The Spring 2020 edition of the Critical Mass Bulletin is out, and features rich original analyses, reports, and more. Get your PDF copy here: http://cbsm-asa.org/wp-admin/upload.php?item=1089
You can also find content from the 45-1 issue of Critical Mass Bulletin in the posted articles immediately following this one.
Are you going on the sociology job market this year? Do you have students who are going on the market? The CBSM Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is publishing a special issue of Critical Mass to highlight the accomplishments of junior social movements scholars. The issue will be published in early August.
Read MoreNew Books
Dromi, Shai M. 2020. Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo46479924.html)
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Tina Fetner, CBSM Section Chair, Professor of Sociology, McMaster University
In the face of an ongoing global pandemic, the ASA 2020 annual meeting has been cancelled. What to do in its wake is an open question. The ASA has been contacting presenters with options to participate in an online meeting; I’m sure you have received their email. They encourage each of us to make our own choices about whether they have the capacity to develop and deliver a presentation.
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by Mangala Subramaniam, Purdue University
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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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
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.
Part of the Research Handbooks in Law & Society Series by Edward Elgar Publishing, edited by Austin Sarat and Rosemary Hunter
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.
Read MoreThe Fall 2019 edition of the Critical Mass Bulletin is out, and features rich original analyses, reports, and more. Get your PDF copy here:
You can also find content from the 44-2 issue of Critical Mass Bulletin in the posted articles immediately following this one.