Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research

by Kate Tilleczek (Editor), Caelie Frampton, Gary Kinsman (Editor)

In this collection, Frampton et al. bring together 11 essays inspired by the Sociology for Changing the World conference, held at Laurentian U. in Ontario, Canada, in November of 2002. Contributors, who are activists and professors of sociology and women's studies in Canada, focus on how to put political activist ethnography to use in doing research for social movements. Aiming to fill the need for a book that outlines, for students, researchers, and activists, how to do social transformation, they see the concept of social relations of normality as disturbing and consider social movements as active subjects, rather than objects. Essays describe the elements of political activist ethnography, and how the approach begins with people's social practices and experiences. They then examine how the confrontations of movements with ruling regimes are important, and how this type of activism can illuminate and change social relations. Included in the collection is the seminal article "Political Activist as Ethnographer" (1990) by George Smith and essays discussing his work. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Scott Neigh]

Re-read review written in February 2021: Theory written at/about the interface of social research and social movements. Produced in the aftermath of a conference held many years ago. I attended the conference, with no existing connection to any of the organizers or participants. A couple of years after, I ended up living in the city where it had been held and getting to know some of the organizers. I was extensively involved in grassroots work with one of the editors of this book, and for a period of time was in more extended grassroots networks with two of the others. I read this book soon after it came out and published both an informal blog-based review and then a tidied-up version in the journal *Upping the Anti*. As such, I'm not going to write much now. I re-read it because of its relevance to a chapter I'm about to write. The specific methods of institutional ethnography and political activist ethnography remain at a bit of a remove from anything I've actually done and the things I'll be writing about myself, but the ontological and epistemological understandings underlying those methods feel just as profound and just as *right* to me as they did when I first encountered them all those years ago – and just as important as a basis for understanding the world in a mode and on the scale in which our efforts to transform it take place. And even when movements do not explicitly think of what they are doing in the terms laid out in this book and in related material – and generally speaking, they don't – these ideas are crucial to understanding why and how movements are both sites and means of knowledge production, and not just any knowledge production but a sort that is absolutely crucial for understanding the unjust and violent world we live in and what is required for us to move towards social transformation and collective liberation.

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My review of the book for *Upping the Anti* is here -- also haven't looked at this one in ages.

My original blog-based reviewed is here -- I haven't looked at it in 15 years and I have no idea how I'd feel about it now, so be kind!