Collective action : assembling concerns

As this volume demonstrates, theories of social change have a long history and include a range of theoretical approaches. This chapter focuses in the post-structural view of collective action. In particular, I explore how the idea of collective action is used within the diverse economies research field to enact economic, social, and environmental change. From this perspective, collectives can be understood as hybridised assemblages coming together around a particular issue. They are post-human in gathering diverse species, technologies, and matter. And they are non-essentialist in that they hold no foundational ontology but rather seek to bring into being possibilities for action. I illustrate this theory of collective action with reference to a range of movements, including the World Social Forum and the Slow Food movement.