ABSTRACT
The resurgence of social movements in the 1960s and 1970s prompted renewed theoretical reflection upon structural change and collective action, and a school of thought evolved amongst European scholars which is often referred to as the ‘new social movements’ approach (Melucci 1980, 1981). This approach stemmed from a critique of the Marxist paradigm’s inability to explain emerging collective phenomena (Touraine 1977). Instead of the working class, uniquely positioned at the heart of the structural contradictions of capital, there emerged a raft of opposing and seemingly paradoxical assertions given voice by those who had previously been conceived as marginal actors in the drama of social struggle: women, students, black and ethnic minorities, young people, lesbians, gays and bisexuals, the unemployed.
