Creating a Participatory Social Movement Community : The Baha'is of Evanston

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While the processes through which people join religious and non-religious social movements are well-documented, the processes through which members become active participants in the collective efforts of social movements are not well-documented in sociological literature. This study explores micromobilization, the small-scale, interactional processes that lead to collective action (i.e., working together toward common goals), within the Baha'i religious social movement community of Evanston, Illinois. It suggests that micromobilization is not a uniform process, nor are the processes necessarily linear in nature. Rather, these processes are interactive and often reflexive in nature. Also, the reasons that people engage in collective activities vary from person to person. Even with the same person, several reasons are usually involved, and the reasons often shift in salience from one instance of participation to another. Further, these reasons are often intertwined with and cannot be separated from the ways in which people become engaged, or from the social contexts in which micromobilization occurs. In making these points, this study illuminates the potential of ordinary relationships and gatherings among movement constituents to serve as contexts that facilitate micromobilization. It highlights the capacity of a social movement community to generate and support a number and a variety of mobilization contexts. This study thus challenges some conventional assumptions about micromobilization and about the primacy of social movement organizations in mobilizing constituents toward collective goals.