(Bosco, 2001) Place, Space, Networks and the Sustaintability of Collective Action. the Madres de Plaza de Mayo

Global Networks 1, 4 (2001) 307–329. ISSN 1470–2266 307

Place, space, networks, and the sustainability of

collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo

FERNANDO J. BOSCO

Abstract This article provides a framework for analysing social movements and explaining how collective action can be sustained through networks. Drawing on current relational views of place and space, I offer a spatialized conception of social networks that critically synthesizes network theory, research on social movements, and the literature on the spatial dimensions of collective action. I examine the historic and contemporary network geographies of a group of human rights activists in Argentina (the Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and explain the duration of their activism over a period of more than two decades with regard to the concept of geographic flexibility. To be specific, first I show how, through the practice of place-based collective rituals, activists have maintained network cohesion and social proximity despite physical distance. Second, I examine how the construction of strategic networks that have operated at a variety of spatial scales has allowed the Madres to access resources that are important for sustaining mobilization strategies. Finally, I discuss how the symbolic depiction of places has been used as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. I conclude by arguing that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism account for their successful development of geographically flexible networks, and that the concept of geographic flexibility pro-vides a useful template for studies of the duration and continuity of collective action.

Scholarly work on collective action over the past three decades has shown that attention to social networks is critical to understanding the development of social movements. To date, research has linked networks to the micro-level dynamics of activism and has shown that networks play a crucial role in processes of recruitment and collective identity construction (Melucci 1996; Snow et al. 1980). In addition, research has also indicated that networks are critical in the mobilization of activists and social movement organizations. Scholars have found that social networks contribute to linking local activism across different contexts and to creating trans-national webs that facilitate the efficacy of collective action (Crugel 1999; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Taylor and Rupp 2001).

Following network approaches to the analysis of collective action, this article develops a cross-disciplinary framework that shows the importance of the spatiality of different types of network relations in analysis of social movements. I seek to examine network processes – how networks operate at the onset and how relations among activists are formed and sustained – and their related spatial dimensions – the way relations among activists operate in places and across space. My overall objective

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is to explain the duration of collective action and to do so with reference to the dynamic spatiality of networks.

I pose different questions, each related to a particular concern regarding the role of spatial dimensions of network relations. First, how do activists sustain networks of inter-personal relations across space? Why and how does the repeated gathering of activists in particular places matter for the duration of collective action? The answers to these questions underline the role of social networks in the development and maintenance of cohesion among activists. Secondly, in the context of increased trans-national activism, how do certain network arrangements facilitate the mobilization of resources needed for continued activism? The answer to this question clarifies the ways in which different network relations bind social movements and activists strategically and contribute to sustain collective action over time. Throughout the article, I show that at issue in the sustainability of collective action is the capacity of actors to develop geographically flexible networks that are embedded in different places and operate at a variety of spatial scales. Moreover, I argue that this geographic flexibility evolves from different types of relations within networks.

To develop my argument, I adopt a perspective on the analysis of social move-ments that draws from a theoretical tradition known in the social sciences (and notably in US economic sociology) as network theory or network analysis. This literature is a broad and heterogeneous federation of perspectives that conceptualizes social structure in terms of a system of social relations (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994; Scott 1991). It includes analyses of social networks that draw from rational choice and utilitarian theories of action (Burt 1980; Wasserman and Faust 1994) as well as social constructionist conceptualizations of networks that define networks as contexts in which symbolic and cultural production takes place (Ansell 1997; Melucci 1985). Although the network literature is internally differentiated, my purpose is to construct a conceptual framework based on one underlying feature of the network perspective: the emphasis on providing explanations based on analyses of the relations that enable and constrain the actions of those involved (Dicken et al. 2001).

My research on the historic and contemporary network geographies of the Madres (Mothers) de Plaza de Mayo – a social movement community that is part of the human rights movement in Argentina – informs the proposed framework.1 The Madres de Plaza de Mayo began meeting in Buenos Aires in 1977 as a local group of a few women searching for their missing sons and daughters who had been kidnapped by the government. The original group divided into two separate organizations (the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora) in 1986 as a result of conflicts over strategy and leadership. Nevertheless, the Madres have remained among the most active groups in the human rights movement in Latin America today. After 24 years, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo continue mobilizing weekly in cities across Argentina, reaffirming their commitment to the groups. At the same time, the Madres have expanded nationally and trans-nationally, forging alliances with other social movements and groups. Also, since the organizational division, the history of both groups of Madres has been characterized by the development of their own unique networks of members, chapters, and supporters from other groups.

The history of this community of activists is already well documented and several scholars have analysed different dimensions of the Madres’ activism in relation to

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other theoretical concerns.2 My intention here is not to write a new historical account of the Madres but rather to highlight dimensions of their activism that have not been documented to date and that are related to the research problem and questions outlined above. By reconstructing some aspects of the historical geography of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, my goal is to illustrate how the duration of their activism has been mediated by the development of an array of dynamic network relations. I also provide examples from other social movements to illustrate further my argument and to provide some comparison with the case of the Madres.

I structure the article in the following way. The next section provides a brief background on theories of social movement networks and on the spatial dimensions of collective action. After that, I discuss the way social movement networks are often conceptualized and offer some ideas on how to think spatially about networks and collective action. I then turn to an analysis of the place-based collective rituals of the Madres de Plaza Mayo to explain how cohesion in a network that expands across space can be sustained by symbolically (re)creating a sense of place. Following this, I discuss the way in which the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and activists in other social movements construct strategic networks relations that bridge spatial scales to sustain mobilization strategies. Then I build upon the two previous sections to discuss how the symbolic depiction of places often acts as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. Finally, I argue that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism represent their successful development of geographically flexible networks and conclude by emphasizing the usefulness of this notion for future analyses of collective action.

Social movement networks and the spatiality of collective action

In recent years, scholars have pointed out that thinking about collective action in terms of networks of social relations avoids reifying social movements, namely it avoids reducing social movements to homogeneous or ‘concrete’ entities. It also contributes to achieving a better understanding of the practices that enable collective action in the first place (Pratt 1998). Much of the work that has followed this premise has emphasized the role of interpersonal networks of daily life that revolve around both physical and social locations (such as neighbourhood, community, ethnicity, and sexuality) in providing meaning and purpose to practices of collective action (Alvarez et al. 1998; Creswell 1996; Melucci 1985; Mitchell 1995).

At the same time, and taking notice of the increased interconnectedness between societies in the current context of globalization and internationalism, scholars have also begun defining contemporary social movements as transnational networks and have started to analyse how mobilizing activities are managed through webs of activists (Alvarez et al. 1998; Boli and Thomas 1999; Crugel 1999; Keck and Sikkink 1998). Within this perspective and also working in the context of the internation-alization thesis, other scholars (most notably human geographers) have examined how effective strategies of mobilization occur through networking at a variety of spatial scales simultaneously (Castree 2001; Herod 1998; Miller 2000).

Two general notions about collective action emerge by integrating insights from these different lines of research. First, there is some agreement that the definition of social movements as networks is a useful conceptual tool to investigate how collective

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action depends on social relations embedded in webs of meaning and practice. Second, there is an inherent spatiality to social movement networks that ranges in scope from the locations and places that facilitate the practice of activism to the transnational webs that link activists together. And as many have shown, this spatiality makes a critical difference in the outcomes of purposive collective action.

Inasmuch as both these themes are present in contemporary research, work that addresses how the spatiality of social networks is imbricated in social movement processes requires development. Although we know that different social movement processes (for example, recruitment, mobilization, or continuity) are mediated and negotiated through networks with different spatialities, it remains unclear whether and how the spatial dimensions of different relations in a network may actually affect the development of such social movement processes.

I suggest thinking relationally not only about the character of contemporary collective action but also about the spatial dimensions of the processes that generate activism at the outset. In this respect, there are insights to be gained from geogra-phers’ relational views of place and spatial scale. Place and spatial scale are now conceptualized as being open, porous, and networked, rather than as being fixed, essential, and hierarchical in nature (Massey 1999a; Massey et al. 1999; Swyngedouw 1997).

My suggestion, then, is that there are some conceptual intersections among relational definitions of space and place, network approaches to collective action, and the relational mode of thinking intrinsic to the network perspective. My position is that it is possible to build upon existing insights to find points of connection and a common conceptual background. In terms of epistemology, I suggest thinking relationally is not just about the aspects of study but also about conceptual frame-works (Ettlinger 2001a). Relational thinking is also a way to bridge theories and disciplines. Regarding the goals of this article, connecting different lines of research relationally permits achieving a more complete understanding of the complexity of several social movement processes. For example, network theory offers an interesting framework to analyse phenomena that have yet to be fully understood from a spatial perspective. Similarly, a spatial approach has the capacity to inform social movement and network theories by uncovering how spatiality is related to the constraining and enabling dimensions of relationships in a network.

Thinking spatially about social movement networks

In existing analyses of social movement networks, scholars identify at least three types of networks that are crucial for the existence of collective action: inter-personal networks of activists that facilitate recruitment and individual participation (Klandermans and Oegema 1987; McAdam 1982; McCarthy and Zald 1987); links between individuals and organizations that are based on individuals’ multiple personal and group allegiances (della Porta and Diani 1999); and inter-organizational networks used to coordinate actions and share resources that are crucial to achieve large scale mobilization (Diani 1992; Rosenthal et al. 1985).

These different types of networks sometimes overlap, but they are not constituted by the same members and relations at all times. Members’ multiple allegiances result in a complex web of interactions among individual members and formal organ-


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izations, but distinct networks based on different types of relations and exchanges can still be discerned within the larger web. In the case of the two groups of Madres of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, for example, members of each group are linked together through interpersonal networks based on strong emotional bonds. For members of Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora, interpersonal links are built around the recognition that each member is a mother struggling to find the truth about the disappearance of her son or daughter and to obtain legal punishment for those responsible for the crimes. For members of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, interpersonal bonds are built and sustained around the idea of ‘socialized motherhood’. This means that each member is no longer the individual mother of a disappeared person; rather, each member embodies the universe of all mothers of disappeared children, including those women who never turn into activists.

At the same time, members of both groups of Madres have links to other human rights groups and to other social movements because of strategic interests – and only on rare occasions as a result of emotional bonds or a shared group identity. Thus, over time, relations among activist Madres have developed into an interpersonal network based on strong emotional bonds and shared collective identity, and their contacts with other groups have developed into a series of inter-organizational networks based on strategic interests. Both types of networks are obviously intertwined because some Madres are part of both networks, but the processes that have formed them and that keep them together differ.

The benefits of defining social movements in terms of different types of networks falls short of offering insightful analysis if we do not recognize at the same time the different types of relations that are established through such linkages. Thus, from the perspective of network theory, defining social movements as networks means viewing participants and their actions as interdependent and seeing ties among them as channels that allow the flow of both material and non-material resources. Further-more, network theory instructs us that variation in the strength of relations or ties in a network is important in explaining the dynamics of social processes. Whereas ‘weak’ ties allow for wider transmission of ideas, ‘strong’ ties create more cohesive bonds (Granovetter 1973). Distinguishing between different types of ties in the intertwined networks of social movements is also crucial to understand the sustainability of collective action. For example, attention to the development of interpersonal networks based on strong emotional bonds can shed light on the way activists need only rely on informal organizational structures (as opposed to formal social movement organiz-ations) to sustain activism (Taylor and Whittier 1992). Similarly, attention to relations among different groups can shed light on the way activists may rely on a formal social movement organization for particular types of strategic action. Thus, at issue in the analysis of social movement networks is how to identify the relationally differentiated effects of various types of linkages and the implications that their emerging patterns have for the outcomes of social movement activity. But a key question remains: how should we think about social movement networks and their spatiality simultaneously to gain better insights in our understanding of social movement processes?

I suggest that a better understanding of the effects of networks on the sustain-ability and duration of collective action can be obtained by conceptualizing social movements as networks of interactions among both activists and formal organizations – what Diani (1995) calls ‘networks of networks’ – embedded in particular locations

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and places but at the same time capable of operating at different spatial scales, across space. In particular, I want to think about how different kinds of network relations occurring at different scales, stretching across space, and located in different places, mediate the sustainability of collective action.3

Massey’s (1991, 1993, 1999b) conceptualization of social relations as geographic and networked, and of space and place as the product of such interrelations – what she calls a ‘power-geometry’ – provides a useful template for such a project. Drawing from a relational view of space and place, Massey theorizes social relations as stretching out over space at different scales, from the household, to the local, to the international arena. At the same time, she sees social relations as embedded in the wider workings of local and global networks. Furthermore, Massey argues that this has an impact in terms of the power individuals hold in relation to these flows and interconnections, because different groups and individuals are placed in distinct ways in relation to such flows. What I find interesting about Massey’s power-geometry argument is that it opens the door to exploring its connections with network approaches to the study of social movements. Both perspectives share the interest of attempting to understand better the impact of different kinds of network relations. Massey, for example, believes that the power-geometry metaphor helps thinking about who has more or less mobility and access along the networks. I argue that an even more ‘networked’ view of the power-geometry of social relations can lead us to think about how activists achieve more control over mobility and/or access along the networks. By specifying network relations as being differentiated simultaneously by their spatiality and their type, we avoid an analysis of absolute space and rather highlight the processes and relations that enable or produce particular spatialities (Massey et al. 1999). As I show in the next sections, this simultaneous differentiation is useful to explain how social movements sustain collective action through networks over time.

Mobilizing through networks: sustaining cohesion by (re)creating a sense of place

A lot has changed (and a lot has stayed the same) since the first time a group of 14 women met in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in 1977 in an attempt to demand that government officials released the location of their ‘disappeared’ children. From 1975 to the early 1980s, the Argentine military and government kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people as a result of an ideological purge that was supposed to rid the country of terrorists and opponents of the dictatorship. Today, over two decades later, military officials in Argentina have faced trial, been prosecuted, sent to jail, and ultimately granted amnesty by a constitutionally-elected president. Some of the bodies of those who disappeared have been found and identified, but the majority remains missing. At the same time, the human rights movement in Argentina has experienced an overall decrease of both activist and popular support, as increasing poverty, unemployment, rising income inequality and social exclusion have become the most prominent social concerns in the agenda of activists, social movements, and NGOs (Bosco 1998; Jelin 1998).

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo, after experiencing a period of rapid growth and high mobilization through the late 1980s, have also experienced the negative consequences of an organizational division and a continued loss of members as many


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women have grown older, become too sick to participate, or died. Yet, the two groups of Madres de Plaza de Mayo continue their activities today. Their hundreds of members are to be found in over twenty cities in the country, and Madres de Plaza de Mayo ‘support groups’ are spread out across Europe and North America. Some of the smaller groups of Madres have only two or three members, yet these are among the most fervent activists. Once a year, Madres from across Argentina gather in the Plaza de Mayo for a massive 24-hour demonstration that is joined by thousands of activists from Argentina and abroad. The Madres are an example of sustained collective action that has little precedent in Latin America and the world in general. How can we explain their resilience?

My answer here is that attention has to be paid to the way in which the Madres managed their geographically extensive network of members over time. What is significant about the Madres is not just that they constructed a network of women activists that transcended the local; after all, social movements often extend their activities across space rather than remaining localized. What is significant about the Madres’ case and instructive to our understanding of processes of collective action is the way members have been able to keep together a cohesive network of activists that expands across many locations for over 20 years. I argue that to understand the sustainability of this network, attention has to be paid to the micro-level processes through which collective actors remain a collective.

Network analyses of social movements to date have shown that strong personal ties facilitate the development of uniform activist subcultures and are important for organizational recruitment (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994). Cultural approaches to the analysis of collective action have also used network concepts to underscore the importance of communal bonds in the formation of collective actors (Melucci 1989). From these perspectives, the strong communal bonds that join activists depend upon solidarities that develop around a broader social conflict as well as on the manner in which participants construct and sustain a collective identity (Johnston et al. 1994; Rupp and Taylor 1999; Snow et al. 1986). These bonds are considered to be crucial in the creation of ‘social movement communities’ (Buechler 1990), which are often defined as ‘networks of individuals and groups loosely linked through an institutional base, multiple goals, and actions and a collective identity that affirms members’ common interests in opposition to dominant groups’ (Taylor and Whittier 1992). For example, mothers of disappeared people in Argentina became a social movement community known as the Madres de Plaza de Mayo when shared feelings of pain acted as unifying bonds and as a result of shared grievances, women began identifying collectively as a group.

The literature on social movement communities also provides implicit comments regarding the geography of such networks. For example, in analysing the importance of strong bonds for movement mobilization, Taylor and Whittier (1992) described lesbian feminism in the United States as a social movement community that operates at the national level through connections among local communities in a decentralized and segmented structure. This description of lesbian feminism as a social movement community intersects with geographers’ concern with examining the relations between the concepts of community and local scale. For example, Miller (1992) indicated that ‘communities’ (understood as a way of life based on mutual under-standing) are either localized – constituted in discrete geographical settings – or

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geographically extensive – as is the case for the movement described by Taylor and Whittier. The Madres’ interpersonal networks in Argentina are another example of a geographically extensive social movement community characterized by informal network structures that operate at a variety of spatial scales.

The case of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo is thus useful in posing new questions regarding the sustainability of strong bonds among activists in non-localized social movement communities. To date, most research devoted to explain the sustainability of interpersonal networks of activists has been framed in relation to localized networks. In general, there is a sense in the literature that localized bonds are an important dimension to explain cohesiveness among groups of collective actors. For example, research has shown that smaller settings such as neighbourhood churches are better at generating long-term emotional commitments among activists than larger ones (Jasper 1997). Even geographers interested in the relationship between collective identity and localized social activity also have indicated that ‘communal ties are generally, though not necessarily, strongest when the opportunity exists for local interaction’ (Miller 1992: 33). To date, the local scale has been considered crucial to motivate the development of dense social relations that are in turn necessary for the creation of a sense of community among activists. But the case of the Madres in Argentina forces us to ask: how are strong bonds maintained in geographically extensive networks of activists? If interpersonal networks are not localized, are there any spatial dimensions to the processes by which actors sustain activist identities?

The activities of the groups of Madres de Plaza de Mayo across Argentina, characterized by their high levels of activism in public places, provide some interesting evidence to help us answer these questions. The Madres first began meeting in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in 1977. During these first meetings, women who had previously encountered each other only in police stations, govern-ment offices, churches, and prisons as they searched for information about their children, gathered in the Plaza to exchange information about the status of their individual cases. As the Madres sat on benches in the square pretending to be ‘ordinary women’, suspicious police officers and security agents threatened them with arrest for loitering. The Madres were forced to walk. And so they walked, hand in hand, talking, supporting and comforting each other, and exchanging information about possible actions, under the watchful eye of the police. These walks were the origin of the Madres’ weekly public meetings and marches that still take place today, every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. In fact, the Madres’ half-hour silent march around the pyramid in the centre of the square has been their signature public display of activism ever since. During the first years, the Madres’ meetings in the Plaza de Mayo became strategic to the mobilization of the group. By meeting in the most important square in the country, right across the street from the government palace, the Madres attracted the attention of the international media, and gathered public attention around the world.

As I have previously noted, the Madres expanded across Argentina soon after the original group first met in Buenos Aires. They first divided into several groups in the vast Buenos Aires metropolitan area, where a Madre (selected on a rotating basis) was responsible for keeping in touch with others members in different parts of the city to ensure the flow of communication and information across a large urban area (personal communication, September 1999). Once the initial group was organized and


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stable, the Madres embarked on a recruitment mission across the country. As noted in minutes from a group meeting, by the early 1980s the Madres had decided ‘to support all kinds of activities in any places where it might be possible to formally establish a new group of Madres’ (Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo 1984: 13–14). By 1984, there were already 21 groups of Madres de Plaza de Mayo across Argentina.

It was significant that all the new groups in the territorially widespread network of Madres started to conduct similar public demonstrations in the main squares of their localities at the same day and time as the original group in Buenos Aires. For example, in 1983, when the mothers of the disappeared in the city of Tucumán decided to start calling themselves Madres de Plaza de Mayo, they began gathering in the main plaza of their city on Thursdays. The same year, in the northern province in La Rioja, a group of just three women who used to meet regularly outside their church after mass began the weekly marches in their own local plaza. According to them, that was the time when they felt that they had really become Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo 1997). The following year, in a national gathering of Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the Madres signed a declaration stating that they ‘would work hard to promote weekly marches in plazas in all those places around the country where such activities are currently not taking place’ (Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo 1985: 15).

These silent marches across Argentina continue today. Even after the original group of Madres de Plaza de Mayo divided into two separate organizations, members of both groups continue to walk together in the same places at the same time. Even more significant is the fact that the occupation of public squares today no longer has the strategic function than it once had, when use of a public place openly challenged the military regime that forbade public demonstrations.

I argue that the Madres’ continued marches across Argentina have to be seen as an example of processes of collective action that contribute to the sustainability of social movement communities that extend across space. In fact, the Madres’ public meetings in squares across the country (and sometimes even abroad) can be understood as ‘collective rituals’ that activists perform to reinforce their basic moral commitments and group solidarity and to maintain their activist identities (Jasper 1997; Taylor and Rupp 2001; Taylor and Whittier 1992).

The Madres’ collective rituals are no longer limited to a strategy for their mobilization (for example, to achieve public visibility and attract media attention), although this is still one of their functions. Interviews I conducted with members of groups of Madres in different localities in Argentina indicate that, for these women, being in the square at a specific day and time knowing that other women like them are doing exactly the same in many other different places is a way to reinforce their feeling of membership in the groups. Consider how some of the women described their feelings towards their weekly gatherings:

the Plaza is our memory; our sons and daughters. It is being present and resisting (personal communication, September 1999).

in the Plaza I feel myself. In the Plaza, it is as if we are constantly reuniting with our children and finding ourselves (personal communication, October 1999).

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I don’t think that we will ever achieve what we want, but I still come to the Plaza as a way to get rid of my pain (personal communication, December 1999).

Over the years, members of both groups have constructed a collective identity based on a redefined idea of motherhood (Bouvard 1994), but the sustainability of that collective identity has also been dependent on the feeling of belonging to a network that even though it has become geographically extensive, still has its own gathering place. According to another Madre de Plaza de Mayo:

the Plaza, our Plaza, is our gathering point. I will be here walking every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. until I die, because a Madre in the Plaza is a symbol of continued struggle, a symbol of our struggle for our children, and a symbol of our collective memory (personal communication, November 1999).

Even when some of the Madres travel abroad to promote their campaign or to participate in activities with other social movements, members continue with the weekly collective rituals. For example, the Madres have been known to select a square in the particular place where they find themselves, calculate and adjust for time differences, and then proceed to walk for half an hour around a monument or any other landmark in the square in order to feel together with other Madres in Argentina. Over time, the Madres’ weekly marches have actually become transnational collective rituals that render their network visible around the world. For example, one of the Madres told me that one of her fondest memory of a weekly march abroad was when a group of Madres gathered in the Plaza de La Revolución in Cuba to perform their weekly ritual (personal communication, September 1999).

Not only have the Madres constructed their own lasting ‘sense of place’ (Cresswell 1996), but they have also re-created geographic proximity in a symbolic manner. Even though the square in Buenos Aires is the only Plaza de Mayo to which the names of the groups refer, all groups in the network use the same name – they have not replaced the geographic indicator in the names of their local groups to refer to the names of their local squares. On the contrary, where it was possible, they have physically marked the squares in a similar fashion to recreate the feeling of being in the same place across many distant locations. For example, the Madres have painted the white kerchiefs that every member wears on her head on the ground of every square where they meet. Several women made me aware that Madres’ symbols are painted on the ground on plazas across the country:

you should see how beautiful the paintings are in La Plata. And you know what? It is everywhere in the country. I went to Mendoza and when I entered San Martin Park, I saw it: a huge white headscarf painted on the ground with the legend ‘Madres de Plaza de Mayo’ I stopped so I could take a picture. Then I went to downtown Mendoza, to the main plaza, and it was the same. I have also seen symbols of Madres de Plaza de Mayo in plazas in Bariloche and in Neuquén (personal communication, November 1999).

The example of the Madres in Argentina echoes hooks’s (1991) concept of ‘homeplaces’ of resistance, that is, places that can act as sources of solidarity and can


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serve as sources for the organization of future strategies of mobilization (see also Routledge 1997). The continuity of these practices over the years and the way in which the Madres describe their experiences in the plazas suggest that their weekly gatherings are socio-spatial processes – processes intrinsically linked to a place but that are not limited or circumscribed to a locality – and symbolic practices that are linked to the micro-mobilization of this social movement community. My argument is that, in different ways, these collective practices are important dimensions of the way the Madres have managed to sustain a cohesive and territorially widespread network of activists for over two decades. The practice of these collective rituals shows that, in the case of the Madres, cohesive communal bonds are not encouraged by physical geographic proximity but rather by a socially constructed symbolic proximity based on the group’s identification with a particular place. Therefore, at a more general level, the routine practices of the Madres also indicate that place-based collective rituals – the rootedness and frequent practice of activities in particular places of symbolic importance for a group – play a role in the sustainability of activism and of a shared collective identity even among members of geographically extensive networks of activists.

Additionally, the marking activities on the squares can also be seen as contributing to ‘physically situate a collective memory’ (Jelin 1998) as well as unique personal and often non-transferable feelings of community among members. Thus, marking plazas may also be understood as a strategy to embody part of their collective identity in the physical landscape. At the same time, this contributes to the sustainability and cohesiveness of a geographically extensive network of activists.

The case of the Madres suggests that sustaining collective action over time is related to the capacity of a group to develop and sustain a network of strong inter-personal ties that provides the basis for the construction of a collective identity and the continued sharing of grievances. While local scale is important for the formation of interpersonal networks because the strong ties that are necessary to the sustain-ability of communal bonds are often enhanced by localized social interaction, this is not always necessarily so. As Ettlinger (2000) noted, the level of maturity of a network may mediate the extent to which localized interaction can be reduced and spatial dispersion can become possible. Collective actors in either localized or geo-graphically extensive networks devise a myriad of strategies to maintain and negotiate a collective identity. As this case indicates, such strategies often include a strategic use of places to maintain a network. The example of the Madres in Argentina instructs us that, in cases of geographically extensive networks, activists can sustain inter-personal bonds by the practice of place-based collective rituals that appeal to symbolic uses and representations of places believed to be strategic for their group.

Mobilizing resources: the role of strategic and geographically flexible networks

The analysis of place-based collective rituals sheds light on how activists sustain geographically extensive interpersonal networks. However, other network processes also contribute to the sustainability and duration of collective action. In particular, I want to consider the role that networks based on links between members of different activist groups play in mobilizing resources that are crucial to sustain collective action.

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In the social movement field, scholars to date have drawn from resource mobilization theory to explain how the presence or absence of resources intervenes in the success or failure of the mobilizing strategies of social movements (McAdam 1982; McCarthy and Zald 1973, 1987). A similar concern with resources is evident in network theory. Network scholars have suggested that the different positions occupied by actors within a network (such as whether or not an actor has a common set of linkages to others) has implications for establishing who has more access to resources and to opportunities for control (Burt 1980, 1992; Knoke and Kuklinski 1982). However, neither social movement nor network theory pay much attention to the role of the spatiality of network relations in their discussion of the way social movements access resources through networks.

By contrast, some scholars have begun to pay increasing attention to the effects of spatial scale in the mobilizing strategies of social movements. For example, it is now commonly argued that the effective mobilization of activists often requires ‘scaling up’ – making connections outside of the local, creating transnational webs – (Cox 1998; Herod 1997; Keck and Sikkink 1998) or even developing ‘multiscalar’ strategies of collective action (Castree 2001). However, the different types of relations that are established through networks remain unclear despite a relational under-standing of spatial scales and the adoption of a network vocabulary.

By combining insights from research on social movement networks and on the spatiality of collective action, I suggest that it is possible to specify how different network relations that operate a variety of spatial scales facilitate or constrain the access to resources available elsewhere or to positions of power and control. In the context of the general goal of this article, the question I entertain in this section is: how do the spatial dimensions of different network relations impact on the way social movements assemble resources that are crucial for the sustainability of their mobil-izing strategies? Let me illustrate this problem.

The mid-1970s in Argentina saw the emergence of several human rights groups and organizations attempting to bring attention to the human rights violations of the military government. In general these nascent organizations found it difficult to assemble the resources necessary to sustain activism and mobilization in an environ-ment of strict government control, illegal repression, and political violence. The historical context also played a negative role in the development and sustainability of a network of human rights activist because the prevailing conditions limited activists’ organizational capacity. Yet, some groups were more effective than others in mobil-izing. How can we explain such differences in effectiveness? I suggest that the specific network strategies deployed by the Madres were themselves more effective than the strategies adopted by other groups.

Originally, the Madres (like many other groups) were unable to attract media attention, obtain legal advice and support, and amass money and other resources necessary to mobilize within Argentina. Their strategy to overcome these constraints, however, was different than those of other groups. From the beginning, the Madres did not feel comfortable working with the other human rights organizations. The Madres’ approach to politics, characterized by what Lichterman (1996) calls a ‘politics of personalized commitment’, did not fit well with the more bureaucratic approach that other human rights groups were following. They did not have access to – and chose not to participate in – any formal network of support within Argentina.


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Instead, they decided to seek the help of Argentines who had left the country at the onset of the military dictatorship as well as of activists and supporters abroad. Many of the expatriates were relatives or friends residing in Europe who were willing to contribute to their cause and support their activities from their exile. One of the Madres explained that:

At that time, we did more than other human rights groups. We began travelling abroad to tell the world what was going on in Argentina. Abroad, they understood our pain. In France, in Italy, in Norway and in Denmark, they gave us a hand (personal communication, October 1999).

From the onset, the Madres began to assemble a support network that, much like their interpersonal networks of activists, did not remain localized. Rather, they established linkages to people in different places so that their support network was born transnational. The initial creation of a geographically extensive network was a crucial strategy to overcome the ‘scale-specific constraints’ (Miller 1994) that they were facing in Argentina.

For the Madres, however, it was not just a matter of building a network that was not localized. Their transnational connections were strategic because such linkages in turn connected the Madres with members of governments and progressive social movements across Europe (and to some extent, North America). In fact, the relation with Argentines residing abroad was not the most important strategic function of the network connections. Rather, the most important aspect of their initial network was that these first connections allowed the Madres to tap into other networks located elsewhere to obtain critical resources that were locally unavailable to them.

The experiences of the Madres parallels Burt’s (1992) ‘structural hole’ argument about network relations. According to Burt, disconnections in a network often prevent actors from establishing strategic linkages with others. But these ‘structural holes’ (Burt 1992) can be used as an advantage if groups build ‘bridges’ that span the holes.4 In Burt’s theory, bridges are strategic network relations that can maximize infor-mation exchange, minimize redundancy and enhance actors’ capacity to acquire or have access to resources. Regarding social movement networks, for example, bridges to other networks can become strategic relations that maximize opportunities for cooperative relations, the pooling of resources, and the joint planning of mobilizing strategies among different groups (Knoke and Wisely 1990).

In the case of the Madres’ network, groups of Argentines in Europe became intermediary nodes through which bridges to European social movements were constructed. These strategic bridges functioned as routes for the circulation of resources that the Madres needed, for example, monetary contributions or legal advice. The geographic location of these intermediary network nodes was also crucial, as activists in Europe had access to government and media channels that were willing to investigate the Madres’ accusations and bring them to the international public arena.

Later on, once the strategic bridges that guaranteed the flow of resources were secured and the Madres’ struggle had captured the attention of the international human rights movement, they went on to expand their network by building additional linkages with other social movements and groups in Argentina. They also began to

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enlarge and secure their network of members by continuing to recruit other women in similar situations across the country. Other human rights’ organizations followed a different strategy. Several groups sought to mobilize by prioritizing building linkages with other groups within Argentina first, seeking the support of other human rights groups, unions, political parties and religious institutions. Other more bureaucratic social movement organizations also attempted to build national and international connections simultaneously (see Sikkink 1996). Even though several human rights groups were able to secure a broader coalition boasting a larger membership, technical and expert knowledge, and connections to different sectors of Argentine society, they found it much harder to gather all the necessary resources to gain momentum and sustain collective action over an extended period of time. Even though many groups stayed active, they were never able to achieve the large-scale mobilization that the Madres achieved and enjoy today, in large part as a result of their international bridges and the resources associated with them. The key difference was that the Madres built a geographically extensive network with strategic bridges that operated at several spatial scales, and this network arrangement resulted in an effective way to sustain their mobilizing strategies over time.5

The case of the Madres highlights the importance of strategic network relations established at different spatial scales for effective mobilization. At first glance, their experience seems to suggest that social movements’ opportunities for sustaining mobilization strategies are enhanced by their capacity to develop geographically extensive networks of activists with connections to other groups across spatial scales. This conclusion, however, should not be taken as an inevitable outcome. In his discussion of the origins of the civil rights movement in the United States, Morris (1984) explained how the mass movement that gave rise to the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and other civil rights organizations depended on organiz-ational resources that were accessed through local churches and through the pre-existing local networks of chapters of existing social movement organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For example, the networks of the SCLC and the NAACP were so intertwined that both organizations shared their personnel and funding bases (Morris 1984). The organiz-ational history of the US civil rights movement calls our attention to the importance of local and indigenous network resources for mobilization – as opposed to outside, non-local resources in the case of the Madres in Argentina. In fact, a look at the history of organizations such as the SCLC demonstrates that the strategic importance of geographic expansion (the ‘scaling up’ strategy) was often minimized because local chapters that were unable to aggregate sufficient resources alone were able to do so by establishing strategic network ties with another group also at their local level.

Additionally, the case of the Madres in Argentina is also an instructive call to reconsider current claims about the impact that shifting the scale of struggle (either ‘scaling up’ or establishing a ‘multiscalar’ strategy) has on the potential of social movements for greater effectiveness. Such reconsideration must include an increased attention to the different types of network relations established across spatial scales. Consider the current differences between the diverse networks of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora (the two groups that came to be as a result of the Madres division in 1986). Over time, the


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Asociación Madres has become increasingly separatist, requiring that its members maintain an exclusive relationship with the group and precluding them from being part of other human rights organizations. The exclusive affiliation system of Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo has had some benefits, as it has helped create a tight network among Madres across spatial scales – in different localities in Argentina and even abroad. This network is partly sustained through the place-based collective rituals that I have summarized before. But at the same time this network arrangement has isolated members from interacting with other groups.

On the other hand, many members of Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora also belong to other human rights groups within and outside Argentina. For example, a member of this group is currently the president of FEDEFAM, a transnational federation of relatives of disappeared people that operates throughout Latin America (personal communication, August 2000). By establishing connections with other groups, Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora has increased its visibility, promoted campaigns with other organizations, and become an active part of a transnational network of human rights organizations. The case of Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora is opposite to the case of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, where the network arrangement is characterized by the absence of non-overlapping ties that could provide exchange benefits (Ettlinger 2001b). Under such a network arrangement, shifting the spatial scale of action does not necessarily benefit a group of activists because the ties in the network are not strategic and may only lead to redundant exchanges of resources (Burt 1992; Granovetter 1973).

The examples of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and of the organizations in the civil rights movement in the United States suggest that the sustainability of more effective mobilization strategies often requires collective actors to build geographically flexible networks with strategic bridges to other groups. Geographic flexibility refers to the capacity of the networks to operate at a variety of spatial scales to overcome scale-specific constraints that may arise out of context-specific conditions. It is not limited to geographic expansion, because expansion is just one strategy and may be effective only under certain conditions. For example, relative to networks that connect different groups of collective actors, geographic expansion maximizes the strategic potential of network bridges (as it was at the beginning for the Madres), but local bridges may provide similar benefits if both another receptive group willing to cooperate and favourable political opportunity structures are present at the local level (as it is the case in Morris’s 1984 account of the origins of the US civil rights movement). The importance of geographic flexibility ultimately is related to the capacity of a social movement or a group of activists to alter the spatial reach of strategic network relations to sustain effective mobilization strategies.

‘Framing’ symbolic places to establish strategic network connections

So far, I have argued that the embodiment of collective rituals in particular places strengthens bonds among activists and contributes to the development of a stronger sense of community among activists even if their networks are geographically extensive. I have also suggested that the interplay between spatial scales and strategic ties leads to the construction of geographically flexible networks that facilitate

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cooperation among different groups and provide possibilities for accessing resources that are crucial for sustaining mobilization strategies. I now want to show that these different network processes are also interrelated with other strategies of mobilization beyond the sustainability of activist commitment or the accessibility of resources. I am interested in the way network relations play a role in the efforts of a group of activists to mobilize other activists on its behalf. How do groups of activists in one locality become mobilized and identify with place-specific issues that concern groups elsewhere? I suggest that an answer to this question has to do with whether activists in a locality are able to negotiate and manoeuvre strategically the relations between the different networks in which they participate. Moreover, I suggest that the spatial characteristics of a group’s networks play an important part in such strategic manoeuvring.

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina are not the only groups that rely on the symbolic use and depiction of particular places (in this case, plazas) to mobilize for seemingly non-localized issues such as human rights violations. Similar processes have been evident in the case of other human rights groups in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the last decade. For example, following so-called democratization in these countries, many human rights activists have become involved in struggles over the fate of sites where repression by military governments once took place, such as clandestine detention centres (see Jelin 1998). While some groups have advocated the demolition of such buildings and the construction of monuments or memorials in their place as a way to erase all traces of the past from the physical landscape and to stimulate collective healing, others have vehemently opposed demolition. For these latter groups (including, for example, the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo), the conservation of these places is crucial for sustaining emotional bonds among members. It is from within these sites that their collective identities (their shared identification as victims or relatives of victims of torture and murder by the state) emerged, and such sites act as the material embodiment of their identities.

The identification with particular places may actually be of strategic importance for the mobilization strategies of social movements to the point that it may contribute to the construction of strategic network ties with activists from other groups – either in the same locality or elsewhere. This is possible because activists may deploy symbolic images of place to match the interests and collective identities of other groups and thereby mobilize others and gather support for their causes. In his analysis of a large coalition of different anti-nuclear groups who opposed the construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo, California, Jasper (1997) provides an interesting account that gives some support for these ideas. According to Jasper, because Diablo Canyon – with its beautiful vistas and natural setting – had a central place in the history and mythology of these groups’ subcultures, activists had a sentimental attachment to the place and thus would travel from far away localities to actions staged there. Jasper’s example illustrates how local groups of activists construct an alternative identity for a place (in this case, as a ‘sacred’ site for all activists concerned with the environment) and strategically ‘frame’ (Snow et al. 1986) the identity given to the place to mobilize others outside their area (in this case, by encouraging a collective pilgrimage of activists to a site seen as sacred among movement members).6

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The Madres similarly often frame the Plaza de Mayo in their public discourse in strategic ways to obtain the support of other groups. This is particularly evident on occasions when the Madres plan demonstrations that would benefit from a large showing of activists, such as their annual 24-hour March of Resistance in the Plaza de Mayo. On these occasions, the Madres describe the plaza as the place of resistance for everybody and for every cause and popular struggle. In a way, when the Madres need the mobilizing support of other groups, they symbolically and discursively ‘return’ the plaza they claim as their own place every Thursday to, as they say, el pueblo (literally meaning ‘the people’, but having the connotation of ‘popular sector’ or ‘the oppressed’). By framing the plaza as a site that embodies the history of the most significant popular uprisings in Argentine history, they appeal to a large and diverse constituency and draw support from activists across Argentina and even abroad.

Framing the identity of a place in the way the environmental groups that Jasper (1997) describes and in the way the Madres have done it is in fact an important step towards establishing a strategic network connection to other groups. If this frame alignment process is successful, namely if the linkages between the activists’ interpretive orientations are congruent and complementary (Snow et al. 1986), this becomes the equivalent to establishing a strategic network tie. In this case, a symbolic image of place becomes a crucial resource in the assembling of other resources necessary for mobilization. As far as the Madres are concerned, the construction of this type of strategic network tie to other groups is also dependent on the existence and duration of other types of pre-existing network tie (for example the bonds among Madres themselves that revolve around the strategic designation of the plaza as central to the group’s culture). This suggests a way in which ties built around the symbolism of a particular place can be ‘mobile’: they can appeal to and mobilize groups in other localities. Thinking about the relations between the strategic framing of places and the development of strategic networks ties is a way to begin challenging the notion that all types of collective action motivated by an attachment to place necessarily reduce protest to the parochial level (see, for example, Harvey 1996: 324). As the case of the Madres shows, their attachment to the Plaza de Mayo has been crucial in mobilizing other human rights groups and other social movements across Argentina and Latin America.

The examples above show that even groups of activists dealing with issues that do not typically concern problems in a particular locality or territorial community still often identify with ‘sacred places’ and, furthermore, utilize them in strategic manners to help construct strategic network ties. However, whether the symbolic framing of places can be used strategically for the mobilization and aggregation of resources through the establishing of a strategic network tie depends on the subjective interpret-ations and decisions of those involved, because frame alignment processes are temporarily variable and subject to negotiation (Snow et al. 1986). The outcomes of framing processes can change over time and are often multiple; depending on the interpretation and meanings attached to a place or a place-based collective ritual, they can either foment or discourage building strategic bridges to other networks to engage in cooperative relations with other groups. The general point here is that attention to the unfolding of such framing processes helps conceptualize the network linkages between the personal dimensions of collective action and the spatial aspects of strategies of mobilization.

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Summary and conclusion: the significance of the Madres’ activism

In the context of the human rights movement in Argentina and Latin America overall, the Madres stand out as one of the most successful groups of activists. From their collective rituals in plazas around the country to the strategic transnational connections established from the beginnings of their activities, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo over the years have developed strategies of mobilization at different spatial scales that have contributed to the duration and sustainability of their activism.

I have taken the Madres’ activism as a platform for developing some theoretical insights about the importance of geographic flexibility in the analysis of social movement networks for several reasons. First, I believe that the Madres allows us to establish empirical parallels to the experiences of other social movements and, further, to make comparisons and general statements about the different outcomes of the spatial dimensions of collective action. This case is useful because, despite the uniqueness of the duration of their activism, the Madres are in fact similar to many other contemporary groups of activists. For example, the women who currently identify as Madres de Plaza de Mayo are a social movement community held together by a combination of a strong collective identity built around a redefined idea of ‘motherhood’ and a firm commitment to challenging the power of the state. These dual characteristics – a strong cultural and political orientation – make the Madres de Plaza de Mayo similar to an increasing number of existing and emerging social movements in Latin America and other parts of the developing world involved in cultural politics, from peasant and ethnic groups to women’s organizations (Alvarez et al. 1998). Thus, despite the distinctiveness of the Madres, their general charac-teristics are instructive for the formulation of general principles that can apply to other contemporary social movements, specifically with reference to the relationship between the spatial dimensions of activists’ networks and the duration and sustainability of collective action.

Second, throughout this article I have tried to show that what is significant about the Madres is not any one particular dimension of their activism per se (for example, their collective rituals or their symbolic framing of plazas in their public discourse to attract the support of others). Rather, it is the spatial dimensions that all these different strategies have in common. My suggestion is that what is exceptional about the Madres’ activism is the way in which this social movement community has strategically managed the myriad of networks that it has developed and into which it has entered over the years. Moreover, and related to the main point of this article, what is significant is how the spatiality of such networks has assured the duration and sustainability of their activism.

It is not only that the Madres have performed collective rituals every week since the beginning of their activities, but rather, that through the practice of place-based collective rituals in plazas around the country (and around the world sometimes) they have found a strategy to sustain the cohesion of a network of activists that is not localized but that is rather geographically extensive. Thus, the Madres have used a specific spatial strategy (based on the symbolic power of place) to deal with the particular spatial characteristics of their own network of members.

Similarly, while the creation of a transnational network of support is a significant development per se in the mobilization activities of any social movement, the point

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about the Madres goes beyond that. Within the transnational network that they created, they also established bridges across spatial scales (sometimes abroad, some-times within Argentina, often both) that allowed them strategically to tap different networks for a variety of resources that proved critical for the duration of their activism. A particular spatial strategy associated with a specific type of strategic ties within their support network was significant. To be specific, I suggest that what made a difference is the geographic flexibility of such a network. Therefore, the case of the Madres instructs us that the sustainability of strategies of collective action often hinges upon actors’ capacity to manoeuvre strategically different types of network relations across spatial scales.

In sum, these remarks about the Madres indicate that the spatiality of social movement networks mediates the extent to which a sense of cohesion among activists and different mobilization strategies are more or less effectively sustained. However, I would not want to suggest that the spatiality of a network alone ensures the duration and sustainability of collective action. Other mediating factors that I have not considered in this article are also crucial. For example, the ability to mobilize effectively resources through networks also depends on the level of competition for resources among organizations and on the characteristics of the different social movements to which activists connect through strategic ties. Similarly, the sustain-ability of cohesion in interpersonal networks also depends on the characteristics of its members, as well as on leadership and organizational styles. My suggestion is, however, that the spatiality of the networks of social movements must not be overlooked in analyses of social movement processes.

In conclusion, the argument I have presented is an attempt to push further our understanding of the importance of networks in analysis of social movements. I have done that by considering the spatial dimensions of specific network processes that nevertheless are common across a number of social movements. I suggest that an investigation of variation in the spatiality of social movement networks is better served by a view of networks that recognizes the importance of interpreting the significance of different relations in the light of theoretical concerns specific to the processes under consideration, because social movement processes and their spatial dimensions are complex and highly dynamic. Finally, further insights into the importance of the spatiality of collective action can be gained by pursuing an approach similar to the one in this article from a comparative perspective, focusing on analysing the implications of variation in the spatiality of networks over time and on the variety of ways in which network cohesion and sustainability is achieved, or conversely, dissolved.

Fernando J. Bosco is at the Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Acknowledgements

This research is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-9906763. A previous version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Pittsburgh, PA, April

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2000. I thank Nancy Ettlinger, Tyler Hower, Byron Miller, and three anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on a previous version of this article. In addition, I am grateful to this journal’s editor, Alisdair Rogers, for his constructive and encouraging suggestions.

Notes

1. Data about the Madres are based on six months of fieldwork in five localities across Argentina conducted between 1999 and 2000. For this article, I draw on data I obtained from the archives of the two Madres’ organizations in Buenos Aires. The internal and public documents I examined consisted of organizational newsletters from the period 1977 to 1984, the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo newspaper for the period 1985 to 2000, and organizational, personal correspondence, and scrapbooks dating back to 1976. I also rely on data extracted from a set of 40 open-ended interviews with activists who identify as Madres de Plaza de Mayo.

2. Several scholars have focused on analysing the gender dimensions of the Madres’ practices and discourses and their significance for social movements and for a feminist politics of resistance (see for example, Bouvard 1994; Radcliffe 1993; Taylor 1997). Others have also included discussions of the Madres’ activities in the context of the human rights movement in Argentina (for example, Jelin 1998; Sikkink 1996).

3. Even though some scholars have claimed that space is bound into networks (Murdoch 1997), I argue that we still need a more precise spatial conceptualization of network relations to avoid using a spatial vocabulary that erases the difference between the social in general and the more explicitly spatial (see Pratt 1999). My position is that the analysis of the spatiality of networks requires a constructionist view of networks that emphasizes different types of network relations without making space bound into networks to the extent that, in the end, there is no distinguishable difference between such a perspective and that of the (practically non-spatial) network theories that we know today.

4. In Burt’s (1992) network theory of competition, a structural hole is a relationship of non-redundancy between two nodes, or a ‘disconnection’ between players in a network.

5. I am not suggesting here that the Madres were the only group to create transnational connections, since the existence of an international network of human rights activism existed before the Madres formally organized (Sikkink 1996). My point is that the nature and type of their transnational connections were significantly more effective than those of other groups.

6. The literature on social movement ‘framing’ explains how social psychological dynamics condition the opportunities, organization, and actions that facilitate collective action. Framing, a crucial aspect of the mobilization process, is ‘the conscious and strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion a shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action’ (Snow et al. 1986).

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Documents

(Bosco, 2001) Place, Space, Networks and the Sustaintability of Collective Action. the Madres de Plaza de Mayo