Character Building: The Dynamics of Emerging Social Movement Groups

Few studies have collected contemporaneous data on social movements at their earliest stages. Thus, we know little about how social movement groups develop the characteristics that will later become assumed as what the group is. This study explores how social movement groups come to take on a particular character by collecting longitudinal, contemporaneous, comparative, and interactional data on what we term "emerging social movement groups" (ESMGs). Using concepts from time-geographic theory, we examine how three paired ESMGs develop distinctive interpersonal, organizational, and ideological characteristics.