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Koop-Monteiro, Yasmin

University of British Columbia

Activism involving higher levels of risk (potential violence, fines, criminal charges) and cost (time, energy, money) is a key focus in social movement research but remains understudied. This is true of the animal rights (AR) movement, which often uses high-risk/cost tactics, and which remains undertheorized and often misunderstood by social movement scholars. Among existing studies of the AR movement, researchers often overlook the potential mobilizing influence of activists’ ties to animals when discussing the mobilizing influence of activists’ social networks. Further, while existing studies on the AR movement (and social movements, in general) often investigate factors leading to activist recruitment, less is known about what promotes sustained mobilization and de-/re-mobilization. To address these gaps in knowledge, this dissertation draws on 800+ surveys and 42 semi-structured interviews with AR activists to investigate factors promoting participation in higher-risk/cost actions — including traffic blocking, open/secret rescues, hunt sabotage, occupations, and investigations (via trespass) of farms, slaughterhouses, and vivisection laboratories. It also investigates AR activist career trajectories, exploring factors leading to initial recruitment, ongoing mobilization, demobilization and remobilization. Chapters 2 and 3 present results from quantitative survey analyses. These chapters collectively spotlight the significant high-risk/cost activism-promoting influence of strong and weak ties to activists that are associated with direct-action organizations, ties to farmed animals, AR movement identification, and committing to the Liberation Pledge (being vegan and publicly refusing to sit at non-vegan/non-vegetarian tables). Chapters 4 and 5 present results from qualitative interview analyses. These chapters collectively show that ongoing mobilization is driven by activists' ties to animals (farmed, companion, wild), ties to fellow activists, and a balance of positive and negative emotions, with emotion management being key to sustaining involvement. Demobilization can result from insufficient gratification (e.g., feelings of inefficacy, lack of community) or negative precipitating events (e.g., interpersonal conflict). In contrast, remobilization is fostered by continued movement identification, maintained activist ties, and events that reignite interest and present new opportunities for engagement. Finally, findings reveal that moral shock experiences maintain a strong and persistent presence not only during recruitment, but also influence ongoing mobilization and demobilization (contributing to renewed commitment and emotional overload, respectively).

Text

2025-07-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/91493

Sociology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/