Photo: Agencia Brasil, Rose Brasil. The Creative Commons Attributions 2.5 Brazil Licence applies. Picture retrieved from en.wikipedia.org November 15, 2006.

Today, my colleagues Ewa Grzechnik, Melanie Wilneder and me held a presentation on “New Social Movements” in our sociology seminar “Social Movements and Political Participation”, held by Prof. Dr. Christian Joppke, my academic advisor.

In the 1950s, Social Movements were largely concerned with the material issues and were comprised of socio-economically homogeneous demographics. Most of the discourse centered on questions of distribution of wealth, economic stability or industrial relations.

Politics and movements alike have changed since then. The New Social Movement of the end of the 20th century typically focuses on intangible, yet seemingly more universal issues, such as Human Rights, gender, pacifism, identity, and the environment. Movements now often transcend socio-economic boundaries; yet, they are not in fact amorphous or totally heterogeneous. As Anthony Giddens put it, they are “class aware, but not class conscious” (1973).

Identity movements, such as the gay rights movement, in some way, represent the spearhead of this development. When they take a deconstructionist stance (queer theory), they quickly face a dilemma. When sexual identity is to be deconstructed and de-essentialized, the movement lacks its basis in the first place. A quasi-ethnic or essentialist stance on gender allows for efficient identity construction required for mobilization. Taking this path may, however, reinforce the very identity, stereotypes and “essentializing” beliefs the movement aims to overcome.

I very much enjoyed working in this topic together with my colleagues. It appeared to me that, together with Claus Offe’s theoretically founded conceptualization of New Social Movements, the debate on identity movements provides manifold insights helpful for understanding and, also, criticizing New Social Movements, that are so enthusiastically greeted these days.

A heated debate in class on the topic of same-sex marriage and child adoption yet again showed how contentious these identity issues are. I was personally shocked to learn that some of my classmates hold outright essentialist positions, believing not only that gays and lesbians are inherently different, but also in some regard inferior, and, generally, not socially desirable.

It appears to me conspicuous that so many people have such strong feelings on this matter, despite the fact that the claims made by gays and lesbians tangibly affect hardly anyone, but themselves. My hunch is, that there is a lot more to discover on the identity issues also of the straight man. A question I would very much like to investigate empirically.

I am unfortunately unable to post a PDF-version of the presentation due to copyright limitations. If you are interested further, you are welcome to contact me.