ANT3CAE Culture And Environment - Research Proposal Assignment Solution

Background to the Issues

Social movements can be understood as organized groups working with a common purpose and striving to achieve common social goals (Crutchfield 2018). There have been many social movements in the history. The recent 2011 Arab uprising, called the ‘Arab spring’, for more democratic rights to citizens is an example of a social movement (Staggenborg 2015). Social movements often target an established policy, tradition or norm that in the current scenario may be harming the social fabric and welfare (Feldmann 2016). Social movements can also be related to conversation of natural environment or dealing with issues relate to flora and fauna (Crutchfield 2018). Through social movements people and other living beings move through cycles of change. Many theorists have attempted to define and frame or model social movements for better understanding of them and also for better understanding of the evolution of the civil societies that we live in (Feldmann 2016). One such model is that of Bill Moyer’s 8 stage social movement model. The eight stages of Moyer’s model are 

1. Normal times
2. Prove failures of official institutions
3. Ripening conditions
4. Take off
5. Perceptions of failure
6. Majority public opinion
7. Success
8. Continuation of struggle

(Staggenborg 2015)

Normal times or business as usual is the stage when relatively few people are concerned about an issue (Feldmann 2016). A few people have realized about the ill-effects of a situation, a policy or a social or economic practice . At this stage majority of the people are largely unaware of the issue or largely satisfied with the official explanation of the situation (Staggenborg 2015). It is at this stage that these people though small in numbers start publicizing the issue in order to get support from a larger population. It is at this stage that those who are in the know would start reaching out to other groups, communities or people in general so that the message is reached to more and more people (Feldmann 2016). As more and more people start realizing about the issue, a momentum starts building up.

One such issue is of increasing number of plastic wastes in the form of plastic straw. According to environmental groups plastic straw bans has become very important and it can be a significant step towards ending the circulation of single-use plastic (Gibbens 2019). Studies have indicated that amount of plastic in the ocean will be more than fish in the ocean by 2050 (Change 2019). In spite of many environment friendly biodegradable straws available in the market, they are not suitable for liquids above 40 degree Celsius making it difficult to be used for consumption of hot beverages or soup (Faithfull 2018).