Doctoral Dissertation Research: Negotiating Strategies: Immigrant Non-Profit Organizations as Social Movement Actors

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SES-0503235Constance A. NathansonNadia IslamColumbia UniversityThe study seeks to determine how non-profit organizations (NPOs) representing South Asian immigrant workers in New York City balance the use of social movement activities (such as direct action tactics or advocacy efforts) with that of providing community public health services. The study aims to help us better understand how such South Asian NPOs reconcile the tension between service delivery, direct action, and advocacy, and the factors that play a role in their strategic decision making. Literature on social movement organizations indicates that organizations engage in different strategies when the state, funding institutions, or the organization's constituents legitimate new forms of action. Studies also show that organizations may attempt to combine forms of action in order to simultaneously engage in service delivery and social movement activities. Finally, studies indicate that an organization's identity and ideological commitments play a role in negotiating strategies. In this study immigrant workers' NPOs will be selected based on the primary strategy utilized by the organization (service delivery or direct action). Through completing case studies of two NPOs that serve South Asian immigrant workers, the study hopes to provide theoretical insights into how pressures toward accountability, ideological and identity commitments influence the way that NPOs negotiate between strategies of service delivery, direct action, and advocacy.