Social Movements and Collective Identity:

Abstract

Collective identity entered the social movements literature as an early recognition of the importance of meaning-making in shaping movement participants and influencing movement actions In this article, we go against the more usual practice of treating movements as unified actors, and instead, take a decentered, dialogic approach that recognizes the difficulties and contentiousness of producing movement identities amidst multiple discourses and practices. We illustrate this framework with three ethnographic cases from Canada, Scotland and Nepal, which highlight collective identity and meaning-making through place-based, contingent cultural processes. The cases use the concepts of figured worlds, alter-versions of identity, and cultural artifacts to show how collective identity develops dialogically in practice both within and outside of movements.

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