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New Social Movement Theory characterizes post 1960's protest movements such as the peace, environment and women's movement as being distinctively different from older movements such as the workers movement. The salient differences are in the social bases from which the movements draw their participants,the types of issues which are addressed, and the methods used in their protest. New Social Movements are heralded as being the vanguard for social change by some and as a bourgeoise distraction from the "real" project of emancipation by others. The objective of this thesis is to examine the congruence of the environmental movement in British Columbia with this concept of New Social Movements. Using the theoretical formulations of Claus Offe as a base, the thesis examines the social makeup of environmental groups in British Columbia, reviews the types of issues on which they are working, and identifies the methods which they employ in their protests. The results indicate that, while the leadership may be drawn from a more highly educated and service oriented new middle class, the general membership represents a broad social base. The issues addressed by the movement are perceived as being for the "benefit of all" rather than for a specific social class, and the methods of protest employed are primarily of a "working for change within the systems" approach as opposed to overthrowing any established political system. The thesis concludes that, while there may be elements of radicalism within the movement, it is primarily characterized as reformist, with many small fragments working on specific issues, loosely networked, and dedicated to working with government and other sectors of the population to find solutions. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

Historically, political mobilization within the Egyptian Canadian community in Ottawa for homeland politics has been minimal. Yet, since 2011, its members have taken part in a wide range of activities with the hope that they could contribute to the Egyptian uprising and shape the new political environment that arose from it. What compelled them to do so, and why only since 2011? Rooted in both the literatures on diaspora and transnationalism, this thesis argues that there were two simultaneous processes behind their mobilization. First, their sense of belonging to Egypt led some individuals within the Ottawa community to give a new political aspect and meaning to their Egyptian identity, and second, a series of events linked to the Egyptian uprising acted as catalysts to turn these identity-related feelings into action, which subsequently created new rifts within the community.

This thesis centres its analysis upon the fascination for the collective at the potential cost of a delimitation of individual expression, within the confines of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). From the perspective of an applied anthropology, and to the end of contributing a constructive critique of the MST, the thesis seeks to ascertain how the movement has structured itself through the micro-actions of its membership around the domain of collective tropes of identity and where this complex set of understandings is leading the movement, both in the immediate, and more long-term, futures. To these ends, the principal focus of analysis is how actors within the movement construct and understand experiences of movement logic and emotion, as they perceive it, in and around their ambit. The thesis is thus orientated from an ethnographic perspective; throughout, actors’ accounts and experiences are privileged to attempt to throw light upon the manifold processes that being a member of the MST renders part of daily life. The thesis argues that in this extraordinarily dynamic time in Brazil, with socio-economic conditions so different to when the movement was founded, flexibility is going to be key as to whether the MST can endure, remaining relevant to its members and in a position where it can attempt to address its strategic aims. The thesis suggests that the movement faces a signal dilemma regarding the very device on which it has built its success, the unified collective front into which MST members’ identities can be subsumed. This fascination for the collective and its correlates, a hostile attitude to the media and the polarisation that can separate MST members from wider society, is explored through a series of differing contexts and the thesis closes with conclusions embedded within the framework of an applied anthropology; in pragmatic terms, how can the MST best achieve its stated goals at this historically significant point of its trajectory.

This thesis aims to elaborate a case study of self-managed factories, which has been emerging in Argentina after the economic crisis in 2001. Mainly the conflictive origin, organization, role of the state and the dynamics of the movement of self-managed factories is discussed. This paper is based on European tradition of social movements' analysis and seeks to characterize movement of Argentine self-managed factories as so called old or new social movement. This dividing line will ultimately prove to be problematic.

My dissertation brings a new historical perspective and a theoretical reflection on 1970s French intellectuals’ activism and relationship to power and politics through the history of the Groupe d’Information sur les Prisons (GIP), a group of activists who decided to make the hermetic border between the societal space and the prisons more porous. The GIP, founded in 1970 by Michel Foucault, Jean-Marie Domenach, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and including thinkers and writers like Hélène Cixous, Daniel Defert, Gilles Deleuze, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet, aimed at providing information on carceral conditions in France and in the United States. These intellectuals interviewed prisoners, family members, guards, and published their findings in pamphlets to spread awareness about the inhumane conditions prisoners were forced to live in. Thanks to the work of Artières, Zancarini-Fournel, Harcourt, Zurn and Dilts's work, the GIP slowly emerges from the shadows. However, very few of the Anglophone articles and books dedicated to the group look at the GIP from a French and European historical and philological perspective, underlining the specificity of this group and activism in French intellectual history. My dissertation thus aspires to highlight and better understand the place of the GIP in contemporary French history, history of French activism, prison history as well as in French intellectual history. As the GIP archives are currently being translated into English, my work reveals the historical intricacies of this group with French contemporary events (such as the events of May '68), and its relationship to other forms of activism in the 1970s: feminist activism, legal activism, psychoanalytic activism and global prison activism. In my dissertation, I argue that these overlapping types of activism displaced the main lines between two conceptions of the intellectual in twentieth-century France: l’intellectuel universel and l’intellectuel spécifique. According to me, the GIP, by rejecting the figure of the universal intellectual yet showing the failure of the specific intellectual, discloses a crisis in the mid-70s French intelligentsia, leading on the one side to a new definition of l’intellectuel engagé. My research on the Groupe d’Information sur les Prisons (GIP) draws on a three-tiered methodological approach: close textual analysis of primary source material; interpretation of primary texts through theoretical frameworks; and historical contextualization of both primary documents and broader socio-cultural framework through archival research and testimonies. My original and translation constitute a new perspective on the role of intellectuels engagés— particularly philosophers and key figures of the “French Theory” movement. By reflecting on the concept of engaged intellectual from the 1894 Dreyfus affair to the debates about the Nouveaux Philosophes, my project also brings about a fundamental investigation about the genealogy of the intellectuals —particularly philosophers and the so-called “French Theory”— and their roles in French politics.

Through lenses of social movement theories, queer theory, intersectionality, performativity, and performance theory, my study employed a qualitative queer(y)ing methodology to explore how three queer theatre festivals contribute to the production of knowledge and learning, community building, and leadership and activism in the queer social movement in Canada. The queer theatre festivals included the Rhubarb festival, Toronto; Pretty, Witty and GAY!, Lethbridge; and OUTstages, Victoria. Data collection methods included participant observation through festival attendance, a postcard survey, and semistructured interviews with festivalgoers, performers, and festival organizers. Findings show that festivalgoers learned through spoken words and visuals of the performances and their embodied/somatic reactions to the performances, self-reflection, collective discourse and reflection, festival design elements, self-learning following the festivals, and from creating a performance and performing. The learning that resulted had significant impacts on festivalgoers including empathy development, therapeutic and healing benefits, a sense of hope, allyship development, and personal transformation. The festivals’ wider societal benefits were found to be increased queer visibility in the communities; the power to shift societal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour; and economic benefits. The study sheds light on the leadership potential of queer cultural activists and artists (artivist-leaders) as it reveals how the festivals’ act as powerful cultural producing sites with individual and social transformation and learning possibilities. Finally, the study’s findings provide evidence that rejects the claim that a new queer social movement exists and is distinct from the traditional gay and lesbian social movement. / Graduate

While progressive coalitions continue to oppose neoliberal restructuring around the world, organizing on the left remains fragmented and the underlying unity of diverse working class struggles undertheorized. Overcoming these theoretical and practical obstacles is an urgent task in the face of both renewed attempts by states and capital to ensure stability and deepen market penetration into the remaining untouched corners of working-class life, and threats to unity generated within the left by narrow understandings of class and identity. Post-apartheid South Africa is no exception to this ongoing neoliberal restructuring of contemporary capitalism nor to the fragmentation of working-class struggle. In opposition to the maintenance of a neoliberal macroeconomic trajectory following apartheid South Africans have almost continuously organized in their workplaces and communities to realize the better life for all promised to them after 1994. While community protest has intensified over the last decade—with a parallel upturn in labour organizing—it has taken on a less focused and fragmented form relative to earlier mobilizations. Moreover, despite the deep solidarities and alliances formed between unions and communities in the struggle against apartheid, organizing around production and reproduction has remained relatively distinct since its end. There remain, however, concerted efforts to draw together and articulate protests around access to the basic necessities of life with labour and student movements with the explicit goal of uniting the working class to struggle against capitalism. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2019, this dissertation analyzes one instance of this organizing work through a case study of the Housing Assembly, an organization struggling around housing and related services in Cape Town. It asks what role understandings of capitalism and class and their relationship to social relations of oppression play in organizing the working class today. My research explores how the Housing Assembly uses a strategic learning process of organizing to raise critical consciousness and build genuine solidarities and grassroots organization to engage and contest the state and capital around access to housing and water. This learning process starts from the daily lived experience of the working class to build a concrete critique of the political economy of housing and services restructuring which conceives of these struggles around social reproduction as class struggles within a capitalist totality rather than as discrete, bounded, or local. The production and utilization of knowledge by the Housing Assembly plays a key role in this organizing process, linking the subjective experience of everyday working-class life with the relational construction of political, economic and social relations which lie beyond it.

What is the nature of agency under oppressive social conditions? Oppressive structures inhibit our agency in ways to which we are often blind, yet social movements demonstrate that as agents we can bring about emancipatory change. My dissertation articulates a social ontology to account for this conflict between structure and agency. I analyze structures in terms of practices built around implicit values, which require agents to occupy valued or denigrated statuses. Agents participate in practices without becoming conscious of their oppressive frameworks, thereby unwittingly perpetuating oppression. Making these frameworks explicit can lead to social change but, as oppressive practices shape agents’ senses of value and status, practices themselves must also change.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study’s central focus is to assess how various classes of people in in distinct localities across Cape Town and Johannesburg use social media in citizen participation concerning municipal governance processes. While largely drawing on interviews, the study also uses quantitative descriptive data. While some scholars believe that social media use will contribute to civic decline, others think that it has a role to play in re-invigorating civic life. This study has found that there is a gap in understanding important differences in the ways various classes in different contexts mobilise and adapt social media and that the capacity of the “poor” and their social movements to engage as collective citizens using social media has been understated. The wealthy social movements rely more on litigation and money power. Each social group adapts social media to suit its socio-political imperatives and context. South Africa’s major municipalities still lean towards traditional spaces of citizen participation and bureaucratic insulation.