Social Movements (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what social movements are, their history and characteristics. Also, some examples.

A crowd at a protest represents a social movement. — A social movement manifests itself through actions with symbolic and identity content.

A social movement is a grouping of individuals who share certain identity traits (ethnicity, gender, social class, sexual orientation) or certain objectives (political, social, cultural, environmental) and that jointly challenge the dominant point of view on a certain aspect of social reality. It is considered a collective political actor, as it pursues a certain social objective, generally for or against social change, through mobilizations and other group actions.

Unlike other organizations dedicated to the fight for social demands or linked to popular participation (such as political parties or unions), social movements usually lack a formal structure, that is, firmly assigned roles and fixed actions. Normally, they are diverse and informal collective agents that carry out different types of political or social action: protest to achieve a change in legislation, demand new rights, oppose government decisions, promote significant cultural changes, among others.

The term “social movement” is commonly used in the field of politics. Its origin is attributed to the German sociologist Lorenz von Stein (1815-1890), who in his 1850 book History of the French social movement from 1789 to the presentdefined it as a grouping of social sectors to achieve a certain collective influence over the State. However, the concept began to be used in its current sense in the 20th century and It gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s with the formation of the so-called “new social movements” (the second wave of feminism, environmentalism, the LGBT movement, autonomism, the pacifist movement, movements for the rights of indigenous peoples, among others).

Key points

Social movements are collective political actors that pursue social objectives through political or symbolic mobilizations and actions.
They are informal groupings of individuals who share common identity traits or objectives. They differ from political parties because they lack a fixed structure and uniform leadership.
Social movements are manifested through protests, boycotts and actions on the streets or social networks. They usually use slogans and can be transitory or long-lasting.
Social movements emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries, and gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s.
Some current examples are feminism, environmentalism, the LGBT movement, the indigenous movement and the anti-globalization movement.

See also: Social actors

In general, social movements are characterized by the following:

They are collective social actors, composed of a variable number of individuals who share a certain sense of identity or a common cause related to social change or the rejection of some social, cultural, environmental or economic policy.
They have an informal nature, that is, they may have spokespersons, references and organizational guidelines but they lack a fixed structure and a single representation, which is why they differ from political parties and other more formal forms of social organization (such as unions).
They can be transitory but also long-lasting, that is, they arise to address a specific issue or to demand a certain change and, once the objective has been achieved or some progress towards its achievement (or even if they result in failure), they can be dismantled, transform into something else or expand the scope of the claim. In any case, they are more long-lasting and organized than a simple series of protests.
They usually manifest themselves through mass events, actions in the street or on social networks and calls for boycotts. For this they generally use slogans and logos, banners, informative videos and strategies such as gathering signatures with petitions and demonstrating courage, strength and social presence before public organizations or companies.
The issues in which they engage are usually of an identity, social, ethnic, racial, cultural, economic, ecological or political nature. Furthermore, its members can belong to different ideological orientations, both progressive or revolutionary and conservative or reactionary.
They usually have a spontaneous or self-convened origin, lack large financing and also lack formal leadership (instead, they usually have different spokespersons or spokespersons). However, sometimes they can lead to more structured organizations.

You may be interested: Social Justice

The first social movements in contemporary history emerged within industrial society, between the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Some examples are the labor movement and the feminist movement (which included suffragism and other women's rights movements).

However, New social movements began to manifest in the 1960s and 1970s an era that some analysts identify as post-industrial and in which claims stopped focusing on purely economic, political or class aspects to give way to identity and environmental demands.

At that time, the civil rights movement in the United States (led by figures such as Martin Luther King) gained strength. In addition, the second wave of feminism emerged (which expanded demands for women's social and reproductive rights), the movement hippie and other expressions of pacifism (in the context of the Cold War), the gay rights movement, which was later expanded under the acronym LGBT (in some cases expanded to LGBTQ), ecologism or environmentalism (given the evidence of the human impact on environmental degradation) and autonomism (critical of orthodox leftist traditions). In the following decades, the anti-globalization movement and movements for the rights of indigenous peoples and peasants also gained strength.

Each social movement took on a cause of a social, economic, political, cultural or environmental nature and directed its efforts to promote a change in the State's decisions on the issue at hand. Some of the great social movements of the past achieved their goals, while others did not achieve immediate success. However, laid the foundations for a tradition of struggles and claims that continued over time. and gave impetus to the conquest of numerous freedoms and cultural changes through collective pressure.

A group of women participates in suffrage at the beginning of the twentieth century. — For almost 50 years, suffragettes rebelled against the *status quo* that prevented them from voting.

Some of the most important social movements in history are:

Labor movement. It is an international social movement that, during the 19th and 20th centuries, sought to represent the interests of the working class in the context of modern industrial society through the political and union union of industrial workers. The labor movement was never a uniform expression, and although it managed to form the first International Workers' Association (known as the First International) in 1864, it soon dissolved and led to other international associations dominated by certain political expressions. The main labor organizations in the world were grouped around diverse political ideals (such as socialism, communism, anarchism, revolutionary unionism, among others) to combat class society through peaceful or insurrectionary methods or to conquer rights. labor without challenging capitalism. In practice, collective organization allowed them to exert pressure to expand the civil and labor rights of workers and improve their living conditions.
women's liberation movement. It was a current within a larger critical and philosophical thought, feminism, and is usually identified as a second wave feminist. It emerged in the 1960s in different Western countries and remained active until the early 1980s. It fought for equal employment opportunities between men and women and for the sexual and reproductive rights of women. In addition, she questioned gender roles at home and in the public sphere, denounced male violence and promoted a humanist social vision to overcome gender inequality. One of her great achievements was the promotion of oral contraceptives (commonly known as “the pill”), and especially the pressure exerted to accept their use after their legalization, which offered women greater control over their bodies and their reproductive health.
Motion hippie or hippie. It was a movement born in the 1960s in the United States, of a pacifist and countercultural nature, heir to the so-called generation beat. He criticized the materialistic life characteristic of the contemporary world and promoted free love, experimentation with drugs and the search for mystical or transcendental truths. He opposed war (especially the Vietnam War), consumerism, and cultural conservatism. The movement hippie It had a great impact on Western culture, and spread to many countries. Although it lost relevance since the mid-1970s, its countercultural legacy was later picked up by other social movements and cultural trends, such as neo-hippieism and the new age.
suffrage movement. It was an international movement for women's right to vote. Its starting points were Seneca Falls Declaration in the United States, written within the framework of the First Women's Rights Convention (“First Convention on the Rights of Women”) in 1848, and especially the founding of the Women's Franchise League (“Women's Suffrage League”) in England in 1889 and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (“American National Woman Suffrage Association”) in the United States in 1890. For almost fifty years, suffragettes demanded that women be recognized as political subjects with the right to decide the politics of their country (a right that was reserved for men). During the first decades of the 20th century they achieved it.
Civil rights movement in the United States. It was a set of campaigns and mobilizations that occurred between 1955 and 1968 in the United States, led by Afro-descendant citizens who demanded the end of segregation and demanded full equal rights for all citizens, regardless of their skin color. Its starting point was the refusal of Rosa Parks, an African-American citizen of Alabama, to give up her seat on the bus to a “white” individual, which led to her arrest and sparked a boycott against the bus company. This encouraged successive demonstrations, largely led by pastor and activist Martin Luther King, and led to the enactment in 1964 of the civil rights law that prohibited segregation and discrimination on the basis of “race.” After King's assassination in 1968, major riots broke out and the government enacted another law that strengthened anti-discrimination measures.
LGBT liberation movement. Also known as the movement for free sexual orientation, it was born in 1969 in New York, United States. It arose after a massive series of protests known as the Stonewall riots, triggered after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn bar in which numerous homosexuals and trans people were arrested for the sole reason of freely expressing their sexuality. The movement that emerged after the riots gained great notoriety in various cities around the world. It aimed to demand the need for a freer society in sexual matters and for an expansion of rights for the LGBT community (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender), such as the decriminalization of homosexuality, marriage between people of the same sex and adoption by homosexual couples. This movement was heir to some initiatives that emerged between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and is considered an important precursor of today's LGBT groups.
Indigenous or indigenist movement. It is the movement that brings together the different social movements that claim the legacy of the native or indigenous peoples in Latin America and that defend the right of certain communities to conserve or recover traditional territories and customs. Many of these indigenous movements are also peasant movements affiliated with a left-wing political perspective (such as Zapatismo or neo-Zapatismo in Mexico). However, there are numerous variants of this movement in the educational, cultural, linguistic, political and territorial spheres. Due to the struggle of these groups, many Latin American countries have claimed the indigenous cultural legacy and have established laws to preserve it.
Anti-globalization movement. Also called the “alterworld movement”, it is a set of social movements coming from very diverse political currents that, at the end of the 20th century, agreed to openly oppose globalization, considering it a process that only benefits large transnational corporations and that threatens globalization. against the political and cultural sovereignty of nations or against the interests of the working classes. Very different positions converge in this movement: anti-capitalists, environmentalists, nationalists, indigenous people, among others, whose common denominator is the fight for an alternative to the globalized world.

References

Bobbio, N., Matteucci, N and Pasquino, G. (Dirs.). (2015). Politics Dictionary. 21st century.
Killian, L.M., Smelser, N.J., & Turner, R.H. (2024). Social movement. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
Tilly, C., & Wood, L.J. (2010). Social movements, 1768-2008. From its origins to Facebook. Criticism.
Touraine, A. (1995). Production of society. Institute of Social Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Zanatta, L. (2012). History of Latin America. From the Colony to the 21st century. 21st century.

What is a social movement?

Key points

Characteristics of social movements

History of social movements

Examples of social movements

References

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