DSOC 6270 - Agrarian Social Mobilization: From Resistance to Revolution

(CA) (SBA)

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Enrollment limited to: Graduate students only or permission of instructor.

W. Wolford.

Where would we be today without dead kings, student sit-ins, and public rallies? From foot-dragging to revolution, people have protested the mainstream, the status quo, injustice, and deprivation – and dramatically shaped the history of the modern world. In this class, we will focus on agrarian mobilization and study histories of resistance from cheating the authorities to organized land occupations and collective calls for revolution. We will build an analytical, theoretical and methodological toolkit with the different approaches to studying mobilization, keeping in mind the genealogy of the endeavor as a whole. We will pay particular attention to how social constructions of space, place, and scale shape the nature and study of resistance, mobilization, organization and revolution.

Outcome 1: By course end, students will be able to: outline, interpret and analyze the main theories used to explain social mobilization; describe key historical episodes or spaces of agrarian mobilization; critically evaluate approximately 25 scholarly accounts of agrarian mobilization, assessing the accounts for argument, evidence and theoretical contribution; outline, interpret and analyze the main tactics and strategies utilized historically by agrarian actors engaged in mobilization of some sort; and, finally, incorporate different kinds of data into a critical analysis of one particular episode or actor involved in mobilization for their term paper.