Understanding the geographical development of social movements

A web-link analysis of Slow Food

Bibliographic Data

ID4263149
AuthorsBas Hendrikx (Geography, Planning and Environment; Radboud University Nijmegen; Netherlands), Stefan Dorman, Stefan Dormans (Institute for Management Research; Radboud University Nijmegen), S E M Dormans (Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences), A Lagendijk (0000-0003-2540-5875, Geography, Planning and Environment; Radboud University Nijmegen), Mike Thelwall (0000-0001-6065-205X, Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group; University of Wolverhampton)
Year2017
Volume17
Issue1
Pages47-67
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Networks (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/glob.12153
OpenAlexW2557595898
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

Slow Food (SF) is a global, grassroots movement aimed at enhancing and sustaining local food cultures and traditions worldwide. Since its establishment in the 1980s, Slow Food groups have emerged across the world and embedded in a wide range of different contexts. In this article, we explain how the movement, as a diverse whole, is being shaped by complex dynamics existing between grassroots flexibilities and emerging drives for movement coherence and harmonization. Unlike conventional studies on social movements, our approach helps one to understand transnational social movements as being simultaneously coherent and diverse bodies of collective action. Drawing on work in the fields of relational geography, assemblage theory and webometric research, we develop an analytical strategy that navigates and maps the entire Slow Food movement by exploring its ‘double articulation’ between the material-connective and ideational-expressive. Focusing on representations of this connectivity and articulation on the internet, we combine methodologies of computation research (webometrics) with more qualitative forms of (web) discourse analysis to achieve this. Our results point to the significance of particular networks and nodal points that support such double movements, each presenting core logistical channels of the movement's operations as well as points of relay of new ideas and practices. A network-based analysis of ‘double articulation’ thus shows how the co-evolution of ideas and material practices cascades into major trends without having to rely on a ‘grand', singular explanation of a movement's development

Economic geography · Geography · Grassroots · Political science · Politics · Social capital · Social movement · Social network analysis · Social science · Sociology · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Web visibility and informetrics

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