The 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act in India

The 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act in India

by Mangala Subramaniam, Purdue University

  • from CriticalMass Bulletin, Volume 45(1) Spring 2020: The newsletter of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, American Sociological Association

Past scholarship in social movements conceptualize democracies and dictatorships as a binary. This dichotomous view of political regimes limits our understanding of the ways in which states respond to challengers, and how democracies can adopt repressive measures that work to concentrate power within the government. India’s passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and its response to the resulting protests, shows the need to reconceptualize the state to consider how the concentration of power—even within multi-party democracies—can enable repression and violence of protestors.

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Congratulations to these newly elected officers of the CBSM

Congratulations to these newly elected officers of the CBSM

  • Chair-Elect: Rory McVeigh, University of Notre Dame
  • Council Member:  Kelsy Kretschmer, Oregon State University
  • Council Member:  Joshua Bloom, University of Pittsburgh
  • Mentoring Committee: Edward Flores, University of California, Merced
  • Workshop Committee: E. Colin Ruggero, Community College of Philadelphia
  • Nominations Committee: Amanda Pullum, CSU Monterey Bay
  • Publications Committee: Megan E. Brooker, University of Kansas
  • Membership, Diversity, and Inclusion: Hajar Yazdiha, University of Southern California
Support for California Strikers and COLA campaign

Support for California Strikers and COLA campaign

A statement by Dr. Tina Fetner, President of the Canadian Sociological Association, Chair of the Sociology Department at McMaster University, and Chair of the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association.

I write to offer my strong support of striking graduate workers throughout the University of California system who are asking for a cost of living adjustment that takes extremely high housing costs into account. I recognize the value of the work that graduate students do to support the educational mission of universities. These are the workers on the front line of undergraduate education and universities would be unable to continue without them.

I support fair compensation and working conditions for all graduate workers, and I encourage the University of California campuses to come to terms in dialogue with graduate workers that result in fair compensation and working conditions. As a proud alumna of UC Santa Cruz, I implore university administrators to address this labour dispute with integrity and fair dealing.

Tina Fetner

  • UCSC Kresge College 1990
  • Chair, McMaster Sociology Department
  • Chair, ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements
  • President, Canadian Sociological Association
Solidarity’s Place in History: An Evaluation after 40 Years

Solidarity’s Place in History: An Evaluation after 40 Years

A Call for Papers

Mobilization’s European office is assisting the sponsorship of a conference on Solidarity’s legacy at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, June 4-5, 2020. Solidarity’s nonviolent challenge to Soviet-style communism was mass-based, strategic, and enduring. It was the key link in the chain of events that ended Europe’s post-war division. We call for papers that analyze Solidarity’s historical, cultural, social, theoretical, and spiritual legacies. Accepted papers will be organized according to three themes: Solidarity’s place in the Cold War, its place in the social sciences, and its ideological heritage. Send abstracts and 100-word bio to the coordinator, Krzysztof.Brzechczyn@ipn.gov.pl by March 31.

Open call for Contributions to the Research Handbook on Law, Movements, and Social Change

Open call for Contributions to the Research Handbook on Law, Movements, and Social Change

Part of the Research Handbooks in Law & Society Series by Edward Elgar Publishing, edited by Austin Sarat and Rosemary Hunter

  • Editors:  Steve Boutcher (UMass Amherst), Corey Shdaimah (U of Maryland), and Michael Yarbrough (CUNY-John Jay)
  • Confirmed contributors: Lynette Chua, Ching-Fang Hsu, Salman Hussain, Filiz Kahramann, Tshepo Madlingozi, Michael McCann, Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, Anne Revillard, Atef Said, Mihaela Serban, Rachel Seoighe, Danish Sheikh, Farrah Tek, Viviane Weitzner

In these unsettled times, the study of law and social movements provides an ideal lens for rethinking fundamental questions about the relationship between law and power. This Handbook takes up that challenge, using this historical moment as an opportunity to frame a new, more global and dynamic phase of law and social movement studies.

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Chair’s Message

Chair’s Message

Tina Fetner, McMaster University

How are we supposed to teach our courses, complete our studies and write up our findings when so much collective action and social change is going on all around us? Impeachment hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives. Climate strikes mobilizing hundreds of thousands of demonstrators around the world. White nationalists and other right-wing extremists gathering strength in online forums. As scholars of collective behavior and social movements, we may have trouble catching our breath at times, but at least we will never be bored.

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Call for Submissions: CBSM at ASA 2020

Call for Submissions: CBSM at ASA 2020

Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtables

E. Colin Ruggero, Community College of Philadelphia; ecolinr@gmail.com

Current Scholarship on Activism, Contention, Social Movements

This session seeks scholarship on a broad range of scholarly questions regarding resistance, activism, contentious politics and social movements. Of particular interest are studies that cut across social movement cases to examine broad themes across social movement organizations and sectors.

Catherine Corrigall-Brown, University of British Columbia; corrigall.brown@ubc.ca

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Panel Summaries: CBSM at ASA 2019

Panel Summaries: CBSM at ASA 2019

ASA 2019: Thinking About Abeyance in the 21st Century

Nancy Whittier, Smith College and Jo Reger, Oakland University

This session, organized by Jo Reger and presided over by Nancy Whittier, aimed to examine how the foundational concept of social movement abeyance functions and is relevant in the 21st century. Articulated by Verta Taylor and Leila Rupp in their investigation of the “doldrums” of the women’s movement in the early 20th century, abeyance has been applied to multiple social movement contexts to illustrate how movements survive in period of low mobilization. The invited panel of Alison Dahl Crossley, Fabio Rojas, and Suzanne Staggenborg explored the transformation of the abeyance concept over time and considered its relevance in today’s context of rapid social movement mobilization. Their comments were followed by reflections and discussion from Rupp and Taylor and a lively discussion with audience members. Some of the panelists’ core points were as follows:

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