Abstract:What cultural and structural factors allow conflict in a social movement organization to persist over long periods of time? Using data gleaned from interviews, archival materials, newspaper articles and online sources, I examine the Sierra Club's conflict over immigration policy, an issue which has persisted for decades without clear resolution. I argue that ideology accounts for some activists' position on club policy, while others based their stance on strategic concerns, which were linked in part to forces … Show more
“…In this paper, I explored why anti-sweatshop activists chose their particular strategy, emphasizing their ideology of worker empowerment and the strategic consequences of this for the success and failure of transnational campaigns. A number of scholars (Downey and Rohlinger 2008; Epstein 1991; King 2008; Maney 2012 Williams 2016, 2020) have emphasized the importance of ideology in shaping activists’ strategy. What I add here is the way the anti-sweatshop movement’s ideology of worker empowerment shapes the organization of their transnational networks—and how the resulting decision-making structure also informs their strategy.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some researchers (Van Dyke and McCammon 2010;Von Bülow 2010;Wood 2005) have looked in detail at the role of framing ideas as strategic tools used by transnational activists against their foes and/or how a shared set of beliefs strengthens transnational coalitions, but not the issues of organization and strategy, particularly as they relate to worker empowerment, that I focus on here. Several scholars (Downey and Rohlinger 2008;Epstein 1991;King 2008;Williams 2016Williams , 2020 have argued, however, that ideology is an important component in how movements strategize, shaping not only the goals for which social movement organizations strive, but what they think is the best means to get there. For instance, Maney (2012) looks at the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and the way activists split along ideological lines in response to concessions on civil rights issues offered by the British government.…”
I explore the ideology of worker empowerment among U.S. anti-sweatshop activists, particularly United Students Against Sweatshops, and its strategic consequences for transnational campaigns. This ideology is central in shaping the movement’s transnational strategy and organization, fostering communication and accountability, particularly to organizations representing sweatshop workers. Such organizational choices, in turn, shape how transnational networks strategize. For example, the anti-sweatshop movement rarely uses the familiar tactic of boycotts, due to opposition from workers. The more empowered sweatshop workers in such networks, the more informed decisions their allies can make, and the more strategically effective the movement can be.
“…In this paper, I explored why anti-sweatshop activists chose their particular strategy, emphasizing their ideology of worker empowerment and the strategic consequences of this for the success and failure of transnational campaigns. A number of scholars (Downey and Rohlinger 2008; Epstein 1991; King 2008; Maney 2012 Williams 2016, 2020) have emphasized the importance of ideology in shaping activists’ strategy. What I add here is the way the anti-sweatshop movement’s ideology of worker empowerment shapes the organization of their transnational networks—and how the resulting decision-making structure also informs their strategy.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some researchers (Van Dyke and McCammon 2010;Von Bülow 2010;Wood 2005) have looked in detail at the role of framing ideas as strategic tools used by transnational activists against their foes and/or how a shared set of beliefs strengthens transnational coalitions, but not the issues of organization and strategy, particularly as they relate to worker empowerment, that I focus on here. Several scholars (Downey and Rohlinger 2008;Epstein 1991;King 2008;Williams 2016Williams , 2020 have argued, however, that ideology is an important component in how movements strategize, shaping not only the goals for which social movement organizations strive, but what they think is the best means to get there. For instance, Maney (2012) looks at the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and the way activists split along ideological lines in response to concessions on civil rights issues offered by the British government.…”
I explore the ideology of worker empowerment among U.S. anti-sweatshop activists, particularly United Students Against Sweatshops, and its strategic consequences for transnational campaigns. This ideology is central in shaping the movement’s transnational strategy and organization, fostering communication and accountability, particularly to organizations representing sweatshop workers. Such organizational choices, in turn, shape how transnational networks strategize. For example, the anti-sweatshop movement rarely uses the familiar tactic of boycotts, due to opposition from workers. The more empowered sweatshop workers in such networks, the more informed decisions their allies can make, and the more strategically effective the movement can be.
“…However, they believe that the transformation of population and environment in global issues requires a recognition that the population policy is the main factor. King (2008) argues that the ideological and strategic choices of the environmentalist movement are associated with the conflicts inside of the organization of social movements. In the case of Sierra Club activist, the disagreement was over the strategy rather than the ideology.…”
This article discusses the debate and empirical bases of the environmental argument against Latinx immigration to the United State (US) since the 1980s decade. The environmental argument against immigration states that the level of immigration (undocumented and legal) has a statistical impact on the CO2 emissions, quality of air, and pollution. The argument also declares that immigrants exceed the emissions if they remained in their country of origin since the 1980s decade, and that immigration rapidly consumes environmental resources such as water, air, land, and increases biodiversity loss. This argument has neo-Malthusian, social Darwinism, and racist biases. This paper presents the core debates around the primary premises, the evolution inside the environmental movement in the US. This paper argues that the environmental argument against Latinx immigration lacks generalizable studies, objective data, and scientific validity. The environmental argument evolution has not present enough academic to support to its main claim that connects immigration with environmental degradation. Instead, we argue that immigration it is not the only cause of population growth, the environmental argument denies the strong evidence and studies that linkage environmental degradation with industrialization levels, emissions, economic development, and consumption levels of the US citizens.
“…In April 2013, both the national Sierra Club and 350.org released landmark statements of solidarity with the US immigrant justice community, remarkably departing from the discourses prevailing two decades earlier, in which neo‐Malthusian advocates for population control with a starkly racialized anti‐immigrant agenda nearly took over the national Sierra Club board in 1998 (Urban, ; King, ; Sasser, ). The statement by 350.org is characterized by global climate justice language, which is based on the view that immigrants driven to the US are victims of climate change and weather issues in their home countries:From working with our partners around the world, we know that migration itself is increasingly a climate issue.…”
Section: Variations Of Climate Justice: Uneven Global Frames and Scalmentioning
In October of 2012, youth organizers from the immigrant justice and climate change resistance movements in the southeastern US metropolitan region of Atlanta, Georgia, coordinated a direct action tactic framed by a unified narrative justifying collaboration between immigrant and climate justice activists on equal terms. In a continuing collaborative relationship, these organizers embraced mutually strategic narratives rooted in local civil rights history, but rejected common ‘global climate justice’ narratives used to frame social and environmental collaborative organizing. We examine the departure from ‘global climate justice’ narratives, which was exemplified by coalition building in Georgia, to argue that scholarship articulating ‘global climate justice’ as a new context for integrating social and environmental movements must anticipate barriers to these solidarities, especially historical, regional and racialized dynamics of power among organizations engaged in these developing alliances. Based on an investigation of strategic alliances between anti‐racist, immigrant justice organizers and climate change activists in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta and Athens, Georgia, we argue that climate justice narratives in both activism and scholarship would benefit from more attention to the particular political and cultural geographies in which diverse forms of climate justice organizing can take hold.
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