Territorial dynamics in organizing resistance: The assistants’ solidarity movement in two universities

Kutay Güneştepe and Deniz Tunçalp

Environment and Planning C, 2023, vol. 41, issue 6, 1200-1224

Abstract: How do social movements develop and sustain their territoriality within large-scale organisations? This study explores the emergence of resistive movements in organisations counteracting a new administrative regime with a relational approach to territoriality in the physical and virtual environments. Drawing, maintaining, and changing boundaries in physical and virtual spaces are crucial in organisational resistance. However, the extant literature mostly overlooks these topics. This paper shows how collective actors form a resistive movement in organisations through territoriality with a qualitative study conducted in two Turkish Universities. The study findings show territoriality provides more than a space of isolation and this space has no fixed resistive boundaries. Territorialisation within and out of organisational spaces, covering physical and virtual environments, supports the development of a resistive identity. Our comparative analysis of two movements in universities shows that territoriality in the physical world is essential. However, territorialisation in the virtual environment helps resistive identities in organisations to last even their physical activities fade. Moreover, territorialisation in physical and virtual spaces communicating the movement’s message to mobilise others varies according to the different stages of the movement’s lifespan. In addition, this study indicates how the activities of social movements of organisational actors in physical and virtual environments interrelate.

Keywords: Territoriality; organizational resistance; collective action; higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23996544231178153 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:41:y:2023:i:6:p:1200-1224

DOI: 10.1177/23996544231178153

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning C
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().