Cognitive Approach - Eyerman and Jamison’s Approach
The increase in civil rights movements, student movements and the various groups of movements in history necessitated the sociological study of social movements. This sociological approach adopted the “scientific tradition to divide and conquer, to break reality down into its component parts so as to be better able to control it” (Eyerman & Jamaison, 1991, p.1). According to Eyerman & Jamaison, (1991) the use of scientific application to understand social movements has become ineffective, since “science has largely become a process of reduction and objectification, and truth is seen as coming from distancing the subjective observer from the objects of investigation” (p.1). Eyerman and Jamison (1991) further note that the rise of modernity, and the differentiation of society lead to a form of social dominations in which power has come to be based on the authority of scientific expertise…Sociology has reinforced the divisions of modern society by imposing its own disciplinary division of labour onto social movements. Social movements are conceptualized as external objects to be understood in terms of pre-existing frameworks of interpretation. The sociology of social movement thus provides a kind of knowledge that can be useful for the preservation of the established political order rather than for its critical transformation. (p.3)
Eyerman and Jamison (1991) are the earliest known authors to have consolidated the cognitive approach as an alternative to the sociological study of social movements. This approach “offers a form of analysis that seeks to study social movements in their own terms…it means that we look at social movements through the complex lens of a social theory of knowledge that is both historically and politically informed” (p.2). To describe a movement in a cognitive sense is to see an articulation of particular “cognitive products or types of knowledge” (p.65). The use of a cognitive lens in relation to social movements is considered by the authors as “processes in formation…forms of activity by which individuals create new kinds of social identities… where action is neither predetermined nor completely self-willed; its meaning is derived from the context in which it is carried out and the understanding actors bring to it/or derive from it” (p.3). This means that social movements are producers of knowledge.
Eyerman and Jamison (1991) first used to term Cognitive Praxis in discussing concerns that transforms groups of individuals into social movements and that give them their particular meaning or consciousness. In other words, dimensions of cognitive praxis are the relations to knowledge that distinguish particular social movements, and the concepts, ideas and intellectual activities that give them their cognitive identity (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991). Additionally, the use of the term cognitive praxis emphasizes the inventive function of consciousness and cognition in all individual and collective actions of humans (ibid). Eyerman and Jamison (1991) hence identified the different dimensions of cognitive practices of social movement as knowledge production. Cognitive approach also presents a political historical context of social movements. With its political context, Eyerman and Jamison (1991) wanted to “understand social movements in relation to their particular time and place…a contextual theory of social change” (p.3). The authors’ analysis therefore looks at social movements both in historical moments and between political cultures (ibid). The approach by Eyerman and Jamison (1991) for that reason “focuses upon the process of articulating a movement identity (cognitive praxis), on the actors taking part in this process (movement intellectuals), and on the contexts of articulation (political cultures and institutions)” (p.4). Two actors in social movements are identified by the authors’; the leader and the led. Leaders are the individuals who organize, while the led, are the individual members of the movement. This categorization is problematic as there are always individuals are who neither part of the organisers nor general members. In this case, it raises the question on how such individual voices get represented. Secondly, such division raises concern on how voices of activist - the led, get captured by necessary bodies concerned – governments, academics and others. This split (leaders and the led), also has the potential of creating a master-subject relationship in a movement. Nonetheless, in as much as this division poses a challenge, it enables scholars to recognize and perhaps measure the knowledge and intellectual contribution of the different actors to the making of a social movement (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991).
By conceiving social movements as processes through which meaning is constructed by instruments and strategies, we are exposed to the possibility of recognizing a range of intellectuals’ practices and contributions of different actors to the making of social movements. Eyerman and Jamison (1991) therefore suggests that though activists in social movements do not participate at an equal level, they are all regarded as ‘movement intellectuals’ because “through their activism they contribute to the formation of the movement’s collective identity, to making the movement what it is” (p.94). Cognitive praxis are shown as the “unreflected assumptions of analysis rather than the objects of investigation” (Eyerman and Jamison, 199, p.45).
It is worth noting that while Eyerman and Jamison (1991) box the concept of social movement into Cognitive praxis, others such as McAdam, McCarthy and Zald (1996) see Cognitive praxis as one of the factors in resource mobilization. According to Bostrom (2004), concepts such as cognitive praxis (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991), frame alignment (Snow et al 1986), collective identity (Larana et al. 1994) have originated as a way to better understand resource mobilization approach (which focussed on resources, rationality and formal organization) to the study of social movements. Resource mobilization was a response to collective behaviour approach that emerged in the United States in the 1960’s and focuses analysis on an organization not the individuals (McCarty & Zald, 1973) For this reason, it does not centre around the question of why individuals join social movements, the rationality or irrationality of their intentions or behaviour as participants, but rather on the effectiveness with movement, that is movement organizations use of resources in attempting to achieve their goals (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991, p. 24).
Bostrom (2004) identifies three dimensions of cognitive practice; knowledge, meaning and rules. Knowledge he notes “encompasses both general and specific ideas about relationship in reality… and can be both theoretical and practical, abstract and concrete, systemized and diffuse, and professional as well as popular” (p.76). Because of its vague nature, which can easily make it susceptible to manipulation by all parties, knowledge must be filled with meaning (ideals, values, interests, and emotions). This will ensure that parties exploits of the “truth” is limited to some degree (Bostrom, 2004). Meaning making is a cognitive process because it involves “experience, consciousness and reflection…needs conceptions and communication for its discovery, development, and clarification” (p.76). The third dimension: rules, is “about socially accepted and sanctioned ways to act” (p.77). Three kinds of rules are identified by Brunsson and Jacobsson (2000). The first is directives. This form of rule is usually issued by an official authority and is mandatory on all subjects. Norms, the second, are usually a form of rule that is internalized and not taken seriously because of its couched nature. Standards are the last form of rules. Standards are often explicit with identified source, but are presented as voluntary. Notwithstanding the seemingly intricacies in the practice, the purpose of this paper is to use a cognitive lens to study pre-independent social movements in Ghana.