Social Justice: Activism & Co-optation

The purpose of this course is to give students an overview of how scholars and theorists conceptualize social movement co-optation. From green-washing, to exploitative companies claiming a “social justice” orientation, to elite media institutions using the discursive and tactical repertoires of social movements, these sets of practices have raised interesting questions about the nature of political desire, the politics of representation, and the ways that elites manage to eke out substantial personal and institutional advantages by the selective use of anti-elite and social justice discourses.

By the end of this course students will understand some of the sociological debates about how to define social movements, activism, and co-optation. They should be able to identify the processes of bureaucratization and the ways that elite institutions can bend social justice discourses to their own ends. Further, students will gain a better understanding about contemporary debates about the nature of movements, the politics of representation, and the limitations of bureaucratic organization.