While offline iterations of the climate activism movement have spanned decades, today online involvement of youth through social media platforms has transformed the landscape of this social movement. Our research considers how youth climate activists utilize social media platforms to create and direct social movement communities towards greater collective action. Our project analyzes narrative framing and linguistic conventions to better understand how youth climate activists utilized Twitter to build community and mobilize followers around their movement. Our project identifies three emergent strategies, used by youth climate activists, that appear effective in engaging activist communities on Twitter. These strategies demonstrate the power of digital culture, and youth culture, in creating a collective identity within a diverse generation. This fusion of digital and physical resistance is an essential component of the youth climate activist strategy and may play a role in the future of emerging social movements.
A growing body of literature on urban and grassroots social movements is replete with case studies of citizens mobilizing against infrastructural development projects. These mobilizations, known as insurgent citizenship-the participation in alternative channels of political expression-take different forms and have various impacts. An investigation into the case of the mobilizing agenda of the Greater Bloemfontein Taxi Association (GBTA) against using a costly intermodal transport facility in Bloemfontein is aimed at highlighting the often neglected dilemma of how powerless citizens-for example, taxi owners-respond to state hegemony. Theoretically, the article is grounded in the conceptual framework of insurgent citizenship and, empirically, draws on narratives of a range of participants. The findings provide an understanding of the importance of organizational structure and leadership in the sustained insurgent action by the GBTA. It is argued that the insurgent action by the GBTA is produced mainly by-on the one hand-the conflictual relationship between government policies and practices and-on the other hand-grassroots resistance to their exclusionary and marginalizing effects. Furthermore, the findings elucidate that insurgent practice may be driven by neoliberal principles of competition, profit, and entrepreneurship.
The author of this text reflects on the meaning of the Internet in the process of politicalchanges in the world. Political demonstrations and riots have recently shown how significanta role the Internet is playing in the creation of new social movements, which arenowadays very important actors in social life. Based on this research the meaning andimportance of the Internet in the everyday life of a politically engaged youth are presented.
Autor niniejszego artykułu podejmuje refleksje na temat znaczenia internetu w procesieświatowych zmian politycznych. Bunty i protesty ostatnich lat świadczą o jego ogromnejroli dla działalności ruchów społecznych – nowego, ważnego aktora życia społecznego.W tekście zaprezentowano również wyniki badań własnych nad znaczeniem internetuw życiu codziennym polskiej młodzieży zaangażowanej politycznie.
Większość badań nad ruchem alterglobalistycznym koncentruje się na Europie Zachodniej i Ameryce Północnej, od czasu do czasu uwzględniając inne części świata. Badania na temat tego ruchu w krajach postsocjalistycznych Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej są mniej niż wyczerpujące i rzadko podejmowane z perspektywy porównawczej. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu wypełnienie tej luki poprzez opisanie kluczowych wydarzeń z historii tego ruchu, jak również genealogii oddolnego aktywizmu w regionie. Ruch alterglobalistyczny rozwinął się w środowisku wrogo nastawionym do lewicowych ideologii i grup. Niniejszy artykuł ma wyjaśnić nie tylko rozwój ruchu alterglobalistycznego w regionie, lecz także jego źródła. Stawia również pytania o naturę ruchu i sposobów jego analizy ‒ jako upolitycznionego ruchu społecznego lub subkultury i stylu życia. Bliskie związki oddolnych ruchów społecznych oraz subkultury i kontrkultury w Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej mogą sugerować nowe i świeże spojrzenie na badania ruchów społecznych.
EN
Most of the research on the alterglobalist, also known as the global justice, movement has focused on Western Europe and North America, with occasional research on other parts of the world. There has been little research done on this movement in the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring the key events of the movement, as well as the genealogy of grassroots social activism in the region. It offers insight into a movement that developed in a region that, due to its history, has been rather hostile to leftist ideologies and groups. This paper examines the development of the alterglobalist movement in the region and traces its inspirations and path dependencies. It also poses questions about the nature of the movement and ways to analyze it—whether as a politicized social movement or a subculture and lifestyle choice. The close connections of Central and Eastern European grassroots social movements to subcultures and counterculture might suggest a new and fresh perspective for studying social movements.
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