The Search for Self-Fulfillment: How Individualism Undermines Community Organizing

Rybaczuk, Rachel

Publication:
The Search for Self-Fulfillment: How Individualism Undermines Community Organizing

dc.contributor.advisor	Gianpaolo Baiocchi
dc.contributor.author	Rybaczuk, Rachel
dc.contributor.department	University of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.contributor.department	Sociology
dc.date	2023-09-22T19:59:30.000
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T20:58:12Z
dc.date.available	2024-04-26T20:58:12Z
dc.date.issued	2009-01-01
dc.date.submitted	2009-May
dc.description.abstract	This paper focuses on the role of individualism in community organizing. My case study follows the organizing efforts of the Coalition for Affordable Northampton Neighborhoods (CANN) and residents’ attempts to save an affordable neighborhood from Smith College’s campus expansion. As a resident and co-founder of CANN I was particularly interested in identifying the reasons for our difficulty in organizing residents whose homes would be torn down. While attending community and city meetings, interviewing core activists and activists who left the organizing efforts, I observed individualism undermining community organizing and political involvement. People’s search for self-fulfillment was in conflict with the level of commitment necessary to sustain a social movement. Coupled with the “progressive politics” of a “Paradise City” where indulgent self-care permeates the culture, individualism emerged as an explanation for dwindling numbers of active residents. Identifying individualism as an issue for activists can provide much needed insight and subsequent action to address and solve the problem of erratic, unpredictable participation of individuals in political and community organizing. We can learn how to not only create, but also sustain strong social movements
dc.description.degree	Master of Arts (M.A.)
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7275/836748
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/46392
dc.relation.url	https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1358&context=theses&unstamped=1
dc.source.status	published
dc.subject	Sociology
dc.subject	ethnography
dc.subject	individualism
dc.subject	community organizing
dc.subject	activism
dc.subject	culture
dc.subject	town/gown relations
dc.subject	Inequality and Stratification
dc.subject	Politics and Social Change
dc.subject	Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
dc.subject	Social and Behavioral Sciences
dc.subject	Sociology
dc.subject	Sociology of Culture
dc.subject	Behaviorial sciences
dc.title	The Search for Self-Fulfillment: How Individualism Undermines Community Organizing
dc.type	open
dc.type	article
dc.type	thesis
digcom.contributor.author	isAuthorOfPublication\|email:rybaczuk@soc.umass.edu\|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst\|Rybaczuk, Rachel
digcom.identifier	theses/278
digcom.identifier.contextkey	836748
digcom.identifier.submissionpath	theses/278
dspace.entity.type	Publication