Do Social Movements Affect History? Alternative Pathways Part III

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Part III with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, follows below.
All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series are here.

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TWF: You think all these farmers markets will really do anything? Or do they just make for a more fun middle class weekend?

DH: There are actually two or three complicated questions here. Even though one can demonstrate significant growth trends in many localist institutions (such as farmers' markets), does the localist movement really have any long-term economic significance? I'm doing a lot of thinking about that question now, because as an activist I'm involved in various localist movement activities in my region. I think the short answer is that the effects will depend on the ability to get into investment in a way that goes beyond socially responsible mutual funds, so that retirement accounts are can be easily channeled into the alternative economic institutions.

The second question has to do with the class bias of various pathways. I included the access pathways, which are anchored in antipoverty movements from at least the 1960s to the present, because I wanted to flag this issue. I am optimistic about the potential for convergence between middle-class urban sustainability movements and the environmental justice movement, a topic that Julian Agyeman is exploring as "just sustainability." [Ed. note: here's a *.pdf intro to that work.] However, I think we need to be clear that different movements have different social addresses, which involve political limitations and opportunities.

TWF: I wasn't sure what direction I really wanted to go there.

DH: In think your broader question is more philosophical: do social movements affect history? At a broader, world historical level, there appear to be certain long-term trends that political activism may not reverse, although ecological limits might. The trends have been recognized in various social theory traditions and include increased scale of cities, population, and human societies; increased societal differentiation; the universalization of institutions; and the denaturalization of societies in the sense of increased mediation of the society/environment relationship by technology. Recognizing long-term trends may help us to see what is more and less likely to be changed. I think the current political trends toward neoliberalism, corporate consolidation, environmental degradation, democracy deficits, and increased within-nation inequality do have significant potential to be addressed by social movements.

TWF: One of my peers and now one of your fellow faculty members (I won't name names - so let's just refer to him as "Dean N."; no, that's not well cloaked...how about "D. Nieusma"?) tells me the RPI STS program is sometimes thought of as the "safer sidewalks" program (as opposed to being about more arcane theories, perhaps of how, oh I don't know, scallops have agency?). He's half-kidding of course, and neither of us buy into a strict practice-theory split anyway, but this needlessly wordy question is leading somewhere: does your book further or undermine that (admittedly half-baked) impression of RPI STS?

DH: Of the various STS graduate programs that are now in existence, ours pays relatively greater attention to issues of social movements, social change, sustainability, diversity, and social justice than some of the other programs. The sidewalk episode involved the need for a safe pedestrian crosswalk between the main campus and the student union, and the issue eventually was resolved after a student mobilization to get the crosswalk approved and installed. Some interesting issues of design and technology for crosswalks actually emerged (the first one was rapidly destroyed by snowplows), and one of the student leaders, David Levinger, wrote his dissertation on "pedestrian technologies" and went on to found the Seattle-based pedestrian advocacy organization "Feet First." I think my book is consistent with the "STS in the streets" work and many other research projects coming out of our department, but I would challenge the idea that work on such issues is not theoretically rich or complex. What I've tried to do in my book is develop a conceptual framework for exploring such issues and a rationale for why they deserve greater attention. In a sense I've suggested an alternative pathway in STS.

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Part 1 | 2 | 3