Mobilizing Consumers to Take Responsibility for Global Social Justice

This article studies the antisweatshop movement's involvement in global social justice responsibility-taking. The movement's growth (more than one hundred diverse groups) makes it a powerful force of social change in the new millennium. The rise of global corporate capitalism has taken a toll on political responsibility. As a response, four important movement actors—unions, antisweatshop associations, international humanitarian organizations, and Internet spin doctors—have focused on garment-production issues and mobilized consumers into vigilant action. The authors examine these actors, their social justice responsibility claims, and their views on the role of consumers in social justice responsibility-taking. The authors determine four paths of consumer action: (1) support group for other causes, (2) critical mass of shoppers, (3) agent of corporate change, and (4) ontological force for societal change. The authors find that the movement mobilizes consumers through actor-oriented and event-specific (episodic) framing and offer a few results on its ability to change consumer patterns and effect corporate change.