Collective Identity Formation Across Place: A Case Study of the Stop the Sweeps Movement

Abstract

Bridging work on intersectionality and place-based factors that affect social movements, this paper is focused on understanding how and why collective identity formation varies across place. Using interviews with 24 housing rights activists, the author highlights three factors—race and ethnicity, ideology, and class—that shape collective identity formation for social movement organizations (SMOs) in Los Angeles and Seattle. Using the Stop the Sweeps movement as a case, the author first highlights how varying levels of racial tensions in Los Angeles and Seattle SMOs are rooted in place-based racial context. The author then demonstrates how racial tensions bleed into ideological chasms in SMOs in both cities, which are moderated by the identities of activists within these groups. Finally, the author highlights examples of collective identity formation across class lines in each city. The author argues that the physical landscape of these cities, in which housed individuals are increasingly confronted with encampments, creates the basis for solidarity building across class lines. More broadly, the author posits that collective identity is shaped both by the interlocking power structures that manifest themselves in movements and the place-based context that provides different levels of opportunities for organizing across difference.