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Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 17:41:52 -0600
Message-Id: <199401142341.RAA12109@audumla.students.wisc.edu>
To: psn@csf.colorado.edu
From: pnovotny@students.wisc.edu (Patrick Novotny)
Subject: identity politics
I like very much the idea of having some kind of extended
debate/discussion/exchange on identity politics emerge through PSN.  I have
a feeling that once things get started, there will be a lot that can be
said in the end about coming up with alternative approaches to the study of
the sociology of political activism...

My research interest is less in identity politics per se than in the
construction and emergence of collective identities through social movement
activism.  Drawing upon the work of folks such as Doug McAdam, Aldon Morris
and Myra Marx Ferree, I am trying to understand in my dissertation the way
in which community activists working on environmental issues have
constructed in the process of their activism 'new' collective identities
around their work on environmental issues.  In this sense, I agree with
Martha's remarks that people create a 'vested interst in the maintenance of
those identities.'  This observation shouldn't be too far off of the mark
for people who have followed the literature on framing in social movements
research, particularly the work of David Snow and Robert Benford....My
interest, though, is expanding this to look at 'social movement cultures'
and 'movement discourses' to understand the way in which social movements
can be understood as 'signifying agents' that sustain new understandings of
societal problems as well as new self-understandings for activists
themselves...

I've still got a long way to go in thinking but would like to exchange
ideas on this with whoever is interested.  I would definitely be interested
in reading the paper on identity politics written by Martha.  I think that
could be a great starting point for this discussion...

Pat Novotny