Social Movements and
Cultural Change
Andrew Jamison
Aalborg University
Based on:
Social Movements. A Cognitive Approach, by Ron Eyerman
and Andrew Jamison (Polity and Penn State 1991)
Music and Social Movements, by Ron Eyerman and Andrew
Jamison (Cambridge University Press 1998)
The Making of Green Knowledge, by Andrew Jamison
(Cambridge University Press 2001)
Hubris and Hybrids, by Mikael Hård and Andrew Jamison
(Routledge 2005)
Social Movements as
Knowledge Makers
 movements seen as sites for collective learning
 integrating theory and practice: ”cognitive praxis”
 fostering hybrid forms of agency, or imagination
 places where ”movement intellectuals” are formed
 ...and where culture and politics can sometimes meet
Dimensions of
Cognitive Praxis
 Cosmology, or episteme (theoretical knowledge)

ideas, ontological and normative assumptions
 Technology, or techne (practical knowledge)

practices, forms of action and performance criteria
 Organization, or phronesis (ethical knowledge)

values, spaces for knowledge-making and mobilizaing traditions
The Hybrid Imagination
 At a macro, or discursive level

connecting ideas, integrating knowledge and action
 At a micro, or personal level

combining identities, and forms of practical activity
 At a meso, or institutional level

creating sites of collective, or organizational learning
The Making of Modern Science
From movements…
to institutions
reform of religion
reform of philosophy
visionary, utopian
realistic, pragmatic
decentralized organization
(central) academy
technical improvements
scientific development
informal communication
formal publication
The Hybrid Imagination 1
 The ”Renaissance Men”: Leonardo and co.
 Artists and engineers in combination
 Connecting magic and to humanism
 A focus on detail and precise observation
 The invention of experimentation
Leonardo da Vinci:
The artist-engineer
The Hybrid Imagination 2
 Scholars and craftsmen in combination
 e.g. Paracelsus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo
 Inspired by Luther and ”Protestant Ethic”
 Connected theory to observation
 The invention of scientific ”method”
Tycho Brahe:
The scholarcraftsman
Long Waves of Industrialization,
or where hubris is generated
mechanization
1800
socialization
modernization
1850
enlightenment romanticism
1900
socialism
scientification globalization
2000
1950
anticolonialism
environmentalism
Cultural and Social Movements,
or where hybrids are fostered
The First Wave
 ”the industrial revolution” (ca 1780-1830)
 Iron, textile machines, and steam engines
 Technologies of mechanization
 The factory as an organizational innovation
 Social and cultural movements:
 ”machine-storming”
and cooperation
 romantic art and literature, e.g. Frankenstein
The Industrial Revolution
A Hybrid Imagination:
Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
• the
scientist-artist who invented the telegraph (1832)
• made a machine that could communicate
• devised a new technical language, Morse code (1838)
A Hybrid Imagination:
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)
• a ”romantic” scientist, author of Walden
• one of the founders of environmentalism
• also wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849)
The Second Wave
 ”the age of capital” (ca 1830-1880)
 Railroads, telegraph, and steel
 Technologies of socialization
 The rise of the corporation (Carnegie, Krupp)
 Social and cultural movements:
 populism,
communism and social-democracy
 science fiction and arts and crafts
The Industrial Society
A Hybrid Imagination:
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
The philosopher-turned-economist
 Philosophy (Hegel) meets economics (Ricardo)
 Positivism (Comte) meets socialism (Owen)
 Idealism (Kant) meets materialism (Bentham)
 science meets the industrial society
A Hybrid Imagination:
William Morris (1834-1896)
 A romantic poet turned designer
 Combined artistry and business
 Mixed tradition and innovation
 A utopian who was also practical
A major
influence on…
 Interior and industrial design
 Architecture: Wright, Gehry, Utzon
 Urban and regional planning
 Socialist politics and culture
 The ”education of desire”
The Third Wave
 ”the age of empire” (ca 1880-1930)
 Electricity, automobiles, chemicals and airplanes
 Technologies of modernization
 Research becomes a business (Edison, DuPont)
 Social and cultural movements:
 anticolonialism
 modernism
and fascism
and human ecology
The Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk
Henry Ford with his 10 millionth car
A Hybrid Imagination:
The Bauhaus (1919-1933)
"art and technology –
a new unity”
A Hybrid Imagination:
Mohandas Gandhi
The Western-trained lawyer
who mobilized traditions in the
struggle for independence
”Just as matter
displaced becomes
dirt, Reason misplaced
becomes lunacy.”
Click to hear ”Water Boy”
Paul Robeson
(1898-1976)
Singer, actor,
political activist
Carl Sandburg
(1878-1967)
Poet and folk song collector
The people is a myth, an abstraction.
And what myth would you put in place of the people?
And what abstraction would you exchange for this one?
And when has creative man not toiled deep in myth?
from The People, Yes
Click to hear ”This Land is Your Land”
Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly:
combining traditions in the popular front
The Fourth Wave
 the coming of technoscience (ca 1930-1980)
 Atomic energy, genetics, and computers
 Technologies of scientification
 The rise of transnational corporations (IBM, Sony)
 Social and cultural movements:
 civil
rights and ”ban the bomb”
 environmentalism,
feminism and postmodernism
The Modern Age
The Hybrid Imagination:
Rachel Carson and environmentalism
”The road we have long been
traveling is deceptively easy,
a smooth superhighway om
which we progress with great
speed, but at its end lies
disaster.”
Click to hear Joan Baez singing ”All My Trials”
”Woody’s Children”:
The Folk Revival as a Social Movement
Click to hear ”Blowin’ in the Wind”
A Hybrid
Imagination:
Bob Dylan, 1941-
A New Wave or a New Age?
 ”the age of information” (från ca 1980)
 Converging technologies (info-, bio-, cogno-, nano)
 Technologies of the virtual
 Global corporate empires (Microsoft, Nokia, Monsanto)
 Social and cultural movements:
 identity
politics and ”open source”
 ecological
and global justice
The Age of Information
An Emerging Movement for
Global Justice
 outgrowth of anti-globalization protests
 a ”movement of movements”, based on global networks
 combining local engagement with global issues
 contending conceptions of global justice
 tensions with old and new social movements
Applying the
Cognitive Approach
 between the ”grand theory” of Negri and Hardt…
 and the ”abstracted empiricism” of Sidney Tarrow et al
 making spaces for collective knowledge making and learning
 and for the mobilization of cultural traditions
 by trying to put the hybrid imagination into action
A Movement Intellectual:
Vandana Shiva
with Carlo Petrini at a slow food cafe
Vandana Shiva’s
Cognitive Praxis
On the discursive, or cosmological level –
ecofeminism, public accountability, ”earth democracy”
On the institutional, or organizational level organic agriculture, seed banks, international campaigns
On the technical, or practical level –
public speaking, advocacy research, counter-expertise
Click to hear ”Globalization Blues”
The Hybrid
Imagination
in Action
We Need to Change Our Ways
Please sing along!
We need to change our ways
And how we spend our days,
Stop taking so much from the earth
And learn what life is really worth.
We've taken more than we should
And we've done less than we could,
We've taken chances with our fate
Oh, let us hope it's not too late.
We need to change our schools
And rearrange our tools,
Teach our children how to share
And teach each other how to care.
We need to change our ways
And how we spend our days,
Stop taking so much from the earth
And learn what life is really worth.
We need to change our minds
Before the world unwinds,
Learn of the patterns and the flows,
From where life comes and where it goes.