Social movement | EPFL Graph Search

A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations. Political science and sociology have developed a variety of theories and empirical research on social movements. For example, some research in political science highlights the relation between popular movements and the formation of new political parties as well as discussing the function of social movements in relation to agenda setting and influence on politics. Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement examining things such as scope, type of change, method of work, range, and time frame. Some scholars have argued that modern Western social movements became possible through education (the wider dissemination of literature) and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization of 19th-century societies. It is sometimes argued that the freedom of expression, education and relative economic independence prevalent in the modern Western culture are responsible for the unprecedented number and scope of various contemporary social movements. Many of the social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the Mau Mau in Kenya, to oppose Western colonialism. Social movements have been and continue to be closely connected with democratic political systems. Occasionally, social movements have been involved in democratizing nations, but more often they have flourished after democratization. Over the past 200 years, they have become part of a popular and global expression of dissent.

" Anomalies urbaines " : un urbanisme d'occupation à Hong Kong et Caracas.Enquête, théorie et méthode

Caroline Iorio

Based on two illegal occupation situations, one in Hong Kong, and the other in Caracas, this thesis proposes a foremost methodological and comparative appartus, as well as new theoretical terms to analyze the conflictual dimensions of the production of space, and to go beyond the binary spatial categories «formal/informal» with which certain practices and territoriality are generally interpreted in most countries located in the Global South. In the first situation, where a street hawker occupies a sidewalk in Hong Kong, an investigation into an Â«urban anomalyÂ» begins. It is based on the recording of Â«Â material tracesÂ Â», and highlights the process of the small shop of only a few square meterâs programmed disappearance, juxtaposed to one of the largest construction sites that the Asian metropolis has ever known. In the second situation, the occupation of abandoned urban buildings in downtown Caracas, the large amount of ethnographic material that has been compiled enabled the tracking of the popular and polyphonic history of social movements by revealing the Â«Â memorial traceÂ Â» of urban struggles for their right to the city and housing in Venezuela in the 2000s. The analyses show that, if not eradicated, occupations in urban centres and the Â«Â normative discordancesÂ Â» that characterize them are negotiated, transformed and then integrated into the city from the Â«Â blind spotsÂ Â» during the planning process to give rise to an Â«Â occupation urbanismÂ Â».

EPFL2021

As vias que removem não abrem caminhos

Mariana Fernandes Mendes

With the 2014 World Cup's confirmation in Brazil, the country massively invested in several road constructions throughout the twelve host cities, alleging that the urban mobility sector needed to be better suited and that this would be the greatest legacy left by the mega sports event in the country. These interventions, mostly still in course, did not exclusively come up for the event. The World Cup became the reason for the acceleration and/or execution for the constructions. Despite the investments collected by the federal government through the Matriz de Responsabilidades da Copa e do Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento - PAC 2 (World Cup Responsibility Matrix and Acceleration and Growth Program), the urban mobility constructions were restricted to rearranging roads surrounding the sports arenas in the host Brazilian cities. In other words, the "legacy" was made of concentrated territory traffic interventions and its cost-benefit is widely questioned in this thesis based on studies that discuss the urban through a critical perspective and from an analysis in the Fortaleza metropolis. The urban mobility constructions of the World Cup PACs and of the Fortaleza mobility were significant and caused deep social spatial impacts in the property appreciation and in the forced displacement of thousands of families which resisted and are still resisting the expropriation through organized social movements. Although there were improvements in the urban mobility sector in Fortaleza, many interventions made by the state and municipal governments go against an inclusive mobility. The constructions prioritize automobile circulation, which need more roads to circulate, and therefore feed a vicious predatory cycle. As we can see in Fortaleza, the mobility crisis impact caused by the huge automobile numbers provoke a constant road expansion space in order for them to circulate, which enhances the existing social spatial inequalities. This occurs due to the creative destruction and the urban road system process, which separates territory and boosts property appreciation in the metropolis, generating lower class areas expropriation through either forced expulsion or urban land price increase. Even though the mobility agenda is present in the urban political actions in a municipal, state and federal scope, its collective social and potential purpose are neutralized by its esthetic content with transient nature, apparently mythical, which has as a main effect the urban soil appreciation instead of assuring that urban access is made through its urban mobility equipment.

University of Campinas2017

As vias que removem não abrem caminhos

Mariana Fernandes Mendes

University of Campinas2017