Explain the Marxist approach to the study of social movement.
Answers
When I started reading and writing about social movements, my main motivation was to understand my own engagement in activism at that time. In addition, I also wished to figure out how to use sociological knowledge from within in order to guide strategies, campaigns and public communication. Some essential scholar books from the 1990s, the celebrated article by Claus Offe, Touraine’s ambitious writings on the topic, Castells’ works on urban movements, a fascinating seminar led by Chris Rootes and Dieter Rutch I attended at the University of Kent (and the readings they recommended), all kinds of political literature from collectivist anarchism and autonomist Marxism I came across with, and some more specific guidance given by my supervisors (Tomás R. Villasante but also Chris Pickvance during the short period I spent in Kent), were incredibly helpful to make sense about the field. The secrets of coordinated collective action with a capacity to threaten the established statu quo were, without doubt, some of the key drivers of my studies of sociology and political science. By then, I focused on aspects I found quite neglected by the prevailing analytical approaches –