This study concerns the effects of public school redistricting on communities in Atlanta. It is based upon interviews with people in two neighborhoods which are part of the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system directly affected by redistricting. All schools slated to close are located in low-income, minority areas and serve similar populations. Of the ten schools selected for closing, three were saved during the final APS board meeting in April 2012, and will remain open. I spoke with people who reside in a neighborhood where a local school is slated to close, as well as those in an area where a school was saved from closing. I asked informants why they felt their schools were identified for closure and how they responded to the threat of closing. I learned that both communities organized to save their schools but with different results based on available forms of social and cultural capital.

The aim of this Bachelor thesis is to find keys to successful advocacy in a rural, Indian setting. The study is based on inductive, explorative research at a grassroots level, from a bottom-up perspective. Geographically, it takes place in the East Godavari District, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. At the centre of this study is the NGO:s Sujana and the Kadali Network, who are both advocating the rights of poor, marginalised and deprived people, as well as training people to carry out advocacy themselves. The theoretical framework for this thesis originates from theories within development communication, advocacy and Participatory Rural Appraisal. The research was carried out by making 16 individual interviews and 3 focus group interviews.  Findings from the interviews have been categorised into themes and analysed through meaning condensation. The result of this study shows that there are multiple ways in which grassroots movements in East Godavari conduct advocacy. The analysis states that advocacy can be successful in a short to medium time span; the most prominent keys to success being: having a driving spirit, being creative, developing networks and being knowledgeable about laws and rights. In a longer time span though, the advocacy and struggle for change is hampered by lack of, or conflicting, political interest from the local government and by conflicting economical interests from companies.

Barack Obama's administration inherited one of the most severe economic crises in the history of the United States, which severely undermined the American public's confidence in the country's political and economic future. Declining trust in the federal government and its handling of the economic recession gave rise to two influential movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, which were thoroughly critical of the country's leadership. Both movements made use of a strong populist rhetoric and mobilized masses by denouncing the political and financial elites, calling for returning control over the country's fate into the hands of ordinary citizens. My master's thesis is an analysis of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street that focuses on the ideology and goals that drove these popular movements, as well as highlights the most crucial commonalities and differences between them. I argue in favor of interpreting the ideologies behind the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street as two distinct types of populism, in addition to which I emphasize the different degree of outside support the two movements enjoyed during their rise to prominence. To determine how influential the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street became during Barack Obama's presidency, I also study their relationship with the political...

This thesis investigates challenges to promoting socially just, locally focused agriculture faced by the organic certification program that now regulates organic farming in British Columbia. This inquiry into how organic certification works is conducted as an institutional ethnography. Institutional ethnography is the methodological foundation of Dorothy Smith’s feminist sociology for people. For the institutional ethnographer, ordinary daily activity is the site for investigation of social organization. Small scale organic farmers who are committed to sustainable, socially and ecologically just agriculture offer a critical standpoint from which to explicate extra-local text mediated ruling relations. This inquiry draws on data from open-ended interviews with farmers and an independent organic certification inspector. From these accounts I begin to address how it is that BC’s organic farming certification program actually enters into and reconstitutes the everyday work of farmers and inspectors. From my findings I argue that corporate interests and a focus on global free trade in organic produce and products increasingly guide the institutional structure of organic certification programs. This in turn moves organic farming out of local, farmer control.

This thesis investigates challenges to promoting socially just, locally focused agriculture faced by the organic certification program that now regulates organic farming in British Columbia. This inquiry into how organic certification works is conducted as an institutional ethnography. Institutional ethnography is the methodological foundation of Dorothy Smith’s feminist sociology for people. For the institutional ethnographer, ordinary daily activity is the site for investigation of social organization. Small scale organic farmers who are committed to sustainable, socially and ecologically just agriculture offer a critical standpoint from which to explicate extra-local text mediated ruling relations. This inquiry draws on data from open-ended interviews with farmers and an independent organic certification inspector. From these accounts I begin to address how it is that BC’s organic farming certification program actually enters into and reconstitutes the everyday work of farmers and inspectors. From my findings I argue that corporate interests and a focus on global free trade in organic produce and products increasingly guide the institutional structure of organic certification programs. This in turn moves organic farming out of local, farmer control.

When the world becomes drowned in multiple global problems and citizens do not see any real progressive solutions from their governments, they take the initiative in their own hands and start changing the world on their own. The Transition Town movement was born this way. It is a social movement which aims at building resilient local communities in response to climate change, peak oil and an unfair ecologically destructive economic system which is probably soon to break down. As a potentially strong actor of future social change, it is worth studying emerging local movements in Europe, and hopefully identifying new potentials for success of these grass-root innovations.The study, thus, aims to investigate the relation between the participants of the Transition Movement Sweden and the supranational/intergovernmental entity EU, which plays one of the key roles in economic, environmental and social aspects of Swedish citizens. By conducting interviews with participants of the movement in several Swedish cities, the nature of this relationship is being explored. Using the theory of Multi-Institutional Politics Approach the case study explains the connection between the movement and the EU.

Post-socialist states are often linked to low political participation and weak civil society. Simultaneously, there is a visible rise in the phenomenon of urban movements. They serve not only as a platform for mobilization of citizens but also as a platform that builds a bridge between politics and society. Therefore, there is a need to study this phenomenon as an intriguing opportunity for research into the relationship between the civil and political sphere on a local level. The goal of this thesis is to show how city activists look at the civil and political spheres in comparison to the definition offered by theoretical conceptualizations. Research has demonstrated a transition in spheres, where activities are indicated as nonpolitical by activists. These findings are not supported by the presented theory which considers them political, and therefore, this study suggests that the boundaries of the spheres are shifted. Moreover, activists constantly engage in both spheres and therefore enter local politics through their activity. They prefer conventional methods to political actions, which they are not estranged to, but they do not frame them as political.

In October 2019, a wave of massive demonstrations took place in Santiago de Chile and this movement was stamped in several newspaper covers worldwide. People shouting against the Chilean neoliberal system, holding posters with anti-imperialist sayings, and organizing artistic interventions on the streets went viral in social media. The message was clear – for several consecutive months, people in Chile were actively questioning the political, economic, and societal systems as well as the power struggles faced in the country. Relying on the 2019-2020 Chilean Uprising as a case study, this research investigates the consistency of the Santiago de Chile demonstrations by connecting its social claims to the field of urban studies for the understanding of social and spatial constructions. The thesis relies on postcolonial, decolonial, and critical urban theories, a critical perspective of the neoliberal system, the Lefebvrian Right to the City concept, and Manuel Castells' grassroots movements definition, as well as semi structured interviews and newspapers articles as empirical data for the enhancement of the debate.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on July 19, 2010). Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Karen Kovacik, Peggy Zeglin Brand, Ronda C. Henry. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-83).

This thesis examines the transformative potential of grassroots movements for sustainability and thus asks how citizen-led initiatives can contribute the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda. In focus is the permaculture movement and its efforts to promote small-scale farming in balance with ecological systems and principles. The study draws upon an ethnographic study of the permaculture farm Kosters Trädgårdar, located on the west coast of Sweden. Through extended participant observation and four interviews with owners and workers at Kosters Trädgårdar, this thesis seeks to identify the transformative visions, practices and agents mobilized by the permaculture movement. Although permaculture has a strong ecological heritage and is closely tied to small-scale farming practices, this study identifies a shift in the meaning of the term as explained hereafter. The experiences of Kosters Trädgårdar indicate that the cultivation of social community and alternative livelihoods is an equally important aspect of the permaculture movement that holds significant transformative potential. By inviting multiple actors to participate in and learn from the farming practices, and to enjoy and socialize around ecological food, Kosters Trädgårdar is effectively building local community and spreading its visions of sustainable food production beyond the circuits of the farm. Although we should not over-estimate the upscaling potential of local experiences, this permaculture farm emerges as a site of grassroot innovation, experimentation and learning and may hereby function as a testbed for the grand transformative visions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.