ABSTRACT
The fourth and fifth chapters provide the analytical microfoundation of the book. The third chapter asks how individual activists form a collectivity in meetings that is able to act collectively. I argue that the process by which activists reach a common understanding about a particular collective action during their discussions is intertwined with the process of becoming a collectivity that is ready to act in the future. Furthermore, I show that proposals made during meetings are a collective achievement from the very beginning despite being articulated by individuals. I begin with the observation that activists talk vaguely about proposals for collective action when they discuss them for the first time. I then analyze examples of this “specific vagueness” and argue that it is a form of “indexicality” (Garfinkel 1967) in practice that is processed through changes in “footing” (Goffman 1979). The specific vagueness of proposals is functional for groups and helps them to collaboratively turn vague ideas into concrete proposals for action without participants having to expose themselves individually. Whereas individuals step back during consensus building, the implementation of proposals relies on individual activists, again who take on responsibility in an ad-hoc division of labor.
