Geography and Social Movement Comparing Antinuclear Activism in the Boston Area

Context matters, as students of social movements increasingly agree, and yet very little attention has been paid to the role geography plays in activism. Geography and Social Movements corrects this oversight, bringing a geographical perspective to the study of social movements. Byron A. Miller directly addresses the implications of space, place, and scale in social movement mobilization, and then demonstrates their significance in a detailed comparative analysis of peace movements in three municipalities around Boston.

In focusing on the Boston area -- an old northeastern region, heavily industrialized with many companies working on military contracts, and also a center of education -- Miller is able to explore how campaigns aimed at curbing nuclear arms operate within the cultural, political, social, and economic confines of particular places and spaces. He shows how the decisions and actions of local peace movement organizations played a central role in the movements successes and failures, and how local organizations had to respond to the differing class, race, and gender characteristics of different locales. Millers empirical analysis clearly demonstrates that geographic strategies for social movement organizations have direct consequences for the successes and failures of specific campaigns.

Product details

• Authors: Byron A. Miller, Miller, MILLER BYRON A
• Publisher: University Of Minnesota Press
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 13.06.2000
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political theories and the history of ideas
• EAN: 9780816629503
• ISBN: 978-0-8166-2950-3
• Pages: 240
• Series: Social Movements, Protest and Contention; Social Movements, Protest, and > 12; Social Movements, Protest and Contention; Social Movements, Protest and > 12