Movement intellectuals engaging the grassroots: A strategy perspective on the Black Consciousness Movement

Abstract

Drawing upon activist interviews and framing theory this article proposes that the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) is better understood not by focusing on the objective status of its leadership as middle-class intellectuals, but by instead looking at what these ‘movement intellectuals’ subjectively did to link their philosophy of liberation to the lifeworlds of those they sought to engage. It argues that this shift reveals three important features of social movements and movement intellectuals more generally. Firstly, it uncovers the meaningful, value-driven, emotional and collective-identity bases for action, alongside the more familiar instrumental motivations. Secondly, given the inevitable clash between movement intent and the contingent constraints under which movements invariably operate, it argues that movement success is better judged not by external criteria that are assumed to hold universally, but instead by reference to the unique strategic intentions articulated by movements themselves. Finally, it shows how, given heterogeneous audiences, the deployment of a diversity of grounded intellectual strategies can help augment the resonance of a movement’s core political message.

Pride and Protest: Horizontal and Vertical Emotional Response in the Aftermath of the 2019 Chilean Spring

“…In addition, since emotions are a basis for action (Morgan 2020; Williamson 2011), the effects on bystanders’ pride could explain the scale of the mobilization in the initial stages and its sustainability as basic features of movement processes. Further studies could examine whether or how much the emotional response is prolonged beyond the study period.…”

Identity, Repression, and the Collapse of Apartheid

“…Indeed, these dynamics are not traditional in the sense of mainstream research on state repression and social movement mobilisation. They specifically pertain to a recent point made by Morgan (2020) strategies cannot always be identified by examining movement outcomes in repressive contexts. To understand success, we must move outside the basis of 'externally-defined criteria' that are universal (Morgan 2020).…”

“…They specifically pertain to a recent point made by Morgan (2020) strategies cannot always be identified by examining movement outcomes in repressive contexts. To understand success, we must move outside the basis of 'externally-defined criteria' that are universal (Morgan 2020). At Soweto, antecedent conditions (including BCM organisation and political action) resulted in antagonisms between the ruling party and its suppressed population getting exemplified on a grand stage.…”

Why meaning-making matters: the case of the UK Government’s COVID-19 response

“…However, he later adapted his concepts to fit complex, non-traditional societies too. Modernising Turner’s approach a step further, cultural pragmatics has emphasised the difficulties—though not impossibilities—of achieving the kinds of ritualistic ‘fusion’ that were common in more simple societies, due to the highly contingent, reflexive, and ‘de-fused’ nature of the modern world (Alexander 2004 ; Morgan 2020 ).…”