Overview

The impact of legacies and memories on social movements has been paid only limited attention in what is now a sizeable literature. While there is a growing interest in memory, there is little systematic theory or comparative research on the long-lasting institutional consequences of important events-or how they are remembered by future generations. In Legacies and Memories in Movements, Donatella della Porta and her collaborators examine the concepts of historical legacy and memory, suggesting ways to apply them in analyses of the long-term effects of movements, movement participation, and movement strategies and tactics. In particular, they explore a critical juncture, rich with consequences for social movements: the transition to democracy. Through a comparative-historical study of social movements in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, the authors tease out the complex and varied ways different modes of transition can produce new types and uses of memories for social movements. To do so, they analyze how moments of transition create institutional change that impacts future movements and consider how past protests enhance and constrain social movements today. Focusing on the reverberation of events and how past events serve as guides for the future, Legacies and Memories in Movements brings together the literature on collective memory and social movements.

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9780190860936

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Reviews

This book provides important insights for scholars in sociology and political science. A thorough examination of how meanings emerge through historical pathways shows how studying history and memory can assuage the present-oriented bias of current sociological scholarship. -- Timothy Kubal, California State University, Fresno, American Journal of Sociology This rich comparative analysis of the fascinating cases of Southern Europe brings to life and recasts theoretical debates on how memories of the past shape-and are sometimes remade by-ongoing struggles. The fine-grained empirical and theoretical work of Legacies and Memories in Movements will be must reading for students of social movements, memory studies and the intersection of culture and politics. -Robert M. Fishman, Carlos III University, Madrid The past is present as new generations of social movement actors revisit and revive critical junctures in their nations' histories. Through their empirically rigorous and theoretically innovative marrying of collective memory and social movement analysis, the authors of Legacies and Memories in Movements, track the historical twists and varying memory work of activists in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece living and revitalizing their transitions to democracy. An important book that forges new analytical pathways. -Robin Wagner-Pacifici, author of What is an Event? The innovative energy of this volume comes from combining three important yet often unduly disconnected fields of study on democratic transitions, protest politics and social movements, and the politics of collective memory. Conceptually bold, theoretically sophisticated, and empirically rich this trail-blazing work charts a new and exciting area of inquiry that has also tremendous practical import in today's world consumed by increasingly intense cultural-mnemonic wars in which civil societies refuse to stay silent. -Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and University College London

This rich comparative analysis of the fascinating cases of Southern Europe brings to life and recasts theoretical debates on how memories of the past shape-and are sometimes remade by-ongoing struggles. The fine-grained empirical and theoretical work of Legacies and Memories in Movements will be must reading for students of social movements, memory studies and the intersection of culture and politics. -Robert M. Fishman, Carlos III University, Madrid The past is present as new generations of social movement actors revisit and revive critical junctures in their nations' histories. Through their empirically rigorous and theoretically innovative marrying of collective memory and social movement analysis, the authors of Legacies and Memories in Movements, track the historical twists and varying memory work of activists in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece living and revitalizing their transitions to democracy. An important book that forges new analytical pathways. -Robin Wagner-Pacifici, author of What is an Event? The innovative energy of this volume comes from combining three important yet often unduly disconnected fields of study on democratic transitions, protest politics and social movements, and the politics of collective memory. Conceptually bold, theoretically sophisticated, and empirically rich this trail-blazing work charts a new and exciting area of inquiry that has also tremendous practical import in today's world consumed by increasingly intense cultural-mnemonic wars in which civil societies refuse to stay silent. -Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and University College London

Author Information

Donatella della Porta is Professor of Political Science, Dean of the Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences and Director of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies. Massimiliano Andretta is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pisa. Tiago Fernandes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Nova University in Lisbon. Eduardo Romanos is a Ramón y Cajal Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Markos Vogiatzoglou works as a Scientific Adviser to the Greek Government's Minister of State.

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