2025 COSMOS Summer school: Studying protest

COSMOS. The Centre on Social Movement Studies

2025 COSMOS Summer school: Studying protest. Methodological practices in social movement research

The Summer school will take place in Cortona (Tuscany), hosted by the Scuola Normale Superiore, from September 8th to September 13th 2025. It will focus on how to analyse present and past forms of grassroots participation activated by social movement actors at the local, regional and transnational level.

More in general, it aims at disseminating knowledge on how to investigate processes and mechanisms that sustain mobilisation. Grassroots participation has been at the centre of the public and political debate in the last decade (covering a range of issues, from anti-austerity to climate, from feminist to solidarity with Palestine). Massive popular protests have deeply impacted national and global politics. The emergence of new protest movements requires scholars to reflect on the research strategies and methodologies that are employed to study grassroots participation. The summer school addresses this gap discussing how to apply the main methods in the social sciences to investigate social and political mobilisation.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND ACADEMIC PROGRAMME

The Summer school will last 5 teaching days, including keynotes, thematic sessions, presentations and feedback on participants’ projects. Among others, the use of the following methods and techniques for social movement inquiry will be addressed: surveys, qualitative interviews, ethnographic participant observation, frame and discourse analysis, protest event analysis, social network analysis, participatory action research and historical methods. Ethical issues regarding every methodology will be address within the method lectures.

The Summer school will include two keynote speeches by leading scholars on social movements and research methods: Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore) and David Snow (University of California— Irvine). Instructors will include Lorenzo Bosi, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore) and Swen Hutter (WZB/Freie Universität Berlin), among others.

LOCATION

The Summer school will take place at the Palazzone of Scuola Normale Superiore in Cortona (Arezzo), in the middle of Tuscany.

APPLICATION

The Summer School is open to 20 graduate and master students as well as early career researchers with a specialised interest in protest from different fields of study, including political science, political sociology, political communication, and political anthropology from Europe and beyond.

Applicants must email a cover letter in which they explain how the Summer School would be beneficial for their research, a 250-word abstract of their proposed paper, and a curriculum vitae no later than May 31st, 2025: to cosmos[AT]sns.it

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by email as soon as possible. Those offered places must confirm their participation within 7 days, after which places may be offered to applicants on the reserve list.

REQUIREMENTS

Students will be required to write and submit a 7,000-8,000 word paper before the Summer School begins. The paper will be then presented and discussed during the summer school. Students will be also required to complete the mandatory readings for lectures and method sessions and to actively participate in the discussion.

Successful participation in the Summer School will be fully accredited with a certificate of participation.

English will be the working language of the Summer School. Therefore, students are expected to have a good command of written and spoken English.

FINANCIAL ASPECTS

The summer school is tuition-free: no fees will be required. Participants will have to cover for travel and accommodation (although SNS will offer some help into limiting costs for the latter). SNS will also provide academic materials, coffee breaks and lunches.

CONTACTS

Email contact for questions and clarifications about the Summer school: cosmos[AT]sns.it

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Lorenzo Bosi, Donatella della Porta, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The summer school is funded by the NRRP through the MERITA project, a network that includes Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Scuola Normale Superiore, Collegio Superiore of Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori of University of Padua, and Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati of Sapienza University of Rome.