Emotions and the Campaign for Victims’ Rights in Canada

Abstract

Prevailing explanations of the increase in collective action surrounding victims’ rights in early 1980s Canada generally follow the precepts of political process, resource mobilization, and framing approaches in social-movements research by depicting the movement as a corollary of contemporary organizational, political, and cultural conditions. We find that the increase in activism, while certainly influenced by such factors, also required that victim-advocate groups properly manage, display, and frame the strong emotions associated with the victim experience – grief, fear, injustice, and anger – to maintain the internal integrity of the group as well as its external or public legitimacy. Our analysis contributes to social-movements analyses of how understandings of movement dynamics can be deepened by paying attention to how emotions play out in the process of collective action.