Identity Work in Social Movements

by Jo Reger, Daniel J. Myers, Rachel L. Einwohner

Overview

Movements for social change are by their nature oppositional, as are those who join change movements. How people negotiate identity within social movements is one of the central concerns in the field.

This volume offers new scholarship that explores issues of diversity and uniformity among social movement participants. Featuring case studies that range widely--from Jewish resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Poland to antigay Christian movements in the United States to online white supremacy groups--the essays show how participants set aside issues of personal identity in order to merge together and how these processes affect mobilization and the attainment of goals.

Contributors: Mary Bernstein, Kimberly B. Dugan, Elizabeth Kaminski, Susan Munkres, Kevin Neuhouser, Benita Roth, Silke Roth, Todd Schroer, Verta Taylor, Jane Ward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816651405
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	08/05/2008
Series:	Social Movements, Protest and Contention , #30
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Identity Work, Sameness, and Difference in Social Movements   Rachel L. Einwohner   Jo Reger   Daniel J. Myers     1
Doing Identity Work
Just Like You: The Dimensions of Identity Presentations in an Antigay Contested Context   Kimberly B. Dugan     21
"We're Not Just Lip-synching Up Here": Music and Collective Identity in Drag Performances   Elizabeth Kaminski   Verta Taylor     47
Technical Advances in Communication: The Example of White Racialist "Love Groups" and "White Civil Rights Organizations"   Todd Schroer     77
Drawing Identity Boundaries: The Creation of Contemporary Feminism   Jo Roger     101
Passing as Strategic Identity Work in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising   Rachel L. Einwohner     121
I Am the Man and Woman in This House: Brazilian Jeito and the Strategic Framing of Motherhood in a Poor, Urban Community   Kevin Neuhouser     141
Working through Identities
Ally Identity: The Politically Gay   Daniel J. Myers     167
Being "Sisters" to Salvadoran Peasants: Deep Identification and Its Limitations   Susan Munkres     189
Dealing with Diversity: The Coalition of Labor Union Women   Silke Roth     213
Diversity Discourse and Multi-identity Work in Lesbian and Gay Organizations   Jane Ward     233
The Reconstruction of Collective Identity in the Emergence of U.S. White Women's Liberation   Benita Roth     257
Afterword: The Analytic Dimensions of Identity: A Political Identity Framework   Mary Bernstein     277
Contributors     303
Index     309