Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-n7pht Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-10T05:29:58.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - TWO KINDS OF STUFF: THE CURRENT ENCOUNTER OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2012

Elisabeth S. Clemens
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Gerald F. Davis
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Doug McAdam
Affiliation:
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California
W. Richard Scott
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Mayer N. Zald
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

The warning comes from Leviticus: “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff” (cited in Douglas 1966: 53). Given these commandments, one might suspect that it is also dangerous to mix literatures of different kinds. When tie-dyed activists and poor people's marches are central to the imagery of a theory, can that theory be transposed to corporate boardrooms and back offices without doing fundamental violence to our understanding of both phenomena? When formal authority and control over resources infuse the theoretical imagination of one literature, can that body of work truly inform the analysis of resistance to authority?

As befits a volume informed by studies of protest, the contributors ignore authority and break commandments. Yet there are signs that these literatures do not mesh seamlessly. Tensions appear at the margins of arguments; hybrid models suggest possibilities of innovation but also of problematic mutations or simply sterility. Viewed in a longer perspective, however, the current effort at cross-fertilization is only the most recent in a series of encounters between two sociological lineages that seem to both attract and repel one another. Each successive encounter has been fueled by distinctive concerns and offers diverging opportunities (or obstacles) to a more fruitful engagement.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×