Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:42:07.939Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Limits of Protest Event Data and Repertoires for the Analysis of Contemporary Feminism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2010

Paul Bagguley
Affiliation:
University of Leeds

Extract

Protest event analysis (PEA) and the related concept of repertoire of contention are widely used in the study of social movements. Are they appropriate for the study of feminist protest? I argue that conventional forms of protest event analysis may have significant limitations when applied to feminist protest. Unobtrusive or individualized forms of resistance and protest associated with feminism are difficult to measure through typical protest event data. Moreover, the concept of repertoires of contention retains within it a number of unwarranted gendered assumptions. Some flow from being too reliant upon protest event data. I suggest that repertoires may be gendered, that this is unacknowledged by those who use the concept, and that this has implications for its normative dimensions.

Type
Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2010

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Andrew, Merrindahl. 2009. “Looking Back at Thinking Ahead: Feminist Institution-Building in Australia.” Presented at the International Political Science Association Congress, Santiago, Chile.Google Scholar
Bagguley, Paul. 2002. “Contemporary British Feminism: A Social Movement in Abeyance?Social Movement Studies 1: 169–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costain, Anne N. 1992. Inviting Women's Rebellion: A Political Process Interpretation of the Women's Movement. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Danzger, M. Herbert. 1975. “Validating Conflict Data.” American Sociological Review, 40: 570–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earl, Jennifer, Andrew, Martin, McCarthy, John D., and Soule, Sarah A.. 2004. “The Use of Newspaper Data in the Study of Collective Action.” Annual Sociological Review 30: 6580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grey, Sandra. 2009. “Arguing as ‘Special Interests’: Fraught Interactions Between New Zealand Social Movements and the New Public Sector.” Presented at the International Political Science Association Congress, Santiago, Chile.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod. 1990. “Feminism within American Institutions: Unobtrusive Mobilization in the 1980s.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16: 2754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koopmans, Ruud, and Statham, Paul. 1999. “Political Claims Analysis: Integrating Protest Event and Political Discourse Approaches.” Mobilization 4: 203–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, M. 1980. “Generating Newsworthiness: The Interpretive Construction of Public Events.” American Sociological Review 45: 984–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, John D., McPhail, Clark, and Smith, Jackie. 1996. “Images of Protest: Dimensions of Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Washington Demonstrations, 1982 and 1991.” American Sociological Review 61: 478–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, Pamela A., and Maney, Gregory M.. 2000. “Political Processes and Local Newspaper Coverage of Protest Events: From Selection Bias to Triadic Interactions.” American Journal of Sociology 106: 463505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olzack, Susan. 1989. “Analysis of Events in the Study of Collective Action.” Annual Review of Sociology 15: 119–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortiz, D., Myers, Daniel J., Wall, N. Eugene, and Diaz, Maria-Elena D.. 2005. “Where Do We Stand with Newspaper Data?Mobilization 10 (3): 397419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rucht, Dieter, 2003. “Interactions between Social Movements and States in Comparative Perspective.” In Women's Movements Facing the Reconfigured State, ed. Banaszak, Lee Ann, Beckwith, Karen, and Rucht, Dieter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sawer, Marian, and Grey, Sandra. 2008. “Introduction.” In Women's Movements: Flourishing or in Abeyance? ed. Grey, Sandra and Sawer, Marian. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Soule, Sarah, McAdam, Doug, McCarthy, John D., and Su, Yang. 1999. “Protest Events: Cause or Consequence of State Action? The U.S. Women's Movement and Federal Congressional Activities, 1956–1979.” Mobilization 4: 239–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Verta, and Van Dyke, Nella. 2004. “‘Get Up, Stand Up’: Tactical Repertoires of Social Movements.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, ed. Snow, David A., Soule, Sara A., and Kriesi, Hanspeter. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1995. “Contentious Repertoires in Great Britain, 1758–1834.” In Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, ed. Mark, Traugott. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2004. Social Movements: 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.Google Scholar