MASTER FRAMING AND CROSS-MOVEMENT NETWORKING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS

This article maps the network of cross-movement activism in Greater Va ncouver, British Columbia, and explores the relationship between posit ion in the network and cognitive use of different injustice frames. Th e study is informed by a neo-Gramscian analysis that views social move ments as (potential) agencies of counterhegemony. Viewed as a politica l project of mobilizing broad, diverse opposition to entrenched econom ic, political, and cultural power, counterhegemony entails a tendentia l movement toward comprehensive critiques of domination and toward com prehensive networks of activism. We find that the use of a broadly res onant master frame-the political-economy account of injustice-is assoc iated with the practice of cross-movement activism. Activists whose so cial movement organization (SMO) memberships put them in touch with ac tivists from other movements tend to frame injustice as materially gro unded, structural, and susceptible to transformation through concerted collective action. Moreover, the movements in which political-economy framing especially predominates-labor, peace, feminism, and the urban /antipoverty sector-tend not only to supply most of the cross-movement ties but to be tied to each other as well, suggesting that a politica l-economy framing of injustice provides a common language in which act ivists from different movements can communicate and perhaps find commo n ground.