Doctoral Dissertation Research: Maintaining Autonomy and Social Movement Activity

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SES: 1002973PI: John MarkoffUniversity of PittsburghCo-PI: Jane M. WalshUniversity of PittsburghThis project analyzes how the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a nonviolent, farmworker organization determined to improve living and labor conditions in Immokalee, FL, and its allied organizations, which include the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA), Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida (IA) and the Alliance for Fair Food (AFF), work together while preserving the CIW?s autonomy. Through the use of archival materials, ethnographic research on both the aggrieved (CIW) and allied (SFA, IA and AFF) organizations, and interviews with staff, former staff and members of these organizations, this project seeks to understand how a social movement is able to attract and incorporate individual and organizational allied support yet maintain autonomy and avoid co-optation of the movement?s goals, organizational style, and collective actions. Four questions guide this project: 1) how does the CIW attract allies? 2) how does the CIW incorporate these allies into each campaign and into the broader movement? 3) to what extent has the CIW retained autonomy and control of the movement?s goals, organizational style, and collective actions? and 4) to the extent that it does so, how was this autonomy achieved and how is it maintained? BROADER IMPACTS: The broader impact of this project is that it speaks to how transient workers with different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds who lack resources (such as the right to unionize and steady employment) have been able to work effectively with allies toward higher wages, improved working conditions and corporate policy changes.