This article provides an analytic overview of scholarly work on the concept of collective identity by considering its conceptualization and various empirical manifestations, the analytic approaches informing its discussion and analysis, and a number of theoretical and empirical issues, including a synopsis of the symbolic means through which collective identity is expressed and asserted. Although the scholarly roots of the concept can be traced to classical sociologists such as Marx and Durkheim, and more recently to the mid-century work of scholars such as Erik Erickson and Erving Goffman, it was not until the latter quarter of the past century that the concept generated an outpouring of work invoking the concept directly or referring to it indirectly through the linkage of various collectivities and their identity interests via such concepts as identity politics, identity projects, contested identities, insurgent identities, nationalism, imagined communities, identity movements and even social movements more generally. Conceptually, the essence of collective identity resides in a shared and interactive sense of "we-ness" and "collective agency." Although the concept is distinguished analytically from both personal identity and social identity, the three types of identity clearly overlap and interact. Empirically, collective identity can surface in a variety of contexts, although the preponderance of research has focused on its connection to gender, ethnicity, religion, nationalism and particularly social movements. Analytically, collective identity has generally been discussed from a primordial, structural, and/or constructionist standpoint. Primordial and structural approaches are discussed as variants of essentialism, which is contrasted to constructionism. Among other things, constructionism focuses attention on the symbolic expression and maintenance of collective identities.

In 2011, the Arab Spring revolutionary movements that erupted across the Middle East galvanized supporters in the diaspora to work collectively for regime change and relief at home. Existing theories argue that diasporas residing in democratic states possess the requisite political opportunities and resources to mobilize on behalf of their home-countries and intervene in significant ways. However, this explanation cannot account for why diaspora movements only emerge and play a role in home-country crises under certain conditions. This dissertation therefore investigates 1) how members of the Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni diasporas in the US and Great Britain mobilized to support the 2011 uprisings, and asks 2) why the pace of their public emergence as regime opponents, their degree of intra-movement solidarity, the strength of their roles in the revolutions, and the short-term outcomes of their efforts varied significantly by national group. In order to explain this variation, this study analyzes three sets of data using grounded and process-tracing methods: 240 original interviews; ethnographic participant observations of Syrian-American pro-revolution events; and secondary sources on the diasporas and the revolutions.

The findings demonstrate that diaspora mobilization dynamics are shaped by multi-level and relational factors that not only include political opportunities in the host-country, but also conditions in and diasporas’ relations with relevant actors in the home-country—including sending-state regimes and opposition movements—and relevant third-parties, such as journalists and international institutions. I find that quotidian disruptions to any one of these conditions and relations produce corresponding changes in the strength and longevity of diasporas’ collective actions. This study also demonstrates that activists overcome obstacles to transnational mobilization posed by hostile external conditions when they divert resources to establish full-time formal advocacy organizations. Though this strategic adaptation constrains their tactics, movements that do not make this adaptation are likely to die off. The establishment of a transnational organizational field also improves the capacity of diasporas to pursue rights and recognition in both the home- and host-countries over time. I conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of these findings for the study of social movements, diasporas, and conflict.

Gang violence and youth delinquency remain constant topics of research and discussion among social scientists. What fails to be highlighted among inner city youth are practices of nonviolence, compassion and trust. Krump dancing provides a case where inner city youth use street based tools to improve their lives. This study relies on 16 months of participant observations and in-depth interviews among krump dancers living in South Los Angeles. To understand how krump dancing is transmitted and interpreted outside of the US, I conducted three months of participant observations and in-depth interviews among krump dancers, in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing from the structures of the violent street gang, inner city youth build families, manage conflict, and cope with emotional pain and rage. Through their street experiences and identities, inner city youth create an alternative practice to the violent street gang. In doing so, they retain their street character, while demonstrating how street and decent are not mutually exclusive practices.

This dissertation uses theories of ethno-racial competition, boundary work, and collective action to explain the variable mobilization of collective ethnic violence against indigenous peoples in early American California, ca. 1850-1865. To do so, the dissertation proceeds through three chapters. The first chapter, “American Settler Colonialism, Racial Formation, and Competition Theory,” provides a theoretical framework that supports the empirical inquiries in the subsequent two chapters. To develop this framework, I draw from the American settler colonialism, collective action, ethnic competition, and mass violence and atrocities literatures to suggest new directions for the study of settler-colonial (i.e. inter-polity) intergroup competition and conflict. The second chapter provides a regional analysis of the dynamics of collective ethnic violence against indigenous peoples in central and northern California, ca. 1850-1865. This chapter focuses on the role of frame disputes as a mediating mechanism in intergroup conflicts. The central theoretical claim, which finds strong support, is that frame disputes among settlers in different California regions influenced the dynamics of collective violence by attributing different levels of collective out-group “threats” to proximate indigenous groups. As in contemporary cases, this ethno-racial polarization and subsequent violence was produced by the explicit attempts of local political actors to durably politicize ethno-racial group membership. The third empirical chapter looks more closely at the mechanisms supporting varying annual levels of collective ethnic violence against indigenous peoples in the Humboldt Bay region of California, ca. 1853-1865. This chapter continues my emphasis on framing and boundary work mechanisms as mediators of collective conflicts, while focusing my theoretical attention more squarely on issues of threat assessment, or the ways in which group-based threats are collectively appraised by nominal power-holding group members. Drawing from theories of mediated competition, I demonstrate the specific necessity of organizational resources for extremist mobilization, and that elite framing and boundary work were required to link aggrieved individuals with these mobilizing resources. These findings confirm the role of framing and associated boundary work mechanisms in the politics of collective threat assessment. To conclude, I discuss the implications of these threat assessment issues for future historical and contemporary study of reactive mobilization.

This dissertation is motivated by the question of why certain individuals engage in violence to accomplish their political goals while the vast majority of individuals do not. In three empirical studies, I examine a range of social movements from across the entire left-right political spectrum, considering variation not just across movements but also across individuals and organizations within the same movement. Taking an inductive, ethnographic approach, I develop a conceptualization of the process by which individuals and organizations become radicalized towards violence. The overarching insight offered by this dissertation is that political violence is not simply a product of more “extreme” individual grievances or certain political ideologies but a complex process through which individual experiences come to be aligned with elements from political ideologies in a way that legitimates violence.

Comparing movements from both the far-right and the far-left, I show that violence can become legitimated across a wide spectrum of different ideologies, just in different ways depending on the beliefs and values of a particular ideology. Then, comparing individuals and organizations within the same movement, I show that there are important commonalities across the political spectrum in terms of what differentiates violent and non-violent adherents who share the same ideology. At a fundamental level, rationales for violence from both the far-right and far-left tend to involve some logic of preemptive self-defense against anticipated violence. At a more nuanced level, my findings point towards several social processes, including the role of identity work and stigma, which appear to be common aspects of radicalization across the political spectrum.

Overall, by examining the range of ways in which violence can come to be rationalized at different ends of the political spectrum and by examining variation within as well as across movements, this dissertation contributes to the perspective that violence is the result of a general set of facilitating conditions, which can arise across the spectrum of political ideologies as opposed to being coupled to the beliefs and values of any particular ideology.

Based on participant observations and naturalistic interviews I conducted with male bodybuilders at two fitness clubs, I contribute to the literature on social cohesion and frame theory by conceiving of social cohesion as a frame that exists in two modalities: as the positive energy frame and as the negative energy frame. The positive energy frame characterizes social cohesion as the collective harmony that occurs when positive energy perceivers adhere to nonjudgmental, supportive, and celebratory interaction principles. The negative energy frame conceives of social cohesion as something that exists outside of negative energy perceivers in a community of haters (i.e. perceived envious others who are perceived as wishing for the downfall of the negative energy perceiver) that negative energy perceivers do not see themselves being a part of even though they themselves engage in the same negative behavior they criticize haters for. This results in a competitive and unfriendly environment where negative energy perceivers do not trust one another, thus perpetuating the negative energy frame. In addition, I introduce the mobile energy frame to describe the process whereby energy perceiving bodybuilders “take with them” the respective energy frame of their fitness club and use it to inform bodybuilding activities outside of it.

There is a widespread consensus in the literature about the positive effects of having allies in congress for the legislative consequences of social movements. However, social scientists know little about the dynamics associated with this kind of interaction. Scholars have attempted to unravel the nature and consequences of these alliances, but they remain a black box because of the use of theoretical proxies. A growing body of literature realizes the limitations of this approach and has started to advocate for a more focused and detailed analysis that pays attention to the interactions and perceptions of the activists and legislators involved in an alliance. I contribute to this area of inquiry by examining the interplay of activists and their allies in congress following a grounded approach, using the case of the Chilean environmental, LGBT and labor movements. By interviewing activists and their allies in congress, I could obtain detailed data on the perceptions, motivations, and extent of their interactions.

As part of this dissertation, I develop a nuanced theoretical understanding of the motivations and exchange patterns involved in the alliance activists forge with members of congress. Then, I analyze different strategies social movement organizations can use to establish that kind of tie with a legislator. Finally, I assess the consequences of having an ally in congress for the achievement of activists’ demands. I find that an alliance between activists and legislators is a complex kind of social relation motivated by different rationales of action that shape the contours of their interaction and that having these allies has a positive effect for the leverage of activists throughout the lawmaking process. These findings contribute to the theoretical and methodological analysis of the alliance between activists and legislators, opening a debate about how their interaction and cooperation brings about policy and social change.