Thesis advisor: Marilynn S. Johnson / This dissertation explores the labor and collective organization of domestic workers in metropolitan Boston to uncover the new labor activism of the last half century. In 2014, Massachusetts became the fourth state in the U.S. to pass a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights. The law, the nation’s most comprehensive at the time, signaled a remarkable triumph for household employees whose collective activism anchored in Boston over four years achieved basic labor protections for tens of thousands. While the tale of this recent success has been captured by journalists and a handful of scholars, my study uncovers a multi-generational history of domestic workers’ fight for dignity and economic justice. I locate the origins of the 2014 victory in the grassroots organizing of pioneering Black, Caribbean, and Latinx women decades earlier. Local domestic workers and their allies sustained three separate waves of collective action during a half century marked by growing economic inequality, a decline in trade unionism, and mounting xenophobia. As I demonstrate, they developed a savvy repertoire of strategies that transformed household employment from a seemingly private, hidden affair into a societal concern requiring government intervention. Ultimately, my dissertation explains the emergence of a powerful and unexpected form of labor organizing--the new labor activism--that is community-based, multi-issue oriented, and propelled by working-class women of color. In directing critical attention to the relatively obscure history of domestic worker organizing, my study joins scholarship that expands analysis beyond the realm of the white male industrial worker to reconsider what constituted work, who comprised organized labor, and how we characterize recent labor history. By examining this particular workers’ movement, I present new insights into the groundswell of labor mobilization that erupted in American cities during the later twentieth century. Historians have accurately cast the period as one of organized labor’s weakness, dormancy, and decline. Even so, by prioritizing community-based campaigns anchored by immigrant and non-white women employed as domestic workers, I demonstrate that they also made it a time of hope and agitation, of rebirth and revival rather than repose. With appreciation for complexity, I gauge their activism not merely in terms of wins and losses, but also in regard to workers’ evolving sense of empowerment alongside their ability to spark larger public policy conversations concerning labor standards, the care economy, and the role of government. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

The presence of state capture and political disadvantages incite the emergence of social movements, which hope to induce a removal of political disadvantages. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) protests and social movements have been initiated for several reasons, often to lay attention on the government's dysfunction. Nationalism has been shown to potentially be destructive in those ways it is used to silence the opposition and this essay has identified how nationalism has been a tool for politicians to repress social movements in BiH. By using the paper's theoretical framework, a discursive analysis of politicians’ repressive statements towards three different types of social movements has been done. The three types of social movements included in the analysis are the LGBT movement in BiH, the student movements in Jajce and Travnik and the ‘Justice for David’ movement in Banja Luka. The results have shown that repression mostly occurs through emphasizing the threat of the movement in different ways as well as invoking nationalism. Nationalism is also frequently present through the classification of a “we” and “them”. Future research would benefit from explaining why specific aspects of nationalistic discourse are more common than others in politicians' repressive statements.

This study examines the modern history of the Hui to understand how China, a multiethnic empire-turned-nation-state, has shaped and been shaped by its many “others,” particularly its ethnic and religious minorities. The Hui, as millions of Chinese-speaking Muslims scattered throughout China are known, are unique among the People’s Republic of China’s 55 officially recognized minorities in sharing nothing in common other than a religious identity, Islam. Moreover, unlike Tibetans and Mongolians in the PRC and many minorities in other post-imperial states, the Hui inherited no system of representation from the dynastic era. This lack of political institutionalization through the Qing reign should draw attention to what remains an underexamined period in Hui history—from the fall of the Qing to the founding of the PRC in 1949—and an unexamined question—How did the Hui become a nation? Focused on the large, inland province of Henan, Hui Nation tells this story. I show that Hui nationhood was not simply an elaboration of Communist ethnic policy but rather the consequence of a bottom-up social movement. Incorporating cultural and organizational change into social history, I further argue that this movement hinged on changes in Huis’ understanding of Islam and in the institutions that connected them to one another in the first half of the twentieth century.

Support for civil rights for gays and lesbians has been increasing nationally. Changes in attitudes may be due not only to the influence of younger, more progressive cohorts, but also to the influence of other factors such as education, religious attendance, political identity, and attitudes toward women's roles. This thesis utilized General Social Survey data from 1977 to 2012 and examined changes in response to attitudinal questions regarding civil rights for gays and lesbians, as well as demographic factors predictive of changing attitudes. Between 1977 and 2012, attitudes became more accepting of civil rights for homosexuals in the United States. Results from multivariate regression models indicate that younger birth cohorts are more accepting of civil rights for gays and lesbians, as are those with higher education. Higher tolerance of non-traditional roles for women is associated with the support of civil rights for gays and lesbians. In addition, religious attendance is negatively associated with acceptance of civil rights for homosexuals, whereas political identity has no association.

This dissertation is a study of a social movement based on the organizations that define that movement, with specific attention to Christian conservative legal organizations (CCLOs) and their advocacy for the Christian Right in American politics. I ask, how do these organizations differ from one another in their advocacy efforts? How is this movement industry structured with respect to organizational networks? And how do the differences and variation among these organizations affect the dynamics among these groups? That is, how do organizations interact in the confines of a shared movement? This study addresses the literatures on law and society, religion and politics, and social movements, acting as a bridge between these distinct areas of inquiry. Using social network analysis, qualitative content analysis, and original interviews with movement attorneys, I find that CCLOs differ in their behaviors in their industry of activism and in their interaction with other CCLOs. I further argue that these behaviors are best understood in terms of unique organizational characteristics like structure, expertise, and relations with other groups. I conclude that organizations bearing surface similarities to one another can actually differ in meaningful ways, ways that facilitate and drive interaction among these groups in their shared movement and movement industry.

This historical study examined the educational dimensions of the Citizen's Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes from 1981-1995. Its role as an agent of adult education in the grassroots movement for environmental justice was demonstrated by tracing the movement from the toxic waste disaster at Love Canal, New York and focusing on the role of Lois Gibbs as a leader in the movement. The conceptual framework for the study was built upon interdisciplinary work in the fields of adult education, sociology, and educational history. The study examined the mission, belief systems, processes and strategies of learning and information dissemination by the Clearinghouse during three periods: 1981-1986, during which the organization was formed and began to develop a mission and belief system; the 1987-1991 period when CCHW experienced enormous growth and began to exert its power nationally with campaigns such as the McToxics Campaign. It was also during this period that CCHW began the process of working toward a unified grassroots environmental justice movement; and the period from 1992-1995 which marked the beginning of CCHW's second decade of existence and in which CCHW conducted an in-depth organizational assessment. Organizing and technical assistance were found to be the primary vehicles of learning. Publications and site visits were powerful dissemination mechanisms used to assist citizens in their struggles against corporations and government authorities. Secondly, citizens who remained active in the environmental justice movement often took on broader roles such as organizing regional citizen groups. The study found that women composed nearly eighty percent of the leaders in the movement. Reasons for involvement varied, but most women became involved initially out of fear for theirs or a loved one's health. Conclusions drawn indicate that learning occurred through everyday experiences and empowered citizens to take direct action in their communities. Secondly CCHW emerged as a powerful national political force due to its ability to maintain its mission of continuously listening and meeting the needs of its grassroots constituents. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the construction of a theoretical framework for empirical examination of social movements in Third World countries. Political process theory, currently a dominant perspective on social movements, is the most promising starting point for such a research program; however, it has inherent Western biases, which severely limit its explanatory power for examining Third World social movements. Specifically, I contend that political process theory's understanding of the relationship between the state and social movements, as well as its assumptions about the dynamics of political opportunity structures, inadequately capture the complexities of the Third World social movements. Therefore, as the basis of a larger project, I critique the western biases inherent in the theoretical framework of the political process theory, focusing exclusively on Doug McAdam's contributions to this approach. I employ a hermeneutic method, since it provides a useful means for engaging in discourse with texts. I conclude that McAdam's views on political opportunity and the state reflect a Eurocentric reading and understanding, in large part because his analyses have been based on democratic states.Accordingly, some of the political process theory's key shortcomings for Third World applications are that it overemphasizes the analytic and practical importance of the electoral system, and that its logic is rooted in unrealistic assumptions of inherently stable political structures and institutionalized democratic processes. / Master of Science

Since at least the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security has emerged as a major political paradigm built upon an expansive definition of state control emphasizing not only the mere policing of violations of law, but the means through which the state asserts itself as a particular political entity through the militarized management of social actors both inside and outside its borders. Through an analysis of the case of Colombia's Democratic Security policy, this dissertation documents the transformations of social mobilization within the boundaries of the newly politicized, and newly globalized, security state. The research builds upon six months of ethnographic work and in-depth interviews with Valle del Cauca regional chapters of pacifist feminist grassroots network Women's Peaceful Route, with human rights advocacy organization Permanent Committee for Human Rights, and with afrodescendant movement Process of Black Communities. Analyzing the work of these organizations, this dissertation assesses the uneven impact of security policies on social actors claiming territorial, cultural, and political rights. Through these organizations the work illuminates how security is gendered and racialized, while it is strongly resisted by the movements' challenge to the model of citizenship promoted by the state. The research poses that, no longer able to see human rights work in terms of the defense of individuals, social movements have instead redeployed the concept of human rights as a mode of articulating radical democratic demands reflecting a collective social struggle. Illustrating the connections between neoliberal development and security, and its impact for afrodescendants and women's claims for rights and recognition, the dissertation shows how global discourses on security influence the constitution of new social identities through the constant re-iteration of the question 'who is the terrorist,' and the subsequent re-articulation of new parameters of citizenship. Beyond Colombia's case, this research advances existing scholarship regarding the technologies of statehood in the post September 11 era, at the same time that it contributes to an understanding of social mobilization in the context of global and hemispheric governance.

The contemporary homeschooling movement sits at the intersection of several important social trends: widespread concern about the effectiveness and safety of public schools, feminist challenges to the patriarchal family structure, anxiety about the state of the family as an institution, and challenging economic conditions. The central concern of this dissertation is to make sense of homeschooling within this broader context. Data were gathered through interviews with forty-five homeschooling parents, approximately half of whom are religious and half of whom are secular. The interviews were organized around three central questions: 1) What are the frames that parents use to justify homeschooling? 2) What are their particular tactics or methods for homeschooling? 3) What are the components of homeschoolers' collective identity? I argue that homeschooling bears the imprint of broader changes regarding the gender system and contemporary family life, as well as other economic and cultural changes. Both religious and secular parents come to homeschooling out of shared concerns about schools being ineffective and incapable of catering to their children's individual needs. They also share concerns about the state of the family and the general moral decline of society. Religious and secular parents differ in their actual practice of homeschooling, depending on their particular conceptions of childhood, but they are alike in the fact that it is women who do most of the homeschooling work. These parents are also different in their collective identities. Religious parents regard homeschooling as just something they do. However, secular parents characterize homeschooling as part of who they are as moral people and this compels them to employ various strategies of identity work. In the end, I argue that this movement is unlikely to contribute to meaningful social change. I base this conclusion on the fact that the homeschooling movement contains two major contradictions: 1) This movement is simultaneously resisting one alleged failing institution - schools - while reproducing another highly criticized institution - the patriarchal nuclear family. 2) This movement offers individual solutions to social problems. While the participants have many concerns about social institutions, their answer is to withdraw their participation and retreat into their own families.

The core aim of this research is to explore the communication processes of the Transition movement, a community-led global social movement as it adapted in a local context. The Transition movement facilitates community-led responses to the current global financial and climate crisis via the Transition Network, an online network that began in 2006, and is comprised of more than 2000 initiatives in 35 countries that have used the Transition model to start projects that use small-scale solutions to achieve greater sustainability. This research uses qualitative ethnographic methods and a theoretical framework based on actor network theory to better understand how the movement’s grand narratives of “climate change” and “peak oil” are communicated into local community-based stories, responses, and actions toward sustainability, and secondly, to analyze the multilayered communication processes that facilitate these actions toward sustainable social change. Transition projects address a wide range of issues, including reducing dependency on peak-oil, creating community-based-local economies, supporting sustainable food production and consumption, building efficient transportation, housing, and more diverse and inclusive education. The Transition model provides a participatory communication framework laid out in specific stages for communities to begin this process. The popularity of the model coincides with an increase in the interest in and use of the term “sustainability” by media, academics and policymakers around the world, and an increase in the global use of digital technology as a resource for information gathering and sharing. Thus this study situates itself at the intersections of a global environmental and economic crisis, the popularization of the term “sustainability,” and an increasingly digitized and networked global society in order to better understand how social change is contextualized and facilitated in a local community via a global network. From the findings, I argue that although the model’s rapid growth can be attributed, in part, to an appealing narrative that reframes more traditional environmental movement discourse into solutions-based community-focused actions, the movement would do well to develop more organized communication processes around connecting with and recognizing other people and groups who share similar values and goals, and around defining and creating the space for consistent and efficient leaders. This study also reveals that members of Transition Amherst had mixed feelings about the group’s success and this was attributed to a wide range of interpretations of the model and the purpose it serves, particularly in towns where the ideology of Transition has already, to some extent, been adopted.