The processual turn in social movement studies
Prerequisiti
optional for all PhD year and for Master
Programma
The processual turn in social movement studies
Donatella della Porta and Lorenzo Bosi
January 13th – February 26th 2025
Overview of the course: This seminar will provide students with a solid grounding in processual perspectives, which aim at reconstructing temporal sequences of interdependent events and actions unfolding over time in context. The field of social movement studies has progressively taken a processual turn over the last three decades, building primarily from historical sociology, political sociology, comparative-historical analysis, historical institutionalism and organisational sociology. In the first part of the seminar, we will review major processual approaches; in the second part, we will discuss how to apply processual approaches to ongoing research on collective action, presenting current research and discussing students’ research projects. The seminar is aimed at students interested in the broad field of collective action (strikes, democratization, social movements, nationalism, ethnic mobilization, interest groups, NGOs, revolutions, or wars).
Trainig objectives: The aim of the seminar is to stimulate participation in debates around recent research and theorization on new areas in social movement studies. By presenting research-in-progress the seminar also aims at linking theoretic and empirical dimensions. Linking theories with empirics, the seminar will host SNS post-doctoral fellows, in order to introduce a plurality of points of view on both theory and research project ongoing at the department of Political and Social Sciences at SNS. The course will serve as a guide for further independent research.
Course format: The course is articulated into N. sessions. Every session will be primary organized as a collective discussion rather than a lecture. For each of the meetings, students are required to adopt a pro-active stance based on the reading of all the articles/chapters in the reading list. All students must do the readings and active participation in the seminar is compulsory. During the last session of the seminar, students will present and discuss how their own projects relate to and build on processual approaches.
Master (50%) and PhD students will be evaluated through their participation and active participation in class. PhD students are not required to write a paper as the instructor will only determine whether they have passed (or failed) the course. Those PhD students who are willing to write their term paper on the topic of the course, between 5,000 and 6,000 words, must agree the topic of the paper with the professor. Master students must produce a final paper (in Italian or English) of not more than 3,000 words on one of the topics covered during the course (50%).
More detailed information on the requirements of the course will be discussed on the first day of class.
Obiettivi formativi
The processual turn in social movement studies
Donatella della Porta and Lorenzo Bosi
January 13th – February 26th 2025
Overview of the course: This seminar will provide students with a solid grounding in processual perspectives, which aim at reconstructing temporal sequences of interdependent events and actions unfolding over time in context. The field of social movement studies has progressively taken a processual turn over the last three decades, building primarily from historical sociology, political sociology, comparative-historical analysis, historical institutionalism and organisational sociology. In the first part of the seminar, we will review major processual approaches; in the second part, we will discuss how to apply processual approaches to ongoing research on collective action, presenting current research and discussing students’ research projects. The seminar is aimed at students interested in the broad field of collective action (strikes, democratization, social movements, nationalism, ethnic mobilization, interest groups, NGOs, revolutions, or wars).
Trainig objectives: The aim of the seminar is to stimulate participation in debates around recent research and theorization on new areas in social movement studies. By presenting research-in-progress the seminar also aims at linking theoretic and empirical dimensions. Linking theories with empirics, the seminar will host SNS post-doctoral fellows, in order to introduce a plurality of points of view on both theory and research project ongoing at the department of Political and Social Sciences at SNS. The course will serve as a guide for further independent research.
Course format: The course is articulated into N. sessions. Every session will be primary organized as a collective discussion rather than a lecture. For each of the meetings, students are required to adopt a pro-active stance based on the reading of all the articles/chapters in the reading list. All students must do the readings and active participation in the seminar is compulsory. During the last session of the seminar, students will present and discuss how their own projects relate to and build on processual approaches.
Master (50%) and PhD students will be evaluated through their participation and active participation in class. PhD students are not required to write a paper as the instructor will only determine whether they have passed (or failed) the course. Those PhD students who are willing to write their term paper on the topic of the course, between 5,000 and 6,000 words, must agree the topic of the paper with the professor. Master students must produce a final paper (in Italian or English) of not more than 3,000 words on one of the topics covered during the course (50%).
More detailed information on the requirements of the course will be discussed on the first day of class.