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Street Protest and Social Movements in the Modern Era: Context

Module description

This module looks at the evolution of street protest and social movements as a form of political participation from the end of the 19^th century to the present, focusing mainly on Great Britain and the United States. However, you will also debate the significance of trans-national protest events such as May Day, Suffrage protest or the protest of the Global Justice Movement. In addition, you will research a protest event of your choice from any country. The module examines when and why people chose to organise and take to the streets, how they presented themselves, how their protest was perceived and whether it was successful.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module helps you to get an interdisciplinary perspective on the history, meaning and impact of street protest in Great Britain, the United States and other countries. It trains you in interpreting and contextualising a wide variety of different and often unfamiliar sources, such as images, film and music, and helps you to improve your presentation skills by asking you to do a variety of group presentations on a range of different topics.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Evaluate the different complex themes in the history of street protest and social movements
• 2. Make close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the period, developed through independent study and seminar work

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Analyse the key developments within the study of street protest and social movements
• 4. Focus on and comprehend complex issues
• 5. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
• 6. Follow street protest across the period

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Independently and autonomously study and also work within a group, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 8. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 9. Present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

The module focuses on the historical context which triggered street protest and social movements in Great Britain, the United States and other countries. Among the protests it deals with are, for example, the protest of the unemployed in Britain during the 1880s, May Day demonstrations in a global context, Coxey’s Army, suffrage parades in Britain and America, the protest of the unemployed in Britain and America between the World Wars, the 1930 Salt March in India, the TUC Hyde Park demonstration in 1933, the Battle of Cable Street, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the protest against the war in Vietnam, the People’s Marches for Jobs in the 1980s, the protest in Northern Ireland, the Million Man March of 1995, and the protest events organized by the Global Justice Movement. In addition it will address themes such as leadership, music, policing or the impact of the media, and you will be asked to research a protest event of their choice.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Barber, Lucy G., Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (Berkeley, 2002).
• Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Malden, Mass., 2006).
• Dickson, Paul and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York, 2004).
• Flanagan, Richard, “Parish-Fed Bastards”: A History of the Politics of the Unemployed in Britain, 1884-1939 (New York, 1991).
• Folson, Franklin, Impatient Armies of the Poor: The Story of Collective Action of the Unemployed, 1808-1942 (Niwot, 1991).
• Jarman, Neil, Material Conflicts: Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland (Oxford, 1997).
• Kingsford, Peter, The Hunger Marchers in Britain, 1920-1939 (London, 1982).
• Klandermans, Bert and Suzanne Staggenborg, Methods of Social Movement Research (Minneapolis, 2002).
• Kushner, Tony and Nadia Valman (eds.), Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society (London, 2000).
• Reiss, Matthias (ed.), The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies since the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2007).
• Tickner, Lisa, The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign 1907-14 (Chicago, 1988).
• Tilly, Charles, Social Movements, 1768-2004 (Boulder, 2004).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1199
• “A Guid Cause… The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Scotland – their Struggles for Change within Society,” http://suffragettes.nls.uk/sources
• “BBC Archive: Bloody Sunday,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/bloody_sunday
• “Greenham Common: The Women’s Peace Camp 1981-2000,” http://archive.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/22/greenham/index.htm
• “Marching on Washington,” http://www.pbs.org/pov/brotheroutsider/march/index.html

Key words search

Protest, Social Movements, Suffrage, Civil Rights, Feminism, Peace Movement, Unemployment, Modern Britain, United States, Policing, Memory, Leadership