The Drum Beat 436 - Social Movements: Motivating Change

This Drum Beat is one of a series of commentary and analysis pieces. In this issue, Robin Vincent of Panos London takes a look at communication within and from social movements. He reviews elements of social movement communication related to HIV/AIDS, gender equality, and sanitation rights, concluding with suggestions of how development agencies might successfully engage with and support social movements to further their development goals.

The Drum Beat aims to feature a range of critical analysis commentaries of the communication for change field. Though we cannot guarantee to feature your commentary, as we have a limited number of issues to be published each year, if you wish to contribute please contact Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com Many thanks!

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Motivating Change - What Can We Learn from Social Movements?

In this commentary, I look at what can be learned from the communication processes of social movements, drawing on recent analyses and examples from HIV and other social movements. Social movements make use of distinct forms of communication which can facilitate social change and motivate social action, particularly for less powerful groups For an expanded, referenced paper covering similar issues, please see: Moved to Act: What can we learn from HIV social movement communication?

Introduction
Social movements often animate social change in a way that many formal development initiatives struggle to do. The energy and sense of belonging that drove the early response to AIDS in the United States (US), or the social mobilisations around HIV treatment in South Africa, for example, show vitality and momentum often lacking in official health and development initiatives. Social movements have mobilised people, in the North and South, to set their own agendas in relation to a wide range of issues: from neo-liberal trade policies to access to HIV antiretroviral treatment, as well as longer standing struggles over women's and indigenous people's rights. In the case of HIV and AIDS, social movements of people living with HIV and AIDS, gay men, women, sex workers and people who inject drugs have developed a variety of responses in different settings, and organised themselves to counter stigma and discrimination.

Previous Communication Initiative commentaries have noted the importance of understanding the distinct communication dynamics of social movements, particularly for the way they promote local leadership, amplify the voices of those most affected by development issues, and shape locally-driven agendas (see The Drum Beat 222). Recent analyses of social movements provide insights into the nature of both social change, and what motivates social action.[1] Social movements have much to teach us about:

• what motivates social change, including the importance of meanings and values
• the use of novel communication approaches that are culturally grounded
• the limits of the processes and institutions of politics and governance

What are social movements?
Social movements have been defined as collective enterprises seeking to establish a new order of life[2]

...and as forms of collective action with a high degree of popular participation, which use non-institutional channels and which formulate their demands while simultaneously finding forms of action to express them.[3]

Social movements tend to be loosely organised, and are interesting for the way they engage people in processes of mobilisation and social change, rather than because of any particular organisational form.[4] In their challenge to authorities and dominant institutions, social movements often involve a transformation in everyday habits and the meanings attached to certain ways of living.

Motivating change
By bringing people together through shared experiences and by promoting a collective recognition of neglected issues and problems, social movements often give people a sense of belonging. The process of everyday mutual support - organising and acting together - can be a creative one, where new ideas, forms of action, rituals, and institutions are generated, adding up to a movement culture. The Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, for example, is best known for its high profile campaigns focused on ensuring access to HIV treatment, but it also provided a sense of belonging and self-worth to many people living with HIV and AIDS who had previously been shunned by families and communities. This has empowered many people to find new meaning in their HIV diagnosis – even, for some, amounting to a ‘new birth’ as social activists, according to Steve Robins.[5]

Struggles over values and meanings
Social movements often create new meanings that 'frame' relationships and institutions differently, and in this way mobilise people to challenge them. They have raised questions about what counts as development, about the relationships that underpin patterns of differential access to resources, and what kind of social change is important. Rather than the instrumental campaigning of more formal organisations, social movements tend to develop new ways of understanding and framing existing inequitable relationships, as an ongoing part of the way they organise.

The women's movement in Northern Europe and Northern America in the 60s and 70s reframed existing unequal gender relationships as oppressive and harmful rather than being 'just the way things are'. The way in which everyday language reinforced inequality between men and women, and the assumptions that were made about division of labour - not least the unpaid domestic work of women - were made visible, framed differently and challenged in the process. The People's Health Movement is another example: this global movement, rooted in developing countries, asserts that health is much more than a medical issue, drawing attention to the social and economic impact of dominant models of economic growth that adversely affect health.[6] HIV social movements have notably 'framed' AIDS as much more than a health issue by putting emphasis on questions of human rights and moral and sexual politics.

Such battles over meaning are also important within movements themselves, where there may be differences of power and resources as well as competition to define movement priorities. Nancy Stoller’s account of the early response to AIDS in the US for example shows how the concerns of women and ethnic minority communities tended to be eclipsed by the, albeit, very effective and creative organising of middle class, white gay men. This influenced both the priorities of AIDS organisations and their styles of communication and campaigning.[7] High-profile direct action and campaigning became the priority for many, while the ongoing support and care that arguably underpinned the wider response tended to be invisible and was disproportionately carried out by women – reproducing a familiar gendered division of labour.

Creative communication
Social movements often develop novel forms of communication and expression - ways to collectively decide what is important - to communicate these priorities and act on them. Such communication may build on existing historical and cultural experiences of protest – sometimes described as 'repertoires of contention'[8] - but equally, they may innovate new methods rooted in the ongoing struggle and cultural context.

An example of novel communication embedded in local context and culture is the 'Toilet festivals'[9] organised by informal-settlement-dwellers in Mumbai, India, that drew local municipal officials into negotiations around adequate water and sanitation (see below). Movements may also make use of new and emerging media, such as the use of the internet by the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, to communicate about their resistance to economic domination by the US in imposed free trade agreements. The Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa blended old and new styles of communication by drawing on experiences of involvement in the Anti-Apartheid struggle - including court and legal action, international solidarity, civil disobedience and community mobilisation – and combining these with sophisticated media campaigning, and innovations around treatment literacy and community support.

Doing 'politics' differently
Linked to these different styles of communication, social movements often challenge dominant notions of politics and accountability. In Latin America in particular, social movements have been shown to enact a distinctively 'cultural politics' – expanding the boundaries of what is considered political, moving beyond the confines of the electoral politics of so-called democracy to different kinds of participation and involvement in social struggles, novel forms of political expression, and different spaces for public debate.[10]

The 'Toilet festivals' in Mumbai, mentioned above, confronted local officials with the realities of living in slums without toilets. By inviting local officials to inaugurate new toilets, they highlighted the constructive initiative of shack-dwellers who had organised their own infrastructure. Local officials were also drawn into an engagement about resources and infrastructure, challenging their previous indifference and former tendency to focus on issues of illegal settlement. Appadurai suggests this changed the 'terms of engagement' between informal settlement dwellers and authorities, rather than using the usual political channels of municipal bureaucracy and governance - where the balance of power was stacked in the official's favour - even if it had no simple political impact. It was also an important part of developing the aspirations of those in settlements and motivating them to organise and challenge their situation.

How can development engage with social movements?
Bebbington.[11], who analyses social movements that address aspects of poverty, argues they contribute to equitable development by politicising aspects of poverty and widening public debate. Social movements in South Africa have also arguably enhanced democracy by representing the interests and voices of the poor and marginalised, and contributing to the restoration of political plurality.

Support to social movements from development agencies risks elevating the views and priorities of some above others, possibly splitting or weakening a movement. The gradual institutionalisation and professionalisation of the early response to AIDS in the US illustrates this well. As new formal organisations proliferated, they undermined the engagement and ownership of the communities that originally organised the response, and they became more preoccupied with sustaining funding and impressing influential constituencies than dealing with the real needs of people most affected by HIV and AIDS. Given the demonstrated importance of community engagement for effective prevention, this is a salutary warning for HIV and AIDS responses that become overly bureaucratised.

In this context, development action could usefully concentrate on strengthening the enabling environment for movements rather than direct support: through protecting the right to form independent associations and the right to protest; and by supporting social movements to communicate in public debates and to be visible in the media. Approaching communication and information as public goods and working to build enabling communication environments is relevant here, as has been argued in Panos' 'Heart of Change' (see The Drum Beat 410) and recent Drum Beat commentaries.

Just as with recent critiques of participatory development approaches however, it is important not to romanticise social movements, even while their methods of communication may appear to give greater voice to those who are usually marginalised. Just as with all examples of communication and media, it is important to ask about the resources on which they depend, and the way they challenge or reproduce dominant social norms and relationships of power in their particular context.

Ultimately, the power dynamics of social movements are in need of further critical analysis. As debates over the recent Make Poverty History campaign attest, the symbolic and ritual trappings of social movements – from wrist bands to live music - may equally be used to promote dominant models of development, and drown out alternative, dissenting Southern voices.[12] In quite another context – such as 'inter-ethnic' conflicts in South Asia and Africa - charismatic leadership and emotional or identity-based appeals may mobilise people in similar ways to social movements, but for less transparent political agendas.

Two key questions for our discussion:

• How are social movements a help or hindrance for sustainable development?
• How should development be done differently to recognise and engage with people's movements and their methods of communication?

Robin Vincent
Senior Adviser, HIV/AIDS Programme
Panos London
robin.vincent@panos.org.uk

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REFERENCES

[1] For a concise but comprehensive theoretical overview, see Crossley, N (2002) Making sense of social movements, Buckingham: Open University Press. [top]
[2] Crossley, N (2002) Making sense of social movements, Buckingham: Open University Press. [top]
[3] Jelin in Alvarez, S and Escobar, A (eds) (1992) The making of social movements in Latin America: Identity, strategy and democracy, Oxford: Westview Press. [top]
[4] Mitlin, D and Bebbington, A (2006) Social movements and chronic poverty across the urban-rural divide: Concepts and experiences, CPRC Working Paper 65, Institute of Development Policy and Management, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester. [top]
[5] Rights passages from 'near death' to 'new life':AIDS activism and treatment testimonies in South Africa, Steven Robins, IDS Working Paper 251, October 2005. [top]
[6] People's Health Movement. [top]
[7] Stoller, N (1998) Lessons from the damned: Queers, whores and junkies respond to AIDS, New York: Routledge. [top]
[8] Tilly 1986 in Crossley, N (2002). [top]
[9] Appadurai, A (2004) 'The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition' in Rao, V and Walton, M (eds) Culture and Public Action, California: Stanford University Press. [top]
[10] Alvarez, S, Dagnino, E and Escobar, A (eds) (1998) Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: Re-visioning Latin American social movements, Oxford: Westview Press. [top]
[11] Bebbington, A (2006) Social movements and the politicisation of chronic poverty, CPRC Working Paper 63, University of Manchester Chronic Poverty Research Centre. [top]
[12] Red Pepper (2005) Inside the murky world of Make Poverty History. [top]

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This issue of The Drum Beat is an opinion piece and has been written and signed by the individual writer. The views expressed herein are the perspective of the writer and are not necessarily reflective of the views or opinions of The Communication Initiative or any of The Communication Initiative Partners.

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