Description: A deeply researched ethnographic portrait of progressive senior activists in Chicago who demonstrate how a tiny public wields collective power to advocate for broad social change.
If you've ever been to a protest or been involved in a movement for social change, you have likely experienced a local culture, one with slogans, jargon, and shared commitments. Though one might think of a cohort of youthful organizers when imagining protest culture, this powerful ethnography from esteemed sociologist Gary Alan Fine explores the world of senior citizens on the front lines of progressive protests. While seniors are a notoriously important--and historically conservative--political cohort, the group Fine calls "Chicago Seniors Together" is a decidedly leftist organization, inspired by the model of Saul Alinsky. The group advocates for social issues, such as affordable housing and healthcare, that affect all sectors of society but take on a particular urgency in the lives of seniors. Seniors connect and mobilize around their distinct experiences but do so in service of concerns that extend beyond themselves. Not only do these seniors experience social issues as seniors--but they use their age as a dramatic visual in advocating for political change. In Fair Share, Fine brings readers into the vital world of an overlooked political group, describing how a "tiny public" mobilizes its demands for broad social change. In investigating this process, he shows that senior citizen activists are particularly savvy about using age to their advantage in social movements. After all, what could be more attention-grabbing than a group of passionate older people determinedly shuffling through snowy streets with canes, in wheelchairs, and holding walkers to demand healthcare equity, risking their own health in the process?Brief description: Gary Alan Fine is a visiting scholar at Emory University in Atlanta and the James E. Johnson Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is the author of Fair Share: Senior Activism, Tiny Publics, and the Culture of Resistance, published by the University of Chicago Press.
Review Quotes: "In Fair Share: Senior Activism, Tiny Publics, and the Culture of Resistance, Fine makes an excellent case for . . . an example of observing a social movement as something like a social club. The meso-level of society, a middle and peopled realm wherein local values, interactions, experiences, and stories produce the necessary sociality for pursuing activism, shines through the book."--J. L. Johnson "Symbolic Interaction"