Jonas Lindblom

Emotion work in animal rights activism A moral-sociological perspective

Social movement activism requires emotional motivation and entails emotional costs, and, because of this, activists tend to be deeply involved in the management of emotions – or emotion work – and not just in connection with protest events, but also on an everyday basis. Based on a case study of animal rights activism in Sweden, this article identifies five types of emotion work that animal rights activists typically perform: containing, ventilation, ritualization, micro-shocking and normalization of guilt. The emotion work performed by activists, it is argued, is best understood from a moral-sociological perspective building on Durkheim’s sociology of morality, based on which the article then outlines key elements of a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of emotion work in social movements.

Moral Reflexivity and Dramaturgical Action in Social Movement Activism: The Case of the Plowshares and Animal Rights Sweden

Drawing on Durkheims sociology of morality, which identifies ideals and norms as the key components of morality, this article outlines a theoretical model for understanding how social movements can bring about legitimate social change. Social movement activists, we propose, can be conceptualized as followers and pursuers of sacred ideals. As such, they frequently come into conflict with existing norms in society. To manage this dilemma, activists must downplay their role as norm breakers while emphasizing their identity as followers of ideals. This in turn requires moral reflexivity in the staging of collective action. The article shows how dramaturgical control (Goffman) is exercised towards this end among activists engaged in two social movements in Sweden: the Plowshares peace movement and Animal Rights Sweden. The article further examines the internal stratification, or ‘moral hierarchies’, within the two activist groups in the light of the proposed model. The closer the activists were able to adhere to the sacred ideal, the higher the social status they enjoyed within the group.

A Deviance Perspective on Social Movements: The Case of Animal Rights Activism

This article outlines a theoretical framework for understanding deviance and deviance-management in a social movement context. Such a deviance perspective is useful because in striving for social change, activists challenge existing social norms and may readily be defined by their environments as “outsiders” or deviants. However, activists also differ from traditional deviant groups. The article therefore conceptualizes activists as “entrepreneurial deviants,” combining features of both moral entrepreneurs and deviants in society, as presented in Howard Beckers classical theory. It is argued that in order to understand the strategies of deviance-management performed by activists, traditional notions of “passing,” “techniques of neutralization,” and “subculture” must be complemented by the concepts of “confronting,” “techniques of idealization,” and the forming of a “transformative subculture.” Empirically, the article builds on a case study of animal rights activism in Sweden and the ways in which the activists counter stereotypes, which is interpreted as a form of deviance-management.

Daily newspaper reporting on elderly care in Sweden and Finland: a quantitative content analysis of ethnicity- and migration-related issues

Media representations are important sources of information especially about contexts that people have limited access to (such as the one we address here, that is, elderly care). Representations of this also give us an insight into how ethnicity-, culture-, and migration-related issues are regarded. This article aims to shed light on media representations related to the nexus of elderly care, ethnicity, and migration in Sweden and Finland, given that the two countries have similar elderly care regimes but different migration regimes. The study uses quantitative content analysis to analyze all of the daily newspaper articles on elderly care that have touched upon these issues and have been published in one major newspaper in each country between 1995 and 2011 (N=347). In this article, we present the topics that these newspaper articles discuss; the elderly care actors that the articles focus on (i.e. whether the focus has been on elderly care recipients, elderly care providers or informal caregivers); the ethnic backgrounds of those who expressed themselves in the articles (i.e. whether the focus has been on the ethnic majority or on ethnic minorities); and the type of explanatory frameworks used in the daily press reporting in question. The article problematizes the media representations of ethnicity- and migration-related issues within the Swedish and Finnish elderly care sectors that the analysis has unveiled in relation to the debate on the challenges that the globalization of international migration poses to the elderly care sector.