The Body and Citizenship in Social Movement Research

Embodied Performances and the Deracialized Self in the Black Civil Rights Movement 1961-1965

Bibliographic Data

ID2277319
AuthorsRandolph Hohle (0009-0004-0157-3510, D'Youville College, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume50
Issue2
Pages283-307
Publication date2009-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01141.x
OpenAlexW2063603412
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited55

In political and cultural theory, the body has been central to our understandings of political power, yet, the body remains absent in social movement research. This article examines the role of the body in social movements, focusing on how social movements shape bodily postures and techniques of affective self-mastery to represent idealized citizenship. Based on archival data and the concepts of performativity and performance, I use the cases of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Citizenship Schools and Role-Playing Simulations and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Community Centers to show how the deracialized body was materialization of liberal civic culture that sought to: (1) severe identification with the racial group in favor of identifying with an idealized national identity; and (2) change what counts as good citizenship to change who counts as good citizens. I analyze the movement's pedagogy focusing on the ritualized repetition of embodied movements that deracialized the black political body by embedding idealized citizenship into bodily postures, which increased the probability for a successful performance. Although the deracialized body was vital to the passage of the national legislation, it served to hide geographical and economic differences within the black population, producing the false correlation of national policy change with local change

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Identity (music) · Performativity · Political science · Politics · Population · Social movement · Sociology · American Political and Social Dynamics · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Social Psychology

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