upcoming
Thesis defences are public events. Copies of the thesis are usually available for viewing in the Sociology Graduate Office in the two week period preceding the defence.
Departmental defence for the Ph.D. in Sociology by Joanna Robinson
March 16, 2010, 1:30 - 4:00 p.m., ANSO 2107
Advisory committee: David Tindall (Supervisor), Rima Wilkes, Jennifer Chun
Contested Water: Anti-Water Privatization Movements in the United States and Canada
The dissertation compares two social movements opposed to water privatization in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Stockton, California, United States. While these movements emerged in response to similar global forces and institutions, they developed differently and had divergent outcomes. While the movement in Vancouver successfully prevented the privatization of local water services, the movement in Stockton failed to prevent water services from being privatized. Through a qualitative comparative analysis, I identify the specific underlying pathways that explain how structural, relational and cognitive mechanisms combine to shape mobilization and outcomes, including how activists negotiate obstacles, respond to opportunities, and utilize social networks and discursive strategies to achieve their goals. My analysis also illuminates how each of these mechanisms is altered by the interplay between global and local processes, including international institutions and economic opportunity structures. The findings demonstrate the complex pathways in which global forces shape contention on the ground, through the presence of global connectors, who link global and local opportunities and by facilitating a sense of strategic localism that unites communities under a common fate. I identify three factors that explain differences in movement trajectories and outcomes between the Vancouver and Stockton cases: 1) differences in political opportunities, 2) differences in labour-environmental coalitions, and 3) differences in movement framing strategies. First, differences in political opportunities, including the degree of institutional openness, the presence or absence of pre-existing movements, and the integration of global and local opportunities shaped opportunities for movement success. Second, the divergent outcomes between the movements in Stockton and Vancouver are explained by differences in the strength and cohesion of labour-environmental coalitions in each case. The presence or absence of an organizational culture that embraces social movement unionism, the presence or absence of key bridge building organizations and the capacity of movements to unite previously disconnected groups through synthesized framing strategies shaped differences in the strength and success of labour-environmental coalitions. Third, movement outcomes are explained by the different framing strategies of the two movements. The use of global frames by social movement actors in Vancouver facilitated a favourable outcome for the movement by creating a sense of local solidarity in the face of global threats, while divisions within the movement coalition in Stockton and the lack of attention to global frames resulted in a fractured framing strategy that failed to resonate with political elites and open up opportunities for success. By revealing how global processes are constituted and reconstituted by local social movement actors and organizations – as well as how they interact with opportunities, networks and frames – my research adds a more nuanced and complete understanding of the specific ways globalization is shaping social movement trajectories and outcomes on the ground. The findings contribute to the sociological understanding of local social movements in a globalizing world and demonstrate the need to examine contention as a dynamic process that is shaped by the interplay of multi-level mechanisms.