My name is E. Colin Ruggero and I run this blog.

You can contact me at ecolinr@gmail.com

I am currently a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the New School for Social Research, focusing specifically on Social Movements, Political Consciousness, Punk, and Contemporary (1980 onwards) Radical-Progressive Movements.

Ongoing Dissertation Work

“A City and Its Occupation (Occupy Philly and the Micropolitics of Social Change).” This is a long term project, begun prior to the emergence of Occupy Philly. I am both a research and participant, deeply involved with Occupy Philly in both senses. In the most simple sense, the project asks: Why does Occupy Philly look, sound, act, and transform in the way it does, and what can this tell us about contemporary social movements more generally? Here is a brief abstract of the current state of the project: “The emergence of the U.S. Occupy Movement (OM) has raised a host of complex questions about the nature of ‘social change’ in contemporary Western societies. This article represents the reflections of a young social movement scholar and Occupy participant, struggling to make sense of OM in terms of social movement scholarship and actual activist experience. Drawing on six months of ethnographic research within Occupy Philadelphia (OP), three preliminary insights are highlighted here, analyzed in relation to both ‘the study’ and ‘the practice’ of social movements. First, OP intimately reflects the city itself, its history and geography, tensions and dynamics. Analysis of this contextual relationship highlights the need to reevaluate the ahistorical, universalizing tendencies that pervade social movement literature. Rather than abstracting movements from their historical and cultural contexts, the case of OP suggests the importance of understanding a movement’s specific contexts. Second, close attention to individual OP participant experiences underscores how movement contexts offer significant insight into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of social movements. An analysis of the differential participation of Philadelphia Punks in OP demonstrates how grounded, culturally sensitive research can lend crucial analytical insights not currently accessible through approaches found in the literature. Finally, the methodological implications of the suggested approach are discussed, arguing that the literature’s fondness for ‘spectacular’ and explicitly ‘political’ social movement activity is incomplete and limiting. Greater attention should be given to understanding specific movement contexts, actual actors’ daily experiences and practices, and how these specific rationalities relate to the formation of activist networks and movement canopies.”

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS(click titles for link to document)

• “Spirit of ’76: Occupy Philadelphia, Voicelessness, and the Challenge of Growing the Occupy Wall Street Movement” Deliberately Considered, November 2011.
• “Building over Planning: Radical Counter-Hegemony and the Dinosaurs of the Old Left” Resistance Studies Magazine, Fall 2010
• “Radical Green Populism: Climate Change, Social Change and the Power of Everyday Practices” Perspectives on Anarchist Theory 2009. Institute for Anarchist Studies.
• “Relocating Energy in the Social Commons” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 29, No. 2, Pp. 81-94 (2009).
• “Radical Green Populism: Environmental Values in DIY/Punk Communities” Master’s Thesis. University of Delaware, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy. 2009.

INVITED AND ACCEPTED CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

• “A City and Its Occupation” Workshop: Understanding the New Wave of Social Cooperation: A Triangulation of the Arab Revolutions, European Mobilizations and the American Occupy Movement. Berkman Center, Harvard Univsersity. March 21st, 2012
• “A City and Its Occupation: Occupy Philly, Punk Participation and the Importance of ‘Context and Content’ in Social Movement Studies” 17th Conference on Alternative Futures and Popular Protest. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK. April 1-3, 2012.
• “Below the Canopy, Beyond Protest: Cultural Schemas, Radical Praxis, and Punk as Public” New School for Social Research Annual Graduate Student Conference, 2011; New York, NY.
• “Social and Political Activism in Second Life.” 11th annual ‘Consciousness Reframed’ International Research Conference. November 4 – 6, 2010. Trondheim, Norway.
• “Radical Green Populism: Modeling Green Counter-Hegemony” ISA World Congress 2010; Gothenburg, Sweden
• “Relocating Energy in the Social Commons: Ideas for a Sustainable Energy Utility” Forging Closer Ties: Transatlantic Relations, Climate and Energy; Freie Universität Berlin. 2009.
• “Radical Green Populism: Modeling Green Counter-Hegemony” 4th Lüneburg Workshop on Environmental and Sustainability Communication; Leuphana University Lüneburg

 

Email me for a full CV!