Through an analysis of two National Organization for Women chapters, the author finds that members construct multiple feminist identities that vary in collective definitions of feminism, the overall strategies adopted, and organizational culture. To explain these variations, the author analyzes meso-level relations between the organization and the environment, issues of diversity, and leadership continuity. This study illustrates how organizational factors intertwine to shape how participants come to view themselves and the political and cultural environment surrounding them. With the current research focus either on the larger political environment or individual characteristics, meso-level factors are often overlooked in examinations of social movement dynamics.In the past 15 years, new social movement theorists have turned our attention from ideology and organizational characteristics to culture and the types of communities and identities constructed within movement contexts. Recent work emphasizes the existence of ever changing and multiple activist identities within social movements . Scholars attribute these activist identities to a variety of sources, including ideological differences (Buechler 1990;Melucci 1989) and ideology and organizational structures (Gamson 1996). Whittier (1995 further argued that collective identities shift with different participating microcohorts. The role of organizational dynamics in the construction of activist identities is not addressed, ignoring factors such as the organization's relation to the environment, management of diversity, and leadership continuity.
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