Congratulations to the Collective Behavior and Social Movement awardees and a special thanks to those who served on the award committees.
Aldon Morris Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements
Winner: Aldon Morris. Northwestern University.
With this newly established award, the CBSM section “seeks to honor eminent senior scholars who have offered sustained contributions to social movement research and illuminated ways in which people in the United States and throughout the world have worked collectively to promote equality and justice.” The award committee is delighted to award the inaugural CBSM Aldon Morris Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements to the scholar for whom this award is named: Aldon D. Morris, Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and former ASA President.
Professor Morris’ career is notable for the way that his scholarship has transformed the way we think about social movements. His path-breaking 1984 book, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (winner of multiple awards including the ASA Book Award and the Gustuvus Myers Award) and related articles in prestigious outlets such as the American Sociological Review developed the “indigenous perspective” and showed how Southern Black communities were not resource-poor and reliant upon Northern elites but instead drew on their own cultural, material, and infrastructural resources to generate resistance. His keen theoretical insights, grounded in careful empirical research, are the hallmark of his work. Indeed, just as Origins of the Civil Rights Movement rewrote the history of the civil rights movement for social movement scholars, Professor Morris’ 2015 book, The Scholar Denied (also the winner of numerous awards, including the Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award in 2016) tells the much overlooked story of W.E.B. DuBois and his central contributions to the field of sociology. Similarly, Professor Morris’ theoretical and empirical work on topics such as leadership and oppositional consciousness expanded our notions of the factors that give rise to collective action. These themes are present both in his sole-authored work and in his influential edited volumes, the 1992 Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (co-edited with Carol Mueller) and the 2001 Oppositional Consciousness (co-edited with Jane Mansbridge). These works continue to shape and inspire research on movements of marginalized peoples, both in the U.S. and world-wide. Finally, Professor Morris is a dedicated and impactful mentor who has shaped the field by guiding the careers of generations of scholars.
Through a vote of its membership, the CBSM section has named its career award after Aldon Morris, thereby recognizing Professor Morris’ significant contributions to the field of social movements over the course of his illustrious career. It is only fitting that the inaugural award goes to its namesake.
Mayer N. Zald Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Student Paper Award
Winner: Simone Durham. University of Maryland. “Not in this Lifetime”: The Black Millennial Imagination and Impacts of Black Lives Matter on Racial Dynamics in the U.S.”
Honorable Mention: Stephen Wulff. University of Minnesota. “’Entrepreneurs of Punishment’: Police Misconduct Insurance, Grassroots Activism, and the Limits of Linguistic Capital.”
Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award
Ya-Wen Lei. Harvard University. “Delivering Solidarity: Platform Architecture and Collective Contention in China’s Platform Economy.” American Sociological Review. 2021.
Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award
Winner: Dana M. Moss. University of Notre Dame. The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism against Authoritarian Regimes. Cambridge Press.
Honorable Mention: Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz. Northwestern University. Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change. Princeton Press.
Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Dissertation Award
Minwoo Jung. Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2021 (current position, assistant professor at Loyola University, Chicago). Rights Projects in a Globalized World.