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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Publications

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Playing “Italianness” in popular music: National populism and music in contemporary Italy

Chapter in edited book - 2024

Author: Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan

The chapter discusses popular music and cultural practices as vectors for the articulation of national populism in the contemporary Italian context. After examining the Multiple Opportunity Structures (MOS) within which the nexus between music and politics is located in the country, it explores the ways in which popular music functions as a medium for the… more
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Social Movements Prefiguring Political Theory

Chapter in edited book - 2022

Author: Sophia Wathne

Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements, as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal… more
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Contentious subjects: Spatial and relational perspectives on refugee mobilizations in Europe

Chapter in edited book - 2019

Author: Elias Steinhilper and Ilker Ataç

Political protest by ‘refugees’ has proliferated worldwide, yet has only received marginal attention in social movement studies. According to dominant movement theories, migrants are unlikely subjects of mobilization due to legal obstacles (including ‘deportability’), limited economic and social capital and closed political and discursive opportunities. Building upon recent innovations in contentious politics, which stress the… more

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements: Media ecology and media practice approaches

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

The chapter tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies.… more
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I post, you rally, she tweets…and we all occupy. The challenges of hybrid spatiality in the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

After the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations in the USA and other countries across the world, many scholars emphasized the importance of protest camps and social media platforms for these protests. However, what has not been systematically explored is how the two are intertwined. Exploring the interconnections between camps and platforms, this chapter shows how a… more

A Global Movement for Real Democracy? The Resonance of Anti-Austerity Protest from Spain and Greece to Occupy Wall Street

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jerome Roos

How do instances of popular protest spread across borders? This question, which has eluded social scientists for decades, appears to have become more salient than ever in the wake of the seemingly unprecedented transnational cycle of struggles that began in 2010-'11. In this chapter, we look at the diffusion of anti-austerity protest between Spain, Greece… more

Alternative Media

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Alice Mattoni

Del levantamiento zapatista al escándalo NSA: Lecciones aprendidas, debates actuales y futuros desafíos de la resistencia digital

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Emiliano Treré

The chapter scrutinizes the lessons, the current debates and the future challenges of digital resistance from a critical standpoint, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities from the Zapatista uprising to the NSA scandal

Involving Communities as Skilled Learners: The STRAP Framework

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Chiara Milan and Stefania Milan

Conducting research in the field of communication for social change typically entails working closely with communities and grassroots groups. Whereas substantial scholarly attention has been given to the various methodologies and to the researcher’s self-reflexive practices, little has been said on the involvement in the research process of communities as skilled learners. This chapter offers… more

Protest in Social Movements

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Donatella della Porta

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Publications

Journal Article - 2023

Resisting right-wing populism in power: a comparative analysis of the Facebook activities of social movements in Italy and the UK

Niccolò Pennucci
This paper aims to present a comparative study of the civil society reaction to right-wing populism in power through social media, by looking at cases in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Journal Article - 2023

Emotions in Action: the Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism

Chiara Milan
This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances.

Journal Article - 2023

‘Love is over, this is going to be Turkey!’: cathartic resonance between the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil

Batuhan Eren
This study addresses the question of why and how a protest can inspire individuals in distant countries. Taking the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil as cases, it investigates the reasons why the Turkish protests were framed as one of the inspirational benchmarks by some Brazilian protesters.

Journal Article - 2023

Mutual aid and solidarity politics in times of emergency: direct social action and temporality in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lorenzo Zamponi
From the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures introduced created a series of social problems and needs that were partially addressed in Italy as well as in other countries by grassroots mutual aid initiatives. While many of these initiatives were strongly rooted in the Italian social movement and civil society landscape and the choice to engage in mutual aid activities was the result of long years of reflection and planning, the article shows how strongly the temporality of emergency affected the nature of these initiatives, their development and their outcomes, in particular with regard to the extraordinary number of people who volunteered and their relationship with politicisation processes.

Monograph - 2023

Populism and (Pop) Music

Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan
The book provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism and contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy, using a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

Monograph - 2022

Labour conflicts in the digital age

Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini
From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires.

Monograph - 2022

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy

Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos & Lorenzo Zamponi
Drawing interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political "regression" and a growing right-wing backlash.

Journal Article - 2021

Learning from Democratic Practices: New Perspectives in Institutional Design

Andrea Felicetti
Drawing from literature on democratic practices in social movements and democratic innovations, the article illustrates three ways to advance institutional design in the wake of the systemic turn.

Monograph - 2021

Migrant Protest. Interactive Dynamics in Precarious Mobilizations

Elias Steinhilper
This book explores the interactions and spaces shaping the emergence, trajectory, and fragmentation of migrant protest in unfavorable contexts of marginalization.

Journal Article - 2021

Populism between voting and non-electoral participation

Andrea Pirro & Martín Portos
The article focuses on a neglected aspect of populist mobilisation, i.e. non-electoral participation (NEP), and elaborates on the extent to which populist party voters engage politically outside the polling station. While challenging common understandings of populism as inherently distrustful and apathetic, and protest as an exclusive practice of the left, the study critically places NEP at the heart of populism in general, and populist right politics in particular.