How to Create an Ecology of Change by Combining Movement Uprisings With Long-Term Organizing
In this interview, Mark and Paul Engler, authors of This Is an Uprising, examine the strategy differences between traditional schools of organizing and mass mobilizations. They argue that each plays an important role in creating social change and should be used in conjunction to be most effective in reaching a shared goal.
Mark Karlin: How do you define momentum-driven organizing? What makes it distinctive from a general media perception that acts of resistance and disruption are only spontaneous and short-term?
Mark and Paul Engler: Every once in a while, we see outbreaks of mass protests that capture the public spotlight -- whether it's millions of immigrants taking to the streets 10 years ago this spring, or huge student demonstrations in Quebec or Chile, or an occupation on Wall Street that spreads to hundreds of other cities and town. Media [are] almost always caught off guard by these types of mobilizations. Reporters label them "emotional" and "spontaneous." But the argument of our book is that there is actually a craft to uprising. If we study the playbook of strategic nonviolence, we can see that there are important principles and tactics that guide successful mobilizations. What we call "momentum-driven organizing" is a way of approaching mass protest in a deliberate and strategic manner -- consciously seeking to spark, nurture and sustain periods of mass defiance, and also figuring out ways that these can complement other efforts to create social change.
EndFragment
EndFragment