Culture and Movements

Thirty years ago, social movement scholars treated culture as just so much noise in structuralist theories of mobilization. Since then, they have become highly attuned to cultural processes, probing how people come to interpret their grievances as political, how culture sets the terms of strategic action, and when movements succeed in changing the rules of the institutional game. The result has been better theories of movements' emergence and impacts but also important insights into culture. In particular, movement analyses have shed light on two questions that have long exercised sociologists of culture. How does culture constrain practical action? Under what conditions does culture serve not to reproduce the status quo but to challenge it? After a brief review of movement scholars' evolving perspectives on culture, the article focuses on movement studies that have contributed to theorizing broader dynamics of cultural innovation and constraint.