Like an all-you-can-eat-buffet when you’re stomach is full, The Social Movements Reader, edited by Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper, is daunting, varied, and a bit larger than your appetite. Not for the faint of heart, it requires commitment, but it gives you a lot to chew on. Goodwin and Jasper are sociologists and authors who have attempted to provide a type of handbook (ok, more like a textbook) from which to observe the progression of social movements through modern history.
The reader should find the orderly arrangement of articles helpful, along with thorough yet brief introductions to each subcategory of study. The editors have grouped the readings into nine main categories, each centered around answering a certain question of sociological study:
- When and why do social movements occur?
- Who joins or supports movements?
- Who remains in movements and who drops out?
- What do movement participants think and feel?
- How are movements organized?
- What do movements do?
- How do the state and mass media influence movements?
- Why do movements decline?
- What changes to movements bring about?
In addressing each of these questions, Goodwin and Jasper reflect insight from varying angles, incorporating strengths and weaknesses from each school of thought that sociologists have focused on. In the end, they take the reader on a journey to discover the importance of social movements in our history and current society in shaping public beliefs, values and laws. The movement of a few can change the views of many (as with civil rights or suffrage), and its collective tug and pull on the shape of our world has profound implications for those of us who wish to have some sort of role in how the process plays out.
While Goodwin and Jasper do much to give us a thorough look at what movements are and how they operate and interact with society, they unfortunately offer little by way of how an outsider can or should engage with these movements. Understanding is a necessary first step. We cannot hope to cooperate with or resist (depending on your goal) with a social movement unless we truly understand its principles and point of view. The editors provide a wealth of diversified insight on those matters. But it does stop short of helping us understand how to participate in movements or dialogue with them in attempting to shape public opinion or policy.
One thing is clear: Innovation in values and political beliefs often arises from the discussions and efforts of social movements (p. 4). The collective energy of a minority has the ability, and has used such ability in the past, to shake up the status quo, to wake those in power from their slumber, and to not just point the finger, but to actually point toward a different reality within which we can live. The Church has been a social movement in the past. And even today small bursts of this collective energy are alive and well and making a difference. But I fear on a broader scale, we too have fallen into the same stupor of those in power, forgetting that newness of life is both worthwhile and possible. For those who cling to the hope of the Kingdom of God, the Social Movements Reader should be a call to rise up and live potently in a world that is starving for flavor…kind of like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
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