AUTHORITY IN CONTENTION: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES

Workshop committee: Rob Kleidman, Dan Cress, Ann Mische
Conference organizing committee: Dan Myers (coordinator), Dan Cress, Jeff Goodwin, Ann Mische
Please send comments to Dan Cress: cress@sobek.colorado.edu
Conference website: http://www.nd.edu/~dmyers/workshop/

The mini-conference/workshop, Authority In Contention: Interdisciplinary Approaches, focuses on the general conceptualization of social movements as collective challenges to authority structures broadly construed to include political, corporate, bureaucratic, civic, religious denominational, and cultural structures. Papers and/or discussions include consideration of different types of authority structures, the array of collective challenges to them, differences and similarities among movements in response to different authority structures, and the implications of these observations for the various perspectives on social movements and for theorizing about social movements in general.

There has long been a simmering debate among students of social movements as to its proper conceptualization. One major axis and source of debate concerns the institutional domains that are fundamental to the conceptualization of movements. The question of the institutional basis for the conceptualization of movements is an important issue for discussion, especially in light of the recent call to reconceptualize the study of collective action as the study of contentious politics.

Relatedly, there is the issue of the kind of changes associated with social movements. While there is generalized acknowledgment that social movements are in the business of seeking or halting change, there is a lack of consensus as to the locus and level of changes sought. Must it be at the political institutional level? That is, must the changes or objectives sought be in terms of seeking concessions from or altering political institutions and regulations or laws? What about at the organizational or meso level? And what about the individual or personal level? Do other kinds of changes count, such those associated with so-called self-help groups, alternative lifestyles, animal rights, and so on?

If movements are conceptualized under the rubric of contentious politics, for example, what is to be done conceptually and analytically with collective challenges or adaptations outside of traditional political arenas, such as retreatist and communal movements, movements of self-help and -renewal, lifestyle movements, not to mention the array of religious movements? What about recent movements that target corporate entities, the media, cultural producers, or civic, community or professional associations (the recent protests against the Boy Scouts is a case in point)? How should we understand movements challenging emerging transnational entities such as the WTO, regional trade alliances, international funding organizations or United Nations agencies? Are such phenomena to be excluded for the study of social movements because the locus of their challenges lies outside of the political arena as conventionally understood?

One way out of this impasse is to conceptualize social movements as collective challenges to authority structures, whatever their institutional and/or cultural locus. To do so calls for a shift in focus of attention from the formal political realm to all institutional, corporate, and cultural entities that constitute structures of authority. Such a reconceptualization would not mean that the state and other formal political structures would be thrown out, but only that their hegemony would be loosened as the focus of social movement activity. This has numerous implications for both broadening the study of social movements and fine-tuning our understanding of the differences and similarities among the array of movement phenomena that populate the socio-cultural landscape.

Interdisciplinary approaches

Once we broaden the array of social organizational forms considered under the rubric of authority structures, the need for an interdisciplinary approach becomes evident. Much of recent social movement theory has been enfolded into sociology, with occasional handshakes with political science or history. But with authority structures conceived in broader, more flexible terms, there is clearly a need to reach beyond these disciplines to others less frequently referenced: religious studies, communication, economics, law, anthropology, psychology, gender or ethnic studies, in addition to political science and history. One of the goals of this conference will be to create a dialogue between those within the social movements subfield and across other subfields and academic disciplines. To this end, plenary panels and workshops will attempt to include scholars from a variety of disciplines addressing different dimensions of authority structures in social movements.

Conference structure

The conference will be organized into thematic sessions that focus on various types of (state and non-state) authority structures. These include:

Religious/denominational structures
Corporate entities
Civic/community associations
Mass media
Cultural/lifestyle producers
Legal/judicial entities
Transnational bodies (political, economic, cultural, etc.)
Local/regional governments
Transitional states

The conference has four levels of organization: 1) plenary sessions that address the fundamental themes of the conference and help to broadly set the agenda for discussions in working groups; 2) concurrent paper sessions that provide presentations on more specific research topics relevant the conference theme; 3) thematic working groups that are intended to provide a more informal format in which participants can react to plenary addresses, discuss related research ideas in early development phases, or take up a more detailed discussion of papers presented; and 4) an interactive website set up prior to the conference consisting of thematic listservs as well as posted statements from participants.

Edited volume

One goal of the conference is to publish an edited volume consisting of papers related to different kinds of authority structures in social movement research. Similar volumes from previous conferences have been extremely successful in giving direction to the field, and this volume will have the added benefit of cross-disciplinary appeal.

Location

The University of Notre Dame is an ideal location for the conference, as it is located in a pleasant setting less than two hours outside of Chicago.