ABSTRACT
There is a certain irony to scholarly work on social movements. On the one hand, this work relies on the lived experiences of individuals as they encounter injustice and devise ways to fi ght it. These activists struggle on many fronts to make sense of the world around them, convince others of the justness of their cause, and confront numerous obstacles to achieving their goals. Their actions and campaigns are the raw material for scholarly books and essays on social movements. On the other hand, the questions and debates that inform the scholarship on social movements, while grounded in this raw material, are rarely formulated and resolved in dialogue with the individuals who supply this “raw material.” Many times scholars and activists talk past one another: scholars want the “big picture” and develop a conceptual vocabulary to bring that picture into focus while activists address immediate concerns and rely on experiential knowledge to make decisions about issues and strategies. Subsequently, we miss opportunities to benefi t from each other’s stock of knowledge. Each purpose is important but there may be ways to reorient the knowledge produced by each for mutual benefi t.1
