Jewell, Katherine (2023) "We are the Labour Party's Secret Weapon": an Ethnographic Exploration of Corbyn's Momentum, 2015-2019. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool Hope University.
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Abstract
Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the UK Labour Party in 2015 represented a time of exciting opportunity for many left-wing activists, manifesting in the rapid recruitment of many thousands of members and supporters to Momentum. Existing literature on Momentum tends to focus on its innovative digital campaign tactics (e.g. Dennis, 2020; Hotham, 2021), often written by individuals positioned as insiders, being members or supporters themselves (e.g. Bassett Yerrell, 2020; Maiguashca and Dean, 2019; Rhodes, 2019). In contrast, this study seeks to provide an ethnographic account of the experiences of grassroots Momentum activists from the perspective of a sympathetic outsider, steered by the ‘foreshadowed problem’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007) of difficulties arising from the close association between a movement organisation and a political party.
Alongside a rich ethnographic description of grassroots activist experiences based on interviews and participant observations, the research has provided the foundation for a critical examination of the group’s movement credentials, an assessment of Momentum’s practical role and function within the Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership, and some limited political analysis. It also contributes empirical evidence in support of the application of identity theory in the study of social movements, with particular links to the work of movement theorists Doug McAdam and David Snow (e.g. McAdam, 2003; Snow and McAdam, 2000). This thesis also suggests that identity sometimes provided a distorting filter that impacted members’ narratives around intellectual concepts, and political and socioeconomic relationships. Additional findings include observations around the role of identity and modern class dynamics in shaping activist interaction with voters, drawn from Momentum activists’ experiences canvassing the wider electorate. This examination has yielded insights relating to interactions between an ‘in-group’ and the third ‘outsider’ group (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), that is, one that has either weak or no affiliation with the key aspects of identity that define the relative ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ under investigation.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Additional Information and Comments: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | Momentum, UK Labour Party, identity, social movements, ethnography |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Matthew Adams |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Nov 2023 12:18 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Nov 2023 12:18 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4068 |
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