Working from a Goffmanian dramaturgical perspective, this article analyzes the struggle between two opposing social movement coalitions formed in response to the proposed construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero. To this end, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with leaders from key organizations involved in the conflict, in addition to participant observation at rallies and meetings of the different organizations involved. The authors find that despite great differences between the two conflicting sides, both coalitions experienced similar internal challenges that had to be managed when staging the performance for the public eye. The struggle over memory, space, and language strongly impacted how these actors understand coalition-building and mobilization. The article makes a contribution at the intersection between memory and dramaturgical studies applied to collective action.
AlexanderJ. C. (2004). Toward a theory of cultural trauma. In AlexanderJ. C.EyermanR.GiesenB.SmelserN. J.SztompkaP. (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity (pp. 1–30). Berkeley: University of California Press.
2.
AlexanderJ. C. (2011). Performance and power. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
3.
BleeK.McDowellA. (2012). Social movement audiences. Sociological Forum, 27, 1–20.
4.
BlumerH. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of California Press.
5.
BourdieuP. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
6.
ButlerJ. (2000). Restaging the universal: Hegemony and the limits of formalism. In ButlerJ.LaclauE.ZizekS. (Eds.), Contingency, hegemony, universality: Contemporary dialogues on the left (pp. 11–43). New York, NY: New Left Books.
7.
CastellsM. (1979). The urban question: A Marxist approach. London, UK: Edward Arnold.
8.
EdyJ. A. (2006). Troubled pasts news and the collective memory of social unrest. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press
9.
FoucaultM. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
10.
FoucaultM. (1982). Space, knowledge and power: Interview with Paul Rabinow. Skyline, March.
11.
GamsonW. A.MeyerD. S. (1996). Accessing public, media, electoral and government agendas. In McAdamD.McCarthyJ. D.ZaldM. N. (Eds.), Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings (pp. 275–290). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
12.
GeertzC. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In GeertzC. (Ed.), The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp. 3–30). New York, NY: Basic Books.
13.
GoffmanE. (1974). Frame analysis. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
14.
GoffmanE. (1990 [1959]). The presentation of self in everyday life. London, UK: Penguin Books.
15.
HalbwachsM. (1992 [1951]). On collective memory. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
16.
HarveyD. (1989). The urban experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
17.
HarveyD. (1990). Between space and time: reflections on the geographical imagination. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 80, 418–434.
18.
HuyssenA. (2003). Present pasts: Urban palimpsests and the politics of memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
19.
JacobssonK.LindblomJ. (2012). Moral reflexivity and dramaturgical action in social movement activism: The case of the plowshares and animal rights Sweden. Social Movement Studies, 11, 1–20.
20.
JansenR. S. (2007). Resurrection and appropriation: Reputational trajectories, memory work, and the political use of historical figure. American Journal of Sociology, 112, 953–1007.
21.
JelinE. (2002). Los trabajos de la memoria. Madrid, Spain: Siglo XXI.
22.
KuzelA. J. (1999). Sampling in qualitative inquiry. In CrabtreeB. F.MillerW. L. (Eds.), Doing qualitative research (pp. 33–45). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
23.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
24.
NoraP. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de memoire. Representations, 26, 7–25.
25.
PattonM. Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
26.
PerelliC. (1994). Memoria de sangre fear, hope, and disenchantment in Argentina. In BoyarinJ. (Ed.), Remapping memory: The politics of timespace (pp. 39–66). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
27.
PollettaF. (2006). It was like a fever: Storytelling in protest and politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
28.
RichardsonM. (1974). Images, objects and the human story. In RichardsonM. (Ed.), The human mirror: Material and spatial images of man (pp. 3–14). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
29.
RonigerL.SznajderM. (1999). The legacy of human rights violation in the southern cone: Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
30.
RosenthalN.FingrutdM.EthierM.KarantR.McDonaldD. (1985). Social movements and network analysis: A case study of nineteenth century women’s reform in New York state. American Journal of Sociology, 90,1022–1055.
31.
SaundersR.AghaieK. (2005). Introduction: Mourning and memory. In SaundersR.AghaieK. (Eds.), Comparative studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (pp. 16–29). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
32.
SchirmerJ. (1994). The claiming of space and the body politic within national-security states: The Plaza de Mayo Madres and the Greenham Common Women. In BoyarinJ. (Ed.), Remapping memory: The politics of timespace (pp. 185–220). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
33.
SchwartzM. S.SchwartzC. G. (1969). Problems in participant observation. In McCallG. J.SimmonsJ. L. (Eds.), Issues in participant observation: A text and a reader (pp. 343–353). Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
34.
SnowD. A. (2004). Framing process, ideology and the discursive field. In SnowD.SouleS.KriesiH. (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 380–412). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
35.
SnowD. A.RochfordE. B.WordenS. K.BenfordR. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464–481.
36.
TillyC. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
37.
TillyC. (1994). Afterword: Space and political memories in space and time. In BoyarinJ. (Ed.), Remapping memory: The politics of timespace (pp. 241–256). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
38.
TillyC. (2008). Contentious performances. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
