How crowds transform identities

This chapter looks at how crowds have the ability to create and perform a common identity that is either heterogeneous and expansive or narrow and restrictive. Both are situated in contemporary Turkey: on the one hand, the Gezi Park protests started in June 2013 to oppose the destruction of the park in İstanbul. The protests brought together disparate groups with little in common other than their opposition to the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party). On the other hand, in the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt, at the behest of President Erdoğan, crowds formed in town squares across the country in “Democracy Watches” gatherings as a symbol of the preservation of the government. While the Gezi Park protests were bottom-up, made up of different groups that ultimately created a more inclusive notion of citizenship and collective destiny, the post-coup rallies were top-down and conveyed a more exclusive representation of the nation and its historic significance. Overall, we intend to show the importance of redefining identity and intergroup histories through collective practices embodied in crowds, and to discuss the practical implications of crowds as a vehicle to (re-)form communities, beyond the legal and institutional spheres.</p

Multi-level gains of fat activism and their impact on sustained activism for fat justice

Previous research has indicated that outcomes of collective action can occur at the individual, group, and societal levels. Taken together, we argue that multi-level outcomes can influence sustained involvement in social movements. We aimed to examine the multi-level outcomes of fat activism across two studies. In our first study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with fat activists (N = 20) to learn what they believe are the multi-level outcomes of fat activism. At the individual level, activists reported greater health, well-being, and self-esteem; at the group level, they reported a sense of community and increased clothing options; and at the societal level, they reported change in toxic cultures around dieting. By building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 (N = 464) aimed to understand how fat individuals' past collective action participation may predict their future collective action participation through individual-, group-, and societal-level gains. Results indicate that greater collective action participation in the past predicts greater willingness to engage in collective action through the pathway of higher beliefs in individual and societal gains of fat activism, but not through group-level gains, even after we control for identification with fat and fat activist identities. We discuss these findings in relation to the importance of multi-level outcomes in collective action and sustained involvement in social movements.</p

Revealing the Manifestations of Neoliberalism in Academia: Academic Collective Action in Turkey

Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberalism in ACA as captured with prominent social/political psychological concepts of collective action. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 dismissed academics to understand the social and political psychological processes in academic collectives. The narrations of ACA were accompanied by manifestations of neoliberalism as experienced by dismissed academics. We found that, as follows from the existing conceptual tools of collective action, neoliberalism serves as an embedded contextual factor in the process of ACA. This becomes mostly visible for grievances but also for collective identifications, politicization, motivations, finding/allocating resources and sustaining academic collectives. We provide a preliminary basis to understand the role of neoliberalism in organization, mobilization and empowerment dynamics of collective action

Revealing the Manifestations of Neoliberalism in Academia: Academic Collective Action in Turkey

Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberalism in ACA as captured with prominent social/political psychological concepts of collective action. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 dismissed academics to understand the social and political psychological processes in academic collectives. The narrations of ACA were accompanied by manifestations of neoliberalism as experienced by dismissed academics. We found that, as follows from the existing conceptual tools of collective action, neoliberalism serves as an embedded contextual factor in the process of ACA. This becomes mostly visible for grievances but also for collective identifications, politicization, motivations, finding/allocating resources and sustaining academic collectives. We provide a preliminary basis to understand the role of neoliberalism in organization, mobilization and empowerment dynamics of collective action

Resistance from generation to generation: The Saturday Mothers in Istanbul

The Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri) are a group that has gathered in Istanbul for a 30-min sit-in every Saturday since 1995 seeking justice for forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey. What started with a group of approximately 30 mainly family and close relatives of those who disappeared has grown to include thousands of articipants. The initial protests were composed predominantly of mothers of victims, but over the past 28 years other relatives, including children, have joined the vigils. In many cases, those children then continue to participate and join the social movement. We are particularly interested in the Saturday Mothers' ability to sustain participation in weekly collective action, including the ways in which intergenerational transmission shapes and encourages this action. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 members of the Saturday Mothers. Analysis of participants' narratives and experiences included three main themes: family as a model, shared experiences, and functions of the movement. Findings highlight the complex interplay between familial influences, collective memory, and the formation of the Saturday Mothers' identity

Resistance in repressive contexts:A comprehensive test of psychological predictors

Empirical research on the social psychological antecedents of collective action has been conducted almost exclusively in democratic societies, where activism is relatively safe. The present research examines the psychological predictors of collective action intentions in contexts where resistance is met with significant repression by the authorities. Combining recent advancements in the collective action literature, our model examines the unique predictive roles of emotion (anger and fear), political identity consolidation and participative efficacies, politicized identification, and moral obligation, over and above past participation. It further investigates how these variables are shaped by perceptions of risks attributable to repression. Four survey studies test this model among protesters in Russia (N = 305), Ukraine (N = 136), Hong Kong (N = 115), and Turkey (N = 296). Meta-analytic integration of the findings highlights that, unlike in most current accounts of collective action, protesters in these contexts are not primarily driven by political efficacy. Rather, their involvement is contingent upon beliefs in the ability of protest to build a movement (identity consolidation and participative efficacies) and motivated by outrage at state repression, identification with the social movement, and a sense of moral obligation to act on their behalf. Results also confirm that risks attributable to state repression spur rather than quell resistance by increasing outrage, politicized identification, identity consolidation and participative efficacies, and moral obligation. The implications of these findings for models of collective action and our understanding of the motives underlying engagement in repressive contexts are discussed.PostprintPeer reviewe