Occupation: organizer : a critical history of community organizing in America / Clément Petitjean.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petitjean, Clément, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Community organization--United States--History.

Community organization.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

311 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois : Haymarket Books, 2023.

Summary:

"A trenchant history of community organizing and a must-read for the next generation of organizers seeking to learn from the successes, failures, and contradictions of the past. The community organizing tradition is long overdue for reexamination. In Occupation: Organizer, scholar and activist Clément Petitjean traces that history from its roots in the Progressive movement to its expansion and diverging paths during the social movements of the 1960s and '70s, when Saul Alinsky became the most popular "professional radical" in the US while groups like Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers recast organizers as horizontal, antihierarchical spadeworkers--those who do the work as part of the community, rather than standing apart from it. But in the years since, the professionalization of organizing work has only increased, despite the critiques. Only by grappling with its limitations and pitfalls, Petitjean insists, can we learn to build durable, effective organizations for change."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Introduction: The community organizing mystique

Unpacking professionalization

Origins: Saul Alinsky and the Chicago reform tradition

Managing the democratic crisis in the age of the Cold War

The professional radical

Spadework: The radical community organizing tradition of the 1960s

Professionalization from within: Building a skilled cadre of practitioners

‘You run for president?’: Fitting into the division of political labor

Conclusion.

'You run for president?': Fitting into the division of political labor

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-301) and index.

ISBN:

9781642599145

164259914X

9781642599558

1642599557

OCLC:

1345214639