Collective Climate Action: Francesca Polletta on three misconceptions about social movements

People often think that social movements emerge when people get so frustrated with the state of things that they cannot not act. They think that only people who really believe in the cause join social movements. And they think that social movements only have an impact when they change the hearts and minds of the public. In this episode, Francesca Polletta draws on research about social movements to say why each one of these commonsensical beliefs is actually wrong. Then she suggests what lessons we can take from the reality of why movements emerge, why people participate, and when movements have an impact, especially for building a movement to stop climate change.

Francesca Polletta is Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She studies the cultural dimensions of protest and politics, asking how and when politically disadvantaged groups have mobilized to make change. Her books include “Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements,” “It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics,” “Inventing the Ties that Bind: Imagined Relationships in Moral and Political Life,” “Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements,” and, with Edwin Amenta, “Changing Minds: When Movements Have Cultural Impact.” Francesca is currently working on projects about the kinds of storytelling that have persuasive power and about the cultural impacts of the women’s movement. 

This talk is part of the series “Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future” produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you’d like to watch a video version of this talk, it’s available on Spring Creek Project’s YouTube channel.