The talk and back talk of collective action: A dialogic analysis of repertoires of discourse among nineteenth-century English cotton spinners

This article offers a critique of framing perspectives on collective action discourse and an alternative dialogic approach. The argument set forth is that the latter sees collective action discourse as a joint product of acto rs' agency and discourse dynamics, including its multivocal nature. Such di scourse is a joint product of challengers' rational actions and the constra ints of the discursive field. Challengers seek to appropriate and subvert t he dominant discourses that legitimate power, creating discursive repertoir es. To illustrate this, the contentious actions of English cotton spinners in the 1820s and 1830s are analyzed. The spinners produced a discursive rep ertoire drawing on mill owners' dominant discourses.