'Occupying' Anarchism and Discovering the Means for Social Justice: Interrogating the Anarchist Turn in 21st Century Social Movements

The purpose of this thesis is to take the individual on a journey about what it is like to be engaged in radical anti-systemic activism in the 21st Century. Along this journey the reader will learn about the experiences of what it was like to join the Occupy movement"an anti-systemic movement that began in 2011"through an empirical analysis of learning about and practicing the anarchist(ic) characteristics of the movement"horizontal, non-hegemonic, affinity and consensus-based ways-of-being as a part of your everyday lifeworld. This journey is not only informed by my own personal experience joining the Occupy movement, but it is also informed by my simultaneous experience of maintaining the role of a radical activist-scholar throughout the process. Accordingly, I will explore how this impacted my lifeworld both within and outside of academia, which informed the very framework, analysis, and outcomes produced in this thesis. This project was thus also designed to inform social science research"particularly that on social movements"by reflecting on both social roles experienced in this journey in order to cohesively make sense of the paradoxes created by engaging in discourses about, within, and for the Occupy movement. Of most importance, from an empirical and ontological experience as an Occupier and activist-scholar, this project will help to raise key questions about the frameworks to seek social justice utilized by contemporary anti-systemic social movements in the 21st Century"social movements that are now spreading around the globe.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Department dc:contributor.department

Sociology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Stapp, April Marie

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Brunsma, David L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Precoda, Karl R.
• Smith, Barbara

• social movements
• anarchism
• social justice
• affinity

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:1064

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/51116