Positive Social Change: The Global Impact Of Social Movements

775 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What social movements occurred essay

In order to understand the particular relationship which an individual who actively pursues the transformation of a vision for positive social change into a reality has with the external power resources required to manifest such a reality, it is necessary to have a minimal understanding of the specific power resources engaged. One specific power resource which has historically been employed as a vehicle of change is that of a social movement.
Social Movements Defined In general, social movements have been identified as being “an answer to a threat or hope that is directly linked to the control that a social group has over its capacity to make decisions, to control changes” (Touraine, 2002, p. 1). Adding to this, McCarthy and Zald …show more content…

342). For the purpose of elucidation, consider that 1.1 million Canadian households experienced food poverty in 2012 (Roshanafshar & Hawkins, 2015, p. 4); just below five percent, or 10 million people in Brazil experienced food poverty in 2013 (Food and Agriculture Organization., International Fund for Organizational Development., & World Food Programme., 2015, p. 20); and a robust 15.8 million households in the United States experienced food poverty in 2015, with 19.4 million people living in extreme poverty (Coleman-Jensen, Singh, & Gregory, 2016, …show more content…

320). An example can be found in an international peasant movement called La Via Campesina, which is specifically motivated to take control of decisions about the food system, and supports women’s rights, the elimination of agricultural dumping, and the end of genetically modified foods (Grey & Patel, 2014). Just as food insecurity and social agricultural movements are no longer limited to the Global South, so to have such movements extended beyond the borders of rural landscapes into urban settings across the globe (Dubbeling, & Merzthal, 2006, pp. 20, 21; De Zeeuw, Van VeenHuizen, & Dubbeling, 2011, pp.

Show More
Related

  • Charles Stewart's Persuasion And Social Movements

    1848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Existing within the movement must be a leader or leaders, as well as a large number of committed followers or members. Additionally, social movements have “organizations or coalitions” working as a guiding backbone for collectivity and regulation (Stewart,

    Read More

  • Identity in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Isaac Babel’s My First Goose

    1747 Words  | 4 Pages

    Polletta, Francesca and James Jasper. “Collective Identity and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 (2001): 283–305. Print.

    Read More

  • Food Insecurity in the USA

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Of those, 46.5 million were in poverty (Hunger & Poverty Statistics, 2012). For some individuals’s food insecurity is only a temporary situation, for others it may be for an extended period. Food insecurity due to temporary situations such as unemployment, divorce, major medical or illness can become more long term. The vast majority of these are families with children. The Faces of Food Insecurity Food insecurity does not discriminate; it reaches many segments of society (Whitney, DeBruyne, Pinna, & Rolfes, 2007).

    Read More

  • The True Believer Summary

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    Part one, The Appeal of Mass Movements, describes why people would be drawn towards a mass movement. "For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine." (Page 11) During this chapter the author uses a wealth of historical information including the French Revolution and the English Industrial Revolution. The author also details what conditions are most suited for a mass movement to take place. He tells that when people are ready for mass movement, they will usually go for any type.

    Read More

  • The Rural Landless Workers Movement of Brazil

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    The MST, or the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra ( the Rural Landless Workers Movement) is the largest social movement in South America, with about 5000,000 supporters (Epstein 2). Under the slogan of "Ocupar, Resistir, Produzir" ("Occupy, Resist, Produce"), the MST uses non-violent civil disobedience to pressure the government to speed up agrarian reform and close the gap between the rich and the poor. The goal of the MST is to provide land to the millions of landless peasants who can cultivate and subsist on what appears to be a highly disproportionate amount of unproductive and under utilized land. The current economic crisis in Brazil could translate to more support for the MST movement and signal a change in the percentage of land use and landless workers as they currently stand.

    Read More

  • Advocate for Affordable Housing

    567 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sandoval, A.D., Rank, R.M., & Hirschl, A.T. (2009). The Increasing Risk of Poverty Across the

    Read More

  • The Literature On Social Studies

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    (Turner and Killian 1987) cited in (Diani 1992, p. 4) define social movements as a “collectivity acting with some continuity to promote or resist a change in the society or organisation of which it is part. As a collectivity a movement is a group with indefinite and shifting membership and with leadership whose position is determined more by informal response of adherents than by formal procedures for legitimizing authority”. Turner and Killian regard a social movement as a peculiar kind of collective behavior that is contrasted to regularity and institutional behavior. Additionally, Turner believes that social movements do not necessarily coincide with movement organisations, although these organisations can carry out a large part of the movement tasks and it is often help to control and speak for movements (Diani 1992).

    Read More

  • Poverty and Nutrition in America

    2225 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gundersen, Waxman, Engelhard, and Brown (2010) found in their study that 50 million people (including 17 million children) were food insecure in 2010. Poverty and food insecurity affects the lives of billions of people worldwide and millions of people in the United States. More than two billion pe...

    Read More

  • Essay On Hunger And Hunger

    1844 Words  | 4 Pages

    There has been an increase in the hunger and starvation rates all over the world. It is documented that nearly one billion people suffer from hunger and related illnesses each and every day (Eggebeen & Lichter, 12). In the United States of America, many people have been known to suffer from hunger. The most people who suffer from starvation and hunger are the low class and some middle class income earners. This has caused so many deaths, and it has been one of the factors that has caused so many deaths and increased mortality rates in the United States. According to research conducted by the household food security in the United States, they found out that approximately fifteen percent of all the households in America suffered from moderate

    Read More

  • Food Insecurity Essay

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    When considering the topic of poverty and hunger, many Americans look outside the borders of the United States. However, food insecurity is an issue that plagues millions of American households each year. The United States Department of Agriculture found that 14.5% of American households faced food insecurity during 2012. These households were defined as having “difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources” (Nord, Singh, Coleman-Jensen).

    Read More

  • Women and Gender Studies

    640 Words  | 2 Pages

    Knowledge is power. An example of awareness producing activism can be seen in the war against Iraq. When one learns of an unjust war being carried out they, now knowing the circumstances, will act as they will to stop the injustices occurring. The same can be seen in women’s activism. When people become educated on the topic of women’s rights, they come to understand the circumstances and can act accordingly to help stop the problems from carrying on. Anne-Marie O’Connor’s article about the maquiladora women in Mexico and their terrible working conditions brought awareness about, as well as Sam Dylan’s article on the mistreatment of these women.

    Read More

  • The Hippie Subculture

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    Researchers classify social movements according to the type of change they seek (Aberle, 1966, Cameron, 1966, Blumer, 1969, as cited in Macionis, 2007). According to John Macionis, a social movement is when people commonly band together to create an organized activity that encourages or discourages social change (Macionis, 2008). In the case of this radical society, Hippies were typically ...

    Read More

  • The Effects of Poverty on Children

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alaimo, K., Olson, C. M., Frongillo, E. A., & Briefel, R. R. (2001). Food insufficiency, family income, and

    Read More

  • Food Insecurity Essay

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Food insecurity is defined as a household-level socioeconomic issue where access to food is either limited or uncertain; hunger itself is an individual issue that may result from food insecurity. In America, the question of its citizens being hungry is a commonly addressed issue, but there seems to be no true change involved. The issue itself lies not in the fact that we don’t produce enough food, because we greatly overproduce, but in the fact that it is allocated to those who can afford to eat. The issue of societal classes further ties into the issue of food insecurity; the top one percent controls a majority of the country’s resources. The underlying question to food insecurity is how to solve it, and is it possible to develop a solution

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Poverty

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poverty is an undeniable problem in America. In 2014, 14.8 percent of the United States was in poverty (“Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet”). There are more people in the United States than it seems that do not have their basic necessities. In an

    Read More

More about Positive Social Change: The Global Impact Of Social Movements

Open Document