Shuffling the Files: Theoretical Bricolage as a Strategy for Advancing Research on Social Movements

Social movement studies possesses a rich and well-developed theoretical canon. Yet, given the maturity of the subfield, many researchers repeatedly turn to familiar questions and concepts to study social movements. Drawing inspiration from C. Wright Mills’ account of intellectual craftsmanship, we argue that social movement scholarship can be advanced through theoretical bricolage—the creative recombination of theories and concepts from multiple sociological subfields. Using student activism as a generative case, this concluding essay to The Sociological Quarterly’s special issue on student activism identifies a series of questions that have not yet been fully answered and demonstrates how insights from classical sociological theory, cultural sociology, social psychology, sociology of knowledge, sociology of morality, sociology of organizations, and sociology of work could help address them. Specifically, we consider questions regarding how organizational inequalities shape student activism; how student activists symbolically represent their movements; how rituals pattern student activism; how activist groups facilitate political conversion and shape students’ sense of morality and joy; how student activists transform what counts as knowledge; whether student activism produces prosocial or antisocial consequences; and how student activism shapes participants’ future careers. Placing established ideas into new relationships can generate fresh questions and new possibilities for social movement research.