Follow

• 

  "We Lived the River Through Our Bodies": Environmental Care, Intergenerational Relations, and Sustainable Peacebuilding in Colombia

  Angela J. Lederach

  "This chapter offers an ethnographic account3 of youth peacebuilding practices in Montes de María. I place Jose’s pressing question, 'who am I?' as a central starting point to examine the foundational role that identity work plays in youth processes of 'provoking' peace in Montes de María, Colombia. I center Jose’s critique of the harm enacted when analytic attention focuses solely on youth who have migrated to urban cities. Instead, I turn my attention to the lives of youth who, against all odds, have stayed. I argue that the struggle to reclaim a sense of self, place, and belonging is at the very heart of JOPPAZ’s daily work to build territorial peace – one that requires intergenerational solidarity. While much of the peace studies literature focuses on transformation, I draw on Indigenous theories of resurgence and multispecies relations to argue that in a context of dispossession and mass violence, social reproduction plays an equally vital role in campesino claims to land and futures (Alfred 2005; Corntassel 2012; Daigle 2018; Hatala et al. 2019; Ruiz Serna 2017; Todd 2017). JOPPAZ did not emerge as an isolated movement, but instead forms the youth wing of the wider campesino movement known as the Peaceful Movement of Reconciliation and Integration of the Alta Montaña (Peaceful Process). In becoming the relevo generacional, Jose – and the 600 young members of JOPPAZ – are engaged in a 'regenerative struggle' for territorial peace (Alfred 2005, 20). Through the daily work of building peace 'from and for the territory,' youth imagine and bring into being campesino futures of dignified life (vida digna)."

• 

  Introduction to Strategies and Outcomes

  Lisa A. Leitz and Socrates Mbamalu

  "In this, Volume 48 of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, chapters contribute to scholarship on the strategies and outcomes of social movements, with only one (Corrigall-Brown, this volume) exploring the relationship between the two and others examining each aspect of social movement scholarship independently."

• 

  Foreword to Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change

  Lisa A. Leitz

  The foreword to Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change, edited by Thomas V. Maher, Eric W. Schoon.

• 

  Introduction to Race and Space: Contesting Boundaries and Inequities

  Lisa A. Leitz

  The 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests highlighted with sharp clarity the role of race in social conflict and social movements. Building on more than a century of political and sociological scholarship, Race and Space considers the connections between race as a descriptor of physical differences between humans and space as a geographic location, and their subsequent impact on the human experience.

  The chapters address racialized issues spanning from how the characteristics of our community shape whether we experience police or immigrant violence, whether first-hand experience (or lack thereof) of this violence is likely to shape one’s choice to engage in ethno-racial justice activism, to analysing how the space of the prison shapes one’s sense of self and political possibility post-incarceration. Drawing together key drivers of activism such as flaws within the criminal justice system, race, ethnicity, and citizenship, this collection demonstrates how these elements interact to shape immigration policy and the experience of being accepted as a full member of one’s society.

  Emphasising location-specific human experience and incorporating insights from geography, Race and Space’s careful study of the differences of physical spaces gives rise to more complete explanations for social issues and variances in social movements.

• 

  Introduction: Thinking About Divides

  Eitan Y. Alimi and Lisa A. Leitz

  "This collective endeavor is inspired by Gregory M. Maney’s scholarship in the fields of social movements, peace/conflicts, and community-engaged scholarship, wherein divides and attempts to challenge divides at different levels of authorities and across the globe were a primary focus. Inspired by Maney’s work, we present chapters that advance knowledge about how ordinary people mobilize to challenge institutional norms, practices, and policies that legitimize and preserve divides, as well as how state actors, other powerholders, publics, and opponents react to these challenges. The forthcoming chapters present geographically diverse examples of divides, which move beyond examining the divide between activists and their targets, to also exploring divides between activists due to organizational, generational, and tactical differences. Equally important and in clear connection to the theme of this volume, our contributors point to ways to bring down divides."

• 

  Gendered Companies, Gendered Security

  Joseph R. Bongiovi

  "[T]his chapter uses original qualitative research, including interviews with industry actors and observations of industry meetings and events, to examine how the industry currently handles gender. Given the large number of US PMSC firms, US citizens working in this field, and US contracts, this chapter focuses on the US organizations while still incorporating the influences of the global nature of the field."

• 

  Gendered Activism and Outcomes: Women in the Peace Movement

  Lisa A. Leitz and David S. Meyer

  "In this chapter, we look at the history of women's activism in the peace movement over the course of U.S. political development, examining the ways that women expanded the goals of peace activism to include gender and other social justice issues. We then examine which women actually participated in these efforts, and how that has changed over time. In the following sections, we explore distinct tensions in women's activism focusing on the role of gender (essentialism versus social constructionism) and radicalism versus pragmatic realpolitik. We conclude by looking at the outcomes of such mobilizations, which have been very limited in terms of policy, but much more extensive in terms of changing people's lives and feeding other kinds of activism, including women's rights."

• 

  From Infanticide to Activism: The Transformation of Emotions and Identity in Self-Help Movements

  Verta Taylor and Lisa A. Leitz

  Taylor and Leitz trace processes of collective identity construction and politicization among women suffering from postpartum psychiatric illness who have been convicted of infanticide. Joining a growing body of research suggesting that self‐help and consumer health movements can be a significant force for change in both the cultural and political arenas, Taylor and Lietz examine one such movement, a pen‐pal network of women incarcerated for committing infanticide. Taylor and Leitz show how a sense of collective identity fostered by the pen‐pal network triggered a profound emotional transformation in participants, allowing them to convert shame and loneliness into pride and solidarity, and encouraging their participation in efforts to change how the medical and legal system treat postpartum psychiatric illness.