James S. Ormrod

Practicing social movement theory in case study groups

This article evaluates the use of a “case study group” method for teaching social movement theory. The aim was to give students the opportunity to practice theorizing actively rather than simply learning theory passively. The method provides this by requiring students to undertake case studies on social movements of their choice for the duration of the course, to complete tasks that require them to apply different theoretical ideas and concepts to these case studies, and then to discuss this process in small supportive groups of their peers. In line with existing literature, student evaluations identified four major benefits to learning in this way: forcing active participation, working collaboratively, being able to “practice” ideas, and developing a better understanding of theory through its application to “the real world.”

Beyond World Risk Society? A Critique of Ulrich Beck's World Risk Society Thesis as a Framework for Understanding Risk Associated with Human Activity in Outer Space:

This paper examines the risks generated by human activity in outer space, exploring the possibility of extending Ulrich Becks ‘world risk society’ thesis beyond the globe. Through the use of three case studies looking at (1) the use of nuclear power in space missions, (2) the proliferation of space debris, and (3) proposed space solutions to environmental problems, it argues for the usefulness of some of Becks concepts whilst providing a critique of some of his central theoretical assumptions. In particular, the inadequacies of Becks accounts of economic power and subjectivity are highlighted throughout the paper, and used to suggest that Becks optimism about the emergence of a cosmopolitan public sphere is misplaced. The paper finishes by arguing that Becks understanding of a ‘reinvention of politics’ based on the intrusion of risk into everyday life cannot cope with the kinds of risk discussed in the paper. It concludes that it is only through greater recognition of the depth of the economic and psychic structures at work that the politics of risk in outer space can be challenged.

Introduction: Changing Our Environment, Changing Ourselves

‘Changing Our Environment, Changing Ourselves’ was the subtitle to Peter Dickens’s award-winning 2004 book, Society and Nature, as well as a 2003 paper. This relationship has been his central concern across many wide-ranging texts. This book celebrates his interest in how human subjectivity, health, and psychological well-being are changed as we work collectively on our environment.

Defragmenting Nature: Themes in Peter Dickens’s Work

In this chapter, I outline what I see as the key themes infusing Peter Dickens’s work. This work has spanned a huge range of topics, including housing, nationalism, the city, social class, evolutionary thought, the environment, and outer space. But across this work, I believe there are five recurring themes: (1) the effects of the mental/manual division of labour on internal and external nature, (2) the alienation of humans from nature, (3) the third contradiction of capitalism (between capital and internal nature), (4) the relationship between unconscious mechanisms and social and spatial divisions, and (5) the significance of production, consumption, and identity in ‘escape attempts’ and pre-figurative utopias. These themes emerge during the course of his oeuvre, and are still being reformulated as Dickens continues to write, but I believe that tracing their emergence and translation from one context to another tells us a great deal about their value. Before discussing these five themes, however, it is necessary to say something about their philosophical grounding in Dickens’s engagement with critical realism.

Fantasy in Lacanian Theory

Whilst Freud’s theory was itself inherently social (Craib, 1994), Lacan is often credited with the most radical development of psychoanalysis in respect to our understanding of society and politics (e.g. Stavrakakis, 1999). His influence on contemporary social and cultural theory means he cannot reasonably be ignored (Homer, 2005, p. 1). This is particularly true in this book, as it is within Lacanian political theory that the relationship between fantasy and social movements has most directly been addressed. For Lacan and Lacanian theory, fantasy lies at the very heart of subjectivity. The only true alternative to fantasy is psychosis. For Lacan’s disciples, his revision of Freud in respect to fantasy means that the latter’s ‘view of fantasy cannot be maintained in psychoanalytic theory (Evans, 1996, p. 60, emphasis added). In particular, those who work with the classical dualism between fantasy and reality are likely to be branded as guilty of ‘naeve realism’ (Žižek, 1989, p. 47). Glynos (2011, p. 83) refers to earlier theories as reflecting ‘staid “false consciousness” conceptualizations of fantasy’.

Introduction: Fantasy and Social Movements in Context

What part does fantasy play in social movements? This may appear to be an odd question to ask. It stirs up some of the most fundamental dichotomies in the history, not only of social movement theory but of the social sciences in general: collective/individual; real/imagined; action/escape; rational/irrational. Social movements have commonly been defined as collective enterprises responding to real social conditions and acting to change them in some positive way, and in most recent theory they have also been understood as expressions of (albeit perhaps ‘bounded’) rationality on the part of their participants. Fantasy, on the other hand, is often thought of as private and therefore highly individual, and as representing a turn away from reality and social action. As Knafo & Feiner (2006, p. 1) define them, ‘fantasies are our own private form of psychodrama, where we are both author and protagonist’. And insofar as this book engages with psychoanalytic notions of fantasy specifically, and psychoanalysis generally acknowledges the existence of both unconscious fantasies and conscious fantasies or daydreams, it might be seen as threatening to associate activism with the unconscious, the irrational and even the pathological. It is certainly generally accepted that fantasies are not ‘chosen’ by the fantasizer. The most fundamental argument of this book is that fantasy does nonetheless play an important role in activism.

Smelser’s Theory of Collective Behaviour

This chapter represents an unfashionable engagement with the work of the collective behaviour theorist Neil Smelser (1962, 1969). Smelser studied under and worked with Parsons (see Parsons & Smelser, 1998), and his sociological work was heavily influenced by his functionalist framework, as he acknowledges. Although he did not hold that society was often in a completely harmonious and stable state, he retained the notion of such equilibrium as the baseline from which the emergence of collective behaviour needed to be explained. His theory therefore hinges on the idea that social movements are the results of strains in the social structure, defined as ‘the impairment of the relations among, and consequent inadequate function of, the components of social action’ (Smelser, 1962). According to Smelser, ‘people join radical movements because they experience social dislocation in the form of social strain, especially when such strain springs from rapid social change’ (Smelser cited in Weeber & Rodeheaver, 2003). The notion of strain is arguably the most critical component of his model of the determinants of collective behaviour (Weeber & Rodeheaver, 2003), although the existence of strains alone was not considered enough to explain why collective behaviour occurred at the times and in the forms that it did. Importantly for this book, Smelser assumes ‘that perceived structural strain at the social level excites feelings of anxiety, fantasy, hostility, etc’ (1962, p. 11).

Social Movement Theory and Types of Action

This chapter maps the terrain of’ social movement theory’ as a recognized field of academic work, and considers the place of psychoanalysis within it. A common way of bringing order to the social movements literature is to divide it geographically between US and European literatures, and historically. In respect of the latter, ‘paradigm shifts’ have been stimulated by changes in the nature of movements themselves and the changing relationship of academics to them. Marx & Wood (1975, p. 364), explain this succinctly: At the turn of the century [the field of collective behaviour] was dominated by higher status theorists threatened by social change. In the 1950s, its spokesmen were more or less detached researchers. These have given way to an increasing number of more activist researchers, who view the study of collective behaviour as a way to encourage social change.

The Pro-Space Movement and Political Organization

The organization of the movement relates to the way in which fantasy is managed within the movement. Some general principles common to all social movements hold here, as already discussed. First and foremost is the way in which the movement fantasy of a spacefaring civilization is kept at a critical distance from the ideology of the movement. And then, at another level, the way in which individual activists’ fantasies are held at a distance from this more general fantasy in turn. As I will discuss towards the end of this chapter, the management of this is central to understanding the evolution of the pro-space movement over time. But to begin with I want to explore some of the ways in which the pro-space movement currently manages fantasy through more specific features of its organization, and, crucially, how these features allow for the production of enjoyment within the movement (recalling some of the discussion of Stavrakakis’s work in Chapter 3).

Fantasy in Freudian Theory

The first part of this chapter builds up a picture of Freud’s theory of phantasy, beginning in his topographic period. As this picture is developed, the other components of the ontological constellation I am addressing are brought into clearer view. The second part turns attention to the ways in which Freud’s understanding of individual phantasy has been drawn into social theory, especially as it relates to collective behaviour.