Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972)

Jenkins, J. Craig; Perrow, Charles

doi:10.2307/2094604

Cited by 706 publications

(288 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…For example, social movement theories based in the US and Europe, including the political process model (Tarrow 1994;McAdam 1999;McAdam, Tilly, and Tarrow 2001), the resource mobilization approach (Jenkins and Perrow 1977;McCarthy and Zald 1977;Tilly 1978) and discussions of 'repertoires' of contention (Tilly 2008), are primarily focused on movement emergence and mobilization over time. In the political process perspective, social movements are defined as 'rational attempts by excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political leverage to advance collective interests through non-institutionalized means' (McAdam 1999, 37).…”

Section: Social Movements the State And Dominant Economic Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Pahnke¹,

Tarlau²,

Wolford³

2015

The Journal of Peasant Studies

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Contradictions between impressive levels of economic growth and the persistence of poverty and inequality are perhaps nowhere more evident than in rural Brazil. While Brazil might appear to be an example of the potential harmony between large-scale, export-oriented agribusiness and small-scale family farming, high levels of rural resistance contradict this vision. In this introductory paper, we synthesize the literature on agrarian resistance in Brazil and situate recent struggles in Brazil within the Latin American context more broadly. We highlight seven key characteristics of contemporary Latin American resistance, which include: the growth of international networks, the changing structure of state-society collaboration, the deepening of territorial claims, the importance of autonomy, the development of alternative economies, continued opposition to dispossession, and struggles over the meaning of nature. We argue that by analyzing rural mobilization in Brazil, this collection offers a range of insights relevant to rural contention globally. Each contribution in this collection increases our understanding of alternative agricultural production, largescale development projects, education, race and political parties in the contemporary agrarian context.

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Section: Social Movements the State And Dominant Economic Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Pahnke¹,

Tarlau²,

Wolford³

2015

The Journal of Peasant Studies

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“…Successful insurgencies typically do not emerge merely because of widespread political instability, but also because of broad social processes that have strengthened the aggrieved population's political power. 40 'Consequently, the increase in political opportunity through enhanced political positions for movement groups is usually achieved more gradually than through political instability.' 41 Finally, broad social changes can lead the social environment to tolerate alternative, critical and even subversive ideas and world-views espoused by the aggrieved population and other associated movements.…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Development and Human (In)security: understanding the rise of the Rajah Solaiman Movement and Balik Islam in the Philippines

Borer

Everton

Nayve

2009

Third World Quarterly

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“…For example, in their study of farm worker movements in the United States, Jenkins and Perrow (1977) concluded that increased outside support (both symbolic and concrete) due to changes in the political process, rather than changes in the level of discontent, were most important for the growth of the United Farm Workers movement in the 1960s. Jenkins and Perrow's data tend to support this argument, with one significant weakness; they assumed a consistent level of deprivation among farm labor.…”

Section: Participants (Hirsch 1990) In Part This Psychological Aspementioning

confidence: 99%

Lower Class Insurgency and the Political Process: The Response of the U.S. Unemployed, 1890-1940

Kerbo

Shaffer

1992

Social Problems

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This paper examines the level of protest activity by the unemployed in the United States between 1890 and 1940 as a test of the value of a political process model for explaining social movement activity. Data on protest events and elite attitudes towards the unemployed were collected from newspaper articles. Voting behavior was used as an indicator of contested elections and unemployment levels were reflected by available indicators. Consistent with previous research on lower-and working-class mobilization, a change in the political environment was key to the extensive protest by the unemployed in the 1930s. Toward the end of the 1920s, and especially in the early 1930s, elites were no longer simply making public statements about the problem of unemployment, but were also discussing the need for aid programs. In the context of this new political environment, elections were once again contested in the 1930s, and extensive protest began in 1930, even before unemployment hit its high point in 1933. Thus, it was not simply deprivation, but the changed political environment which legitimized the issue of unemployment and created prospects for reform, which in turn helped produce the massive protest of the 1930s.The primary goal of the research reported in this paper is to further understanding of the development, and lack of development, of protest by the unemployed in the United States between 1890 and 1940. The focus is on resource mobilization, and more specifically, on a political process perspective on the development of social movements, and the interaction between political environment and deprivation in the mobilization of social movement activities.We examine a specific condition (unemployment) likely to produce hardship, presuming that unemployment creates hardship for the vast majority of the unemployed. It could, of course, be argued that the pain of unemployment is eased somewhat in agricultural settings, or through the provision of extensive welfare benefits. For the period 1890 to 1940, however, neither of these factors had much effect on the impact of unemployment. By the 1890s, most of the labor force was urban (U.S. Bureau of Census 1975), and the best historical descriptions of unemployment during this time period do not credit welfare support or food resources from private lands as significant factors in reducing the impact of unemployment (Feder 1936; Garraty 1978.) Our approach overcomes some limitations of past research which typically focused on all collective action events in a specified time period, often involving diverse issues and interest groups (Kerbo and Shaffer 1986; Snyder 1975:275; Tilly 1984). We examine a specific source of hardship affecting a segment of the population which can be followed over an extended time period in order to understand the changing parameters associated with collective action.' * Correspondence to: Kerbo, Social Sciences Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407.1. In previous work we have argued for the use of "group an...

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Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972)

Cited by 706 publications

References 11 publications

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Global Development and Human (In)security: understanding the rise of the Rajah Solaiman Movement and Balik Islam in the Philippines

Lower Class Insurgency and the Political Process: The Response of the U.S. Unemployed, 1890-1940

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