Leading Change
Transnationalizing Identity and Demands: The Growing Demand for Agrarian Reform in the United States
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anthony Pahnke
During the last ten years, rural social movements in the United States have been adopting unconventional identities and demands. Principal amongst such identities is the explicit embrace of the peasant, while the new demand that is being expressed is for agrarian reform. In this paper, I argue that these new qualities of US rural social movements have developed due to transnational networks. These networks, which include international conferences, coordinated visits to select sites abroad, activist exchanges between movements, as well as experiences of immigration, have contributed to significant changes in US rural mobilization. These changes, as I also argue, show a growing radicalization of rural contention in the United States, which becomes apparent after comparing current movement practices with key examples from the past. I document the dynamics of social movement radicalization, which I find in identity and demand formation, in a comparison of movements located in Wisconsin, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Florida. I select these movements given the variation in terms of their respective transnational connections and levels of radicalization. The fieldwork for this project was done over the course of 2016 and 2017, when I visited movement leaders and members at each site to conduct interviews, observe movement activities, and participate in conferences and meetings. I supplement the use of interviews and participatory observation with textual analysis of movement newsletters and documents.
Women, Religion, and Leadership: A Typology of Female Saints as Unexpected Leaders
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barbara Jones Denison
This paper showcases a new typology of women leaders in religious organizations by creating a four-cell paradigm of leadership strategies employed by exemplars Hilda of Whitby, Theodelinda of the Lombards, Teresa of Avila, and Dorothy Day. This research intersects sociological inquiry with the discipline of leadership and contributes to the study of women in the organizational settings of patriarchal church. It identifies the intersectionality of religious identity with leadership actions by examining leadership in the organizational context of religion that significantly shaped their lives. By invoking current relevancies among prevailing leadership paradigms (e.g. authentic, transformational, situational, and so on) I show how contrasting leadership styles provide a measure for overcoming gender limitations in demonstrating organizational success. Ultimately this creates a typology of women, religion, and leadership, which intersects a female leader’s place within church institutional authority with personal role identity as a leader. The intersection is bi-directional: while we learn how to lead, it is also the case that leadership studies paradigms demonstrates what it means to be a woman who challenges the status quo, defies accepted social norms, and redefines the role as leader. Each woman has a legacy identity, socially constructed in museums, archives, commemorations, or surviving institutional establishments. I examine their contemporary legacy using visual sociology, a tool based on what we experience with our senses, engaging each woman’s leadership legacy in their modern enabling environment in order to construct a typology intersecting leadership strategies with gender and institutional structures and power.
Creative Economy as a Social Innovation: Lessons from Rio de Janeiro Pontos de Cultura
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dalia Maimon Schiray, Ana Paula De Campello, Cristine Carvalho, Gabriel Orsi Tinoco
I present article innovation and creative entrepreneurship in cultural projects of fifty non-governmental organizations – NGOs located in Rio de Janeiro city, named as Pontos de Cultura (Points of Culture) by the local municipality. The conceptual and analytical framework are based on literature review on the themes of creative economy and social innovation. In the last three decades, social innovations have been debated in different sectors of society, including a variety of activities associated with non-profit organizations, social entrepreneurship, social economy, and corporate social responsibility practices (Schachteret al, 2012). Furthermore, as Mulgan, Sanders and Tucker (2007) maintain, there are many lenses through which understand social innovation, as well a variety of approaches related to multiple subject areas. The work is divided into four parts. The first one analyzes the main approaches of social technology and the creative economy, pointing distinctions between international approach that combines creative economy with the latest technology and the Brazilian reality where the focus is on social entrepreneurship. In the second part are emphasized methodological issues related to the collection and analysis of data. Later, in the third section, we submit the analysis of the cultural projects based on the thesis of innovation stages of organizations, (Caulier, Grice and Mulgan, 2010): (1) factors that trigger action (prompts), inspirations and diagnostics; (2) proposals and ideas; (3) prototypes and pilots; (4) support; (5) design and dissemination; (6) systemic change. Finally, in the last section considerations of the study are outlined and limitations and suggestions for future research.
The International Indigenous Movement in the Twenty-first Century: An Investigation of the Necessary Conditions to Exercise the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Enrique Gomez llata
The objective of this research is to identify which are the necessary conditions and characteristics that indigenous social movements shall meet in order to be in the position to exercise the set of rights established in the 2008 UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In order to approach this topic, a set of interviews with experts and indigenous leaders is used to frame those necessary conditions and characteristics that indigenous social movements require to successfully engage these rights Vis a Vis Nation States or other power apparatuses. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explain when any given indigenous mobilization may be successful in using or appealing to the UN Declaration to meet their social, political, economic, or cultural needs, or well when the characteristics of such movement may look for different alternatives than the UN Declaration to meet their objectives.
