Momentum Organising: Lessons for the Animal Freedom Movement
Social movements usually lean towards one of two approaches to organising. The first, mass-protest organising, aims to galvanise a large…
Social movements usually lean towards one of two approaches to organising. The first, mass-protest organising, aims to galvanise a large amount of the public to action, shifting the political weather in their favour. On the other hand, structure-based organising aims to organise people in specific institutions, or “structures”, to create social change.
It’s in this context that momentum organising has emerged. Developed by the organisation Momentum, this approach to organising seeks to take the best of both mass-protest and structure-based organising and combine them into a hybrid model. Momentum organising has been used by a wide array of movements such as Sunrise, Cosecha and IfNotNow amongst many others.
In light of its growing prominence, we want to look more closely into the components of momentum organising, its application to Animal Freedom and the lessons we can take away from it.
Mass-protest based organising
In order to understand momentum organising, we need to first examine the two organising approaches which comprise its DNA. Mass-protest organising thrives in generating moral outrage and disruption through highly publicised acts of protest. This disruption in turn polarises the public, eventually making the issue too big to ignore by mainstream society. Moral outrage is harnessed in mass-protest movements to rally people to action. For instance, the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010 was the impetus for the Arab Spring protests. In the Animal Freedom movement, groups like Direct Action Everywhere and Animal Rising utilise polarisation and disruption tactics such as open rescue to thrust Animal Freedom into public discourse.
Mass-protest organising is all about galvanising a large enough number of the public to participate. This approach strives to shift societal norms by broadening the acceptable spectrum of views in society, known as the Overton Window, to include the social movement’s demands. Mass-protest organising creates social change through a cycle of mobilising existing supporters, building up a critical mass of public supporters, and using this support to cement new societal norms and views.
Structure-based organising
On the flip side, structure-based organising involves creating a robust base of support within strategically relevant institutions to instigate social change. For example, if your goal is to address injustices within the healthcare system, you may organise nurses within a local hospital. People in their daily interactions and collaborations create a bedrock of relationships which have the power to demand and create change since the system relies on their participation. These communities of people can see the effect of their organising in their day to day lives, resulting in tangible and real changes for those involved.
An example in the Animal Freedom movement could include the Plant Based Treaty campaign which targets educational structures like universities or governmental structures like local councils. This form of organising leans heavily into training and developing people’s leadership skills so they can organise effectively. Structure-based organising creates social change from building up a big enough base of support to be able to bring this issue to national or even global attention.
Divergent views on building power
As stated previously, these two approaches often shape social movements, albeit with room for amalgamation and innovation. Distinct methods like Marshall Ganz’s community organising methodology or Rick Falkvinge’s “swarmwise” model can also be applied. Crucially for our purposes, these two approaches represent differing views on how to build power and create social change.
Mass-protest organising aims to create big change on a national scale, bringing in large numbers of the public to take action and changing what is “acceptable” within society. On the other hand, structure-based organising works closely with communities on tangible, local goals and builds up the leadership and strategic capacity of its volunteers over the long term. Both of these are valid in their own ways but what if there was a way to combine the two to get the best of both worlds? A movement where you could generate big change and deepen people’s ability to organise strategically? This is where momentum organising comes in.
Momentum organising explained
Think of momentum organising as a recipe. To build a strong movement, you need the ingredients of well-trained activists, a generous dash of disruption and polarisation and a heaping of changing public opinion. Taken all together, they bake the cake of organising that creates big yet tangible change.
Crucially, momentum organising’s view of building power here relies on recruiting and mobilising supporters across society who can use their power to challenge and disrupt dominant institutions. Usually, power is seen as being at the “top”; the “top” being government, politicians, courts, CEOs and big business. These are the people and institutions who create the rules and determine our destiny, right? Only partly. Of course, top-down examples of power are important for us to acknowledge, understand and use to our advantage, but power relies on people’s participation as seen in the diagram below:
In a traditional hierarchy pictured above, those on the bottom actually maintain the structure and hold up the person at the top. The bottom-up view of power points out that institutions, big businesses and governments rely on people’s cooperation or permission to function. For example, looking at animal agriculture, this depends on laws enforcing animals as property, but also relies on those consuming and buying animal products, slaughterhouse workers, farmers, lorry drivers and many more. With good organisation and strategy, people can choose to take that co-operation away and intervene in the system when they feel that there is injustice.
Momentum organising argues that to be able to create the conditions for substantive change within society, social movements need to be able to shift public opinion in favour of their issue. To do this, a movement has to build up a base of active supporters prepared to take peaceful action with them, but it also has to shift a large section of the public into passive support. The aim is to eventually get those passive supporters to become active members of the movement, especially in key segments of society that are relevant for your cause i.e. like nurses, say. Achieving this demands long-term investment in leadership and strategic capabilities, along with creating impactful polarising events to amass supporters. This new norm, once established, redefines societal acceptability.
For example, Animal Rising’s recent actions targeting horse racing created polarisation, especially prevalent in the British media, forcing the public to consider the moral dimensions of the practice. But, what does the process of changing public opinion look like exactly? Momentum organising’s answer is, well, momentum: many people taking escalating actions together over time. It’s kind of like a snowball; as it rolls down the hill, it gets bigger and bigger along the way, attracting more and more people to the cause. The below diagram describes the cycle of momentum:
Escalation: Taking peaceful action together to polarise the public into taking a side on your issue. Taking a side means the movement has people they can build active popular support with.
Active Popular Support: Provides the base from which you can absorb new members into the movement. The more active popular support, the more people to recruit, the stronger the movement.
Absorption: Getting people together so that they can take action on your issue. A key element of absorption is developing the leadership and strategic capacity of your activists in able to take further action i.e. escalation.
It’s not just about getting momentum, though; its about training people with the tools and skills necessary to steer this snowball in a coherent way. Through repeating this cycle and capitalising on public polarisation around an issue, the movement gains enough popular support to turn their demand into reality. Momentum organising therefore measures a movement’s success by the capacity to create tangible change and the increase in the level of public support for their issue.
Though there are players in the Animal Freedom movement fulfilling elements of momentum organising, there is not yet a fully realised momentum style social movement. However, there is a question as to whether momentum organising sufficiently synthesised mass-protest and structure-based organising to the degree claimed. Might there be areas for the Animal Freedom movement to fill the gap?
Where momentum organising has struggled
Whilst momentum organising is intended to be a hybrid of structure-based and mass-protest organising, a lot of movements have struggled to energise the structure-based organising element. Most have tended to lean towards the mass-protest aspect which has left the deep organising work and its role in building long term power partially underutilised. Indeed, the momentum cycle is geared towards quickly scaling up leadership skills and development through mass trainings in order to generate and capitalise on periods of high momentum.
Yet, what may get lost here is the attunement to the needs of local groups and the communities they are a part of in sustaining activism. In the Civil Rights era, for example, Ella Baker’s organising focused on grassroots community organising, building strong relational ties within the movement; what she called the “spadework”. This “spadework” is essential in creating rootedness and connectedness amongst movement participants in which relationships power and sustain activism. This also means that movements are attuned to the concerns and energy of the grassroots.
This is particularly important when considering that a movement cannot always be in a state of high momentum and generating public polarisation. Movements go through phases much like seasons. Sometimes it will be summer when all hands are on deck, sometimes winter where you need to slow down, consolidate and plan for the future. During these moments of low momentum, having a network of people who are well-trained to undertake local actions would help guard against activist turnover and provide a pool of activists primed to be mobilised again.
Lessons for the Animal Freedom movement
So, what should we take away from momentum organising for the Animal Freedom Movement in light of this? First, obviously, we need a social movement which is capable of fulfilling both sides of the spectrum; one that can generate polarisation and shift public opinion but also lays a solid foundation for organising to continue beyond periods of high momentum.
It’s not enough for someone to turn up to a protest once and go home with no option to join or further organising in their area; we need a strong network of local groups ready to bring people on and take action! This could also involve different parts of the movement taking on different aspects of momentum at different times. Momentum organising functions more like a spectrum which enables shifts according to the context, though there is still a leaning towards one aspect or the other. This may mean building coalitions, alliances or simply spaces where different Animal Freedom actors can complement the focuses of each other. For instance, the Animal Rights Conference in the UK used to provide one such unifying space for grassroots Animal Freedom activism.
Second, greater attention should be paid to the role of structure-based organising in supporting a mass movement for Animal Freedom, particularly the potential of community organising in mobilising communities to action. Could there be bases of support in key institutions such as healthcare, education or unions? What issues could we organise around? What barriers would we face organising for Animal Freedom? An exciting challenge here is how we as an ally movement for animals can reach out to others who may not necessarily share apparent overlapping interest in Animal Freedom. If we can crack this nut, it could open a whole range of possibilities! Organising in these key institutions would prove vital in reaching “beyond the choir” of usual Animal Freedom activists.
Lastly, we should seek to understand what else would be needed to support a movement that can do momentum organising. Whilst a momentum style social movement would aim to shift public opinion, a shift in public opinion is toothless without the ability to cement those changes within society. It will require political lobbying, legal challenges, narrative change and so on. A momentum social movement would only be one slice of the pie; we need a range of different actors working to advance Animal Freedom!
Disclaimer: This article draws upon the momentum model, “This is an Uprising” and this article on Beautiful Trouble to help explain Momentum organising.