Unpublished Paper
Pairing and Intentional Activist Groups and Empowering Diverse Social Movement Organizational Forms
(2023)
Abstract
During the long history of community practice, our years of struggle and consciousness raising have improved our understanding of the need for multicultural organizations, of the central nature of work against racism regardless of organizational composition, and of the relationship between racism and other issues. But what is still needed at this stage of evolution as macro practitioners are new tactics in organization-building which can help us express our evolving consciousness. What can be done to build socially diverse organizational forms which institutionalize progressive visions and link them to actual ongoing struggles of oppressed people? There is clearly no simple solution. The tension between activists who stress organization-building and those who stress strategies for sparking social movements is long-standing. This discussion is geared towards identifying specific tactics related to building organizations which have a closer link to social movements.
This article discusses the recognized problem of lack of diversity within voluntary associations in general and social movement organizations in particular, with a special focus on the issue of the lack of cultural diversity and the need to create organizational forms which ensure the full participation of people of color. The article begins with a literature review of this issue and of the factors identified as being related to continued. Related to this issue is the continued existence of a large population of professional, religious and political organizations which are made up largely of people of color. A literature review and statistics concerning this population of organizations is presented next.
Keywords
- community organizing,
- community practice,
- social movement organizations,
- organizational diversity,
- voluntary association diversity
Disciplines
Publication Date
Spring May 8, 2023
Citation Information
Michael A. Dover. "Pairing and Intentional Activist Groups and Empowering Diverse Social Movement Organizational Forms" (2023) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/michael-dover/30/