Activists are people who actively work for social or political causes and especially those who work to encourage other people to support those causes. Mass collective action is unlikely to occur without the involvement of activists. Including recent research from Australia, Europe, and North and South America, and studies of global online activists, this issue highlights multi-method approaches to studying activists and activism across a variety of different regional, issue-based, and socio-political contexts. In addition to contributing to ongoing theoretical and empirical discussions, the issue addresses the policy and strategic implications of this research for social change agents and organizations.

Craig Mcgarty is Professor and Head of Psychology at Western Sydney University. He was previously Director of the Centre for Social and Community Research and Director of the Social Research Institute at Murdoch University and Head of the School of Psychology at The Australian National University. His books include Categorization in Social Psychology and Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology, The Message of Social Psychology and Stereotypes as Explanations.

Anna Kende is an Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Her research focuses on prejudice, intergroup relations, identity formation and political activism from a social psychological perspective. She has carried out several policy research projects about early selection in schools and worked as a policy advisor on educational integration of Roma people in Hungary.

Nicola Curtin is an Assistant Professor at Clark University and a Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center. Her research examines the role of life experiences, individual differences, and social identities in commitments to creating social change, with a particular emphasis on ally and coalitional activism. She is co-editor of the forthcoming, Feminist Perspectives on Building a Better Psychological Science of Gender (Springer).

Understanding Activism

Issue Editors: Craig McGarty, Anna Kende, and Nicola Curtin

INTRODUCTION

Expanding on Psychological Theories of Engagement to Understand

Activism in Context(s)                                                                            

Nicola Curtin and Craig McGarty

SECTION I: THE ACTIVIST UP CLOSE

The “Activist Identity” and Activism across Domains: A Multiple

Identities Analysis                                                                                    

Winnifred R. Louis, Catherine E. Amiot, Emma F. Thomas, and Leda Blackwood

Navigating Multiple Identities: The Simultaneous Influence of Advantaged and Disadvantaged Identities on Politicization

and Activism                                                                                             

Nicola Curtin, Anna Kende, and Judit Kende

Does Civic Participation Stimulate Political Activity?                                            

Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, Bert Klandermans, and Agnes Akkerman

SECTION II: ALLIES

Acting in Solidarity: Cross-Group Contact between Disadvantaged Group Members and Advantaged Group Allies   

Lisa Droogendyk, Stephen C. Wright, Micah Lubensky, and Winnifred R. Louis

Institutional Allyship for LGBT Equality: Underlying Processes and

Potentials for Change                                                                              

Glenda M. Russell and Janis S. Bohan

SECTION III: IDENTIFICATION PROCESSES AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS

Intergroup Relations in Latin America: Intergroup Contact, Common Ingroup Identity, and Activism among Indigenous Groups in

Mexico and Chile                                                                                     

Huseyin Cakal, Anja Eller, Andre´s Pe´rez, and David Sirlopu´

How Activists Respond to Social Structure in Offline and Online Contexts      

Lisa K. Hartley, Girish Lala, Ngaire Donaghue, and Craig McGarty

SECTION IV: CONCLUSION

Separating Social Science Research on Activism from Social Science as  Activism           

Anna Kende

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