The Impact of Residential Segregation on Social Movement Mobilization
Date:
Roundtable Presentation at 117th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Session: Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
Abstract:
Does the way potential participants occupy urban space affect their availability for recruitment into social movement activism? This study uses census and protest data to examine the impact of Black residential segregation on the intensity and duration of Black Lives Matter protest in cities across the United States during the large protest cycle of 2020. Using multilevel modeling and accounting for inequality, population size, and political variability, the study shows that Black residential segregation accounted for more protest overall and for more prolonged protest. American cities with more heavily segregated Black populations also saw more intense protest, measured in the number of protest events, and longer, more sustained protest, measured in the number of days where protest took place. I propose that the impact of residential segregation works through the fostering of stronger social network ties around issues pertaining to racial justice, making potential participants more readily available for social movement mobilization. These findings invite social movement scholars to reexamine the role of social networks in social movement processes, and reexamine how networks grounded in people’s lived environments participate in mobilization.