one that must be addressed from within the diversity of political cultures and the specificity of local histories and ecologies (Luhtakallio 2019). In contrast to the totalizing temptations of the Anthropocene master narrative, the approach to environmental movements promoted by EC/SC, particularly in the versions more open to the influences of pragmatism, is attentive to the variety both of the concerned publics that emerge across the globe and of knowledges and practices (see Blok and Jensen 2019).…”

The self in selfies—Conceptualizing the selfie‐coordination of marginalized youth with sociology of engagements

“…The key argument of the theory is that our action—our ways of working together with other people, and our ways of coordinating ourselves—changes according to the format that we understand the situation to follow (Thévenot, 2001, p. 75; 2014; also Eranti, 2018, p. 48). This is what the term engagement refers to: we are invested in a specific format of commonality and coordination whenever we do anything in the social world (Thévenot, 2015, 2014; Blokker & Brighenti, 2011; Luhtakallio, 2019, p. 1163). Engagements, in short, are investments in a specific form of being together.…”

Situational Orders: Interaction Patterns and the Standards for Evaluating Public Discourse

“…For example, it shapes how members develop varying activist identities, envisaging different political tactics as appropriate (Binder and Wood 2013). Style also influences civic groups’ trajectories by shaping how members evaluate success (Luhtakallio 2019) and their understanding of the social problems they seek to address (Blee 2012). Groups’ interaction patterns also distinguish between symbolic categories that are legitimate or illegitimate for public discussion, thereby limiting the types of claims members can make publicly (Lichterman and Dasgupta 2020).…”