Missing Class
Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures
Published on 20. March 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-8014-7920-5 (ISBN)
Description
Many activists worry about the same few problems in their groups: low turnout, inactive members, conflicting views on racism, overtalking, and offensive violations of group norms. But in searching for solutions to these predictable and intractable troubles, progressive social movement groups overlook class culture differences. In Missing Class, Betsy Leondar-Wright uses a class-focused lens to show that members with different class life experiences tend to approach these problems differently. This perspective enables readers to envision new solutions that draw on the strengths of all class cultures to form the basis of stronger cross-class and multiracial movements.The first comprehensive empirical study of US activist class cultures, Missing Class looks at class dynamics in 25 groups that span the gamut of social movement organizations in the United States today, including the labor movement, grassroots community organizing, and groups working on global causes in the anarchist and progressive traditions. Leondar-Wright applies Pierre Bourdieu's theories of cultural capital and habitus to four class trajectories: lifelong working-class and poor; lifelong professional middle class; voluntarily downwardly mobile; and upwardly mobile.Compellingly written for both activists and social scientists, this book describes class differences in paths to activism, attitudes toward leadership, methods of conflict resolution, ways of using language, diversity practices, use of humor, methods of recruiting, and group process preferences. Too often, we miss class. Missing Class makes a persuasive case that seeing class culture differences could enable activists to strengthen their own groups and build more durable cross-class alliances for social justice.
Reviews / Votes
Betsy Leondar-Wright's book is crucially important for social justice activists. She offers much-needed advice about how to acknowledge your class background and harness it for the greater good. Eye-opening and insightful, this book provides a new way forward.- Matthew Rothschild, Senior Editor (The Progressive) From fashion sense to senses of humor, Missing Class illustrates the subtle cues in which class disparities manifest within activist groups. In a context where class is sometimes conspicuously missing from our stories, this is a welcome reminder to put it back in.
- Louis Esparza (Mobilization) I cannot recommend Missing Class too highly. Some books stimulate you intellectually.... Some books deepen awareness.... Some books are practical.... It's rare to find a book that does one of these things well. A book that does all three, brilliantly, is beyond rare. It's a historical event.
- Milan Rai (Peace News) Leondar-Wright's Missing Classis by far the best book available on the touchy subject of 'classism' since her own previous work,Class Matters: Cross-class Alliance Building for Middle Class Activist, and Fred Rose's incisive 1999 study,Coalitions across the Class Divide: Lessons from the Labor, Peace, and Environmental Movements, also published by Cornell. Like Rose before her, the author illustrates what bridges the divide-and what doesn't-within left-liberal groups and the broader, more diverse coalitions we need to alter power relationships in the United States.
(The Labor Studies Journal) The book's greatest virtue is that it makes a strong case that class cultures do create substantial barriers among activists and can undermine their groups' efficacy. Anyone working with people of varying class back-grounds will appreciate the material presented in this book....Missing Class is a well-done book and a fine contribution to the study of social class in politics, and I hope that it will be a stepping stone for a new generation of research on activist groups that links internal processes with tangible outcomes.
- Fabio Rojas (Administrative Science Quarterly)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Cornell University Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
7 tables, 2 charts - 7 Tables, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8014-7920-5 (9780801479205)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2014
ILR Press
€22.49
Available for download
Person
Betsy Leondar-Wright is the Program Director of Class Action (www.classism.org). She is the author of Class Matters: Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists and coauthor of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide.
Content
Introduction: Activist Class Cultures as a Key to Movement Building
Part I: Class Diversity among Activists
1. Why Look through a Class Lens? Five Stories through Three Lenses
2. Applying Class Concepts to US Activists
3. Four Class Categories of Activists and Their Typical Group Troubles
4. Movement Traditions and Their Class Cultural Troubles
Part II. Activist Class Cultures and Solving Group Troubles
5. Where Is Everybody? Approaches to Recruitment and Group Cohesion
Class Speech Differences I: Humor and Laughter
6. Activating the Inactive: Leadership and Group-Process Solutions That Backfire
Class Speech Differences II: Abstract and Concrete Vocabulary
Class Speech Differences III: Racial Terms
7. Diversity Ironies: Clashing Antiracism Frames and Practices
Class Speech Differences IV: Talking Long, Talking Often
8. Overtalkers: Coping with the Universal Pet Peeve
Class Speech Differences V: Anger, Swearing, and Insults
9. Activists Behaving Badly: Responses to Extreme Behavior Violations
Class Speech Differences VI: Missing Class Talk
Conclusion: Building a Movement with the Strengths of All Class Cultures
Part I: Class Diversity among Activists
1. Why Look through a Class Lens? Five Stories through Three Lenses
2. Applying Class Concepts to US Activists
3. Four Class Categories of Activists and Their Typical Group Troubles
4. Movement Traditions and Their Class Cultural Troubles
Part II. Activist Class Cultures and Solving Group Troubles
5. Where Is Everybody? Approaches to Recruitment and Group Cohesion
Class Speech Differences I: Humor and Laughter
6. Activating the Inactive: Leadership and Group-Process Solutions That Backfire
Class Speech Differences II: Abstract and Concrete Vocabulary
Class Speech Differences III: Racial Terms
7. Diversity Ironies: Clashing Antiracism Frames and Practices
Class Speech Differences IV: Talking Long, Talking Often
8. Overtalkers: Coping with the Universal Pet Peeve
Class Speech Differences V: Anger, Swearing, and Insults
9. Activists Behaving Badly: Responses to Extreme Behavior Violations
Class Speech Differences VI: Missing Class Talk
Conclusion: Building a Movement with the Strengths of All Class Cultures