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Final Copy 2020 11 26 Desb This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Desborough, Karen A Title: The Global Anti-Street Harassment Movement Development, Motivations and Affordances General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. The Global Anti-Street Harassment Movement: Development, Motivations and Affordances A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, June 2020. Karen Desborough Word count: 79,058 1 Abstract My research examines the emergence, development and characteristic features of the global anti- street harassment movement. My primary interest is in exploring how both activists’ motivations and digital technologies function in the evolution of the movement. The global anti-street harassment movement is a loose global feminist network of groups, individuals and organisations engaged in various forms of activism, on the basis of the shared ideal of ending street harassment. The movement deploys a diverse range of tactics and methods, targeted at multiple audiences, to pursue its long term aim of eradicating street harassment and its more immediate goals of creating dialogue on the issue, making street harassment visible as a social problem and reshaping social attitudes and behaviours. Drawing upon a conceptual framework located at the intersections of feminist theory and social movement theory, and informed epistemologically by feminist standpoint theory, I use a qualitative mixed methods approach combining semi-structured interviews and document analysis to examine the evolution and characteristic features of the movement. By identifying the movement’s defining characteristics – its structure, feminist ideological dimensions, goals and forms of activism – and illuminating the connections and commonalities between the diverse entities that make up the movement, I conceptualise and firmly establish the existence of the global anti-street harassment movement. In terms of the emergence and development of the movement, I argue that two interacting motivations: grievances, based on perceived gender injustice, and emotions, in particular, anger and empathy, are central contributory factors. At the same time, three technological affordances are relevant and necessary conditions: lowered participations costs for activists engaging in activism, the opportunity to create and maintain collective identities and the capacity to diffuse innovations across dispersed sites. These findings are significant because of the absence of literature on this particular social movement – one that is resisting a pervasive gender oppression. Moreover, the research challenges prevailing assumptions held by dominant social movement frameworks that individual motivations have little explanatory power as regards movement emergence. I argue that motivation is a necessary factor for the evolution of the global anti-street harassment movement. In this regard, I draw on and extend previous feminist research which examines the relationship between feminist consciousness and women’s motivations to engage in feminist activism. I integrate the concepts of feminist consciousness and grievances to explicate the motivational dimensions of anti-street harassment activism. Furthermore, while feminist social movement research has highlighted anger and empathy as motivators for feminist activism, existing research does not theorise the emotion of empathy. My study provides a conceptual analysis of empathy as a motivator for anti-street harassment activism. Finally, I apply the concept of technological affordances in an innovative way to analyse how digital technologies function in the evolution of the movement. No previous social movement research has used an affordances perspective to analyse digitally-enabled diffusion of innovations. Correspondingly, mine is the first study to apply this particular set of technological affordances to the analysis of a social movement. 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the inspiring feminist activists who participated in this research. This thesis is dedicated to you. It would not exist without your generous contributions. Thank you for giving up your time to share your knowledge, views and experiences with me. I hope that I have represented your words and meanings accurately and that you will forgive any misinterpretations. I would like to extend a special thanks to Holly Kearl for her enthusiasm and support for the research and for connecting me to other activists around the world and to Juliana de Faria, Juliana Santarosa Cobos and Rebecca Chiao for their prompt and very helpful responses to my persistent enquiries. I am immensely grateful to my supervisors, Professor Eric Herring and Professor Jutta Weldes for their patience, encouragement, guidance and abiding support over the last few years, and for consistently providing detailed and constructive feedback on drafts of my work. Without their support, I would not have made it to the finishing line. Thanks also to my upgrade examiners, Dr Elizabeth Evans and Dr Columba Peoples for their comments on earlier materials, which were invaluable for reframing and strengthening certain aspects of the work. Liz, thank you for demonstrating that academic sisterhood can and does exist. Thanks to the PGR community in the No. 10 Kitchen for their solidarity, especially during the current Covid-19 lockdown – Magda, Karina, Julio, Lydia, Rosa, Neema and Pancha. Muchas gracias a mi compañera, Maria Teresa for her incredible insight and unbounding positivity. A special thanks to my close friends, Kate and Amanda for always being there and for providing much appreciated reality checks, tea and cake, and Havana Club. Last, but certainly not least, thanks from the bottom of my heart to my wonderful daughter, Maya. I am sorry for those moments when the thesis consumed much of my time and attention, and for being such a bore. I’m immensely proud that you’ve received offers from five universities to study Sociology and Politics! Thank you for reading the first draft of my introduction and for your helpful feedback. I wish I’d consulted you throughout the research process as you know so much more about the research topic than I ever realised. But I should have anticipated that being the savvy feminist that you are! This research was made possible with funding from the University of Bristol Postgraduate Research Scholarship. 3 Author’s declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: DATE: 23 June 2020 4 Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures 8 List of Abbreviations 9 Chapter One: Introduction 10 1.1 Research Aims and Questions 13 1.2 Methodology and Research Methods 14 1.3 Chapter Structure 15 Chapter Two: Literature Review 18 2.1 Introduction 18 2.2 Social Movement Literature 19 2.2.1 Motivational dimensions 19 2.2.1.1 Resource mobilization theory 20 2.2.1.2 Political process theory 22 2.2.1.3 The framing perspective 23 2.2.1.4 General social psychological models 24 2.2.1.5 Feminist consciousness and activism 26 2.2.1.6 The role of emotions in motivating activism 28 2.2.2 Digital activism 32 2.2.2.1 Reduction in participation costs 33 2.2.2.2 Collective identity formation 35 2.2.2.3 Diffusion of innovations 37 2.3 Literature on Anti-Street Harassment Activism 39 2.3.1 Feminist digital activism 39 2.3.2 Egyptian anti-street harassment activism 43 2.3.3 Anti-street harassment activist literature 44 2.4 Literature on the Global Anti-Street Harassment Movement 46 2.5 Conclusion 47 Chapter Three: Conceptual Framework and Methodology 49 3.1 Conceptual Framework 49 3.1.1 Street harassment 49 3.1.1.1 The continuum of sexual violence 49 3.1.1.2 Gender oppression 51 3.1.2 The global anti-street
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