Identity Work in Social Movements

2008

Jo Reger, Daniel J. Myers, and Rachel L. Einwohner, editors

Examines how sameness and difference are negotiated within social movements

Movements for social change are by their nature oppositional, as are those who join change movements. This volume offers new scholarship that explores how people negotiate identity within social movements and examines issues of diversity and uniformity among social movement participants.

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

Scholarship on collective identity has tended to under-theorize issues of difference and conflict—Identity Work in Social Movements remedies that lack beautifully. A significant and unique collection.

Nancy Whittier, Smith College

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.

Jo Reger is associate professor of sociology at Oakland University in Michigan.

Daniel J. Myers is professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame.

Rachel L. Einwohner is associate professor of sociology at Purdue University.

Scholarship on collective identity has tended to under-theorize issues of difference and conflict—Identity Work in Social Movements remedies that lack beautifully. A significant and unique collection.

Nancy Whittier, Smith College

The volume is well-organized and offers important insight on the processes through which activists create movement identities.

Contemporary Sociology

Identity Work in Social Movements breaks new empirical ground in the well-established literature on activist identity by highlighting the conflicts and controversies over identity
construction and use.

Social Movement Studies