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Zavestoski, Stephen. 2011. Review of Mobilizing Science:

Movements, Participation, and the Remaking of Knowledge, by Book Reviews 1443
Sabrina McCormick. Social Forces 89(4):1443-1445.
Wapner's final chapter (Chapter 8) contains the details about his approach for
reinvigorating environmentalism. Even if you find fault with his earlier premises, you
will find his solution intriguing-his "middle path" through the extremes of naturalism and mastery. Central here is a shift from "either nature or humans" to "both
nature and humans." Wapner's approach emphasizes cultivating healthy, symbiotic
relationships between humans and their biophysical environment to foster coevolution. Readets will recognize some of his "bright green politics" ideas as embodied
within "natural capitalism," the "triple bottom line," and "cradle to cradle" from the
business sector-as well as in such recent trends as green urbanism, urban gardening,
and the rise of cellulosic biofuels.
Wapner's middle path approach raises interesting questions for social scientists to
pursue. What is the role of environmental science in examining the dynamics and extent of coevolution? Consider here the relatively newfieldsof sustainability science and
coupled human and natural systems, which examine how human well-being is directly
and indirectly promoted via ecosystem services. How can social and natural scientists
trained within their respective disciplines effectively collaborate to study human-nature
interrelationships? How will the relationship between the environmental movement
and the business sector evolve as the former continues to embrace strategies and solutions aligned with Wapner's "bright green pohtics?" How will the former prevent
cooptation by the latter? Finally, what is the role of religion in the future of American
environmentalism? Recent trends within American Christianity-the rise of stewardship beliefs and creation care values-seem to position this belief system as ripe for
leadership in expressing compassion both for humans and the natural creation of God.

Mobilizing Science: Movements, Participation, and the Remaking of Knowledge

By Sabrina McCormick
Temple University Press. 2009. 212 pages. $38.50 cloth.
Reviewer: Stephen Zavestoski, University of San Francisco
Scholarly work that bridges science studies and social movements has been somewhat sparse in the 30 years since these two fields became established in the discipline.
Mobilizing Science marks a significant attempt to fill this gap by introducing the concept of "democratizing science movements."
DSMs, according to McCormick, are movements that "contest expert knowledge and
critique research findings as biased and politically driven." Their goals include legitimating lay knowledge in science processes, changing science's underlying value structure,
and challenging biases in research trajectories. McCormick's aim to analyze how social
movements engage in these processes, and what they do when they fail, is motivated by
the absence of scholarly attention to how activists democratize science and the social
structures they confront in doing so. DSMs are essential in a "knowledge society" where
science is an integral component of democracy yet is not itself democratic.

1444 Social Forces S9m

What makes Mobilizing Science provocative and engaging is McCormick's choice of
disparate cases to guide her analysis: the Brazilian anti-dam movement and the environmental breast cancer movement in the United States. The choice is premised on the
argument that contestation of science has spread to the industrializing world as a result
of the forms and institutions of science having become globalized. Previous research on
social movements and the role of science in policy has been encumbered by perceived
divisions between the developed and developing world, argues McCormick. Analyzing
Brazil's anti-dam movement and the U.S.'s environmental breast cancer movement
advances our understanding of DSMs as movements that exist at the intersection of
global science and civil society by articulating "the importance of contextual factors
while highlighting the global nature of these struggles."
McCormick's greatest contribution to bridging science studies and social movements can be found in the opening chapter in which she lays out the theoretical
groundwork for distinguishing DSMs from other movements and for understanding
how they engage in challenges to science. This chapter also discusses the goals and
tactics of DSMs and explains why they arise. McCormick attributes to the process
of scientization wherein biased and insulated expert knowledge, influenced by the
corporate shaping of scientific production, marginalizes laypeople and makes them
vulnerable to tbe power invested in this institutional form. The chapter also theorizes
citizen/science alliances, a form of lay/expert collaboration in which citizens and scientists work together on issues identified by laypeople, and on which DSMs rely to
restructure the institutions of science that shape policy decisions. Anyone looking to
engage students in theoretical discussions of the role of science in contemporary social
movements may find this chapter worth assigning. Chapter 7 constitutes the book's
most effective application of the theoretical framework by examining how collaboration between experts and activists successfully re-shaped the government's plans for
a large hydroelectric dam project in eastern Amazon and how breast cancer activists
succeeded in restructuring government funding of breast cancer research.
In between these chapters, McCormick's ambitious attempt to compare and contrast the seemingly incomparable Brazilian anti-dam and the U.S. environmental
breast cancer movements includes separate chapters on the two movements, a chapter on the roles of government institutions and corporate interests in precipitating
challenges from DMSs, more on lay/expert collaborations, and a chapter on the cooptation risks DSMs face.
While McCormick's analysis of DSMs succeeds on the whole, the challenge of comparing two dissimilar cases left me with two lingering questions. Having co-authored
a number of breast cancer movement-related articles with McCormick when we both
participated in Phil Brown's Contested Illness Research Group at Brown University,
my criticisms are an extension of the theoretical and methodological debates we would
have at our weekly research group meetings.
First, how do the roles played by citizen/science alliances differ from movement to
movement? McCormick argues tbat "lay/expert collaborations directly shape move-

Book Reviews 1445

ment initiation." This claim is supported by evidence that researchers politicized indemnification and mobilized affected populations in the Brazilian anti-dam movement.
With respect to the environmental breast cancer movement, however, it appears that
citizen/science alliances emerged after the movement's initiation to support the movement's demands for new ways of studying breast cancer.
Second, McCormick claims that the scientific practices adopted by activist groups
shape the organizational structures of movements. But evidence of how they shape
movements is weak. When do movements reach out to scientists and integrate their collaborations into existing movement structures as opposed to building entire movement
structures around the scientific practices adopted and advocated by the movement?
A final flurry of questions is meant to precipitate debate among scholars interested
in the notion of democratizing science movements. The strength o Mobilizing Science
is its ability to prompt such questions. Might DSMs be irrelevant, at least in the United
States, where science has come under attack by a large segment of the population
invested in rejecting the volume of scientific knowledge that has accumulated around
anthropogenic climate change? Are climate change denialists interested in democratizing science? What would prevent future movements from adopting a strategy similar
to the Conservative movement to reject the science of climate change? If such movements can have the same success as the climate denialism movement, then movements
expending time and energy to democratize science may be wasting their resources.

Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy

Edited by Ruth Milkman, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro
ILR Press. 2010. 312 pages. $65.00 cloth, $21.95 paper.
Reviewer: Edward J.W. Park, Loyola Marymount University
Two of the most significant trends in the United States in the past four decades have been
the long and steady decline of organized labor and the dramatic rise in legal and illegal
immigration. The relationship between these two trends has attracted and generated a
great deal of attention and controversy. While most have asked the question "Are immigrants good or bad for organized labor?" Working forJustice ^ots beyond this simplistic
question to directly examine how immigrant workers have organized in Los Angeles.
In the past two decades, Los Angeles has become an important place for understanding immigrant-centered labor movements. The success of the Service Employees
International Union's Justice for Janitor campaign in 1990 began a movement that
made Los Angeles "the major R&D center for 21" century unionism."(7) Since Mike
Davis made this observation in 2000, the Los Angeles labor movement has grown even
more active and dramatic. The purpose of Workingfor Justice is to bring some of these
new stories to light and to critically examine organizing and advocacy of immigrant
workers in the United States today. Each of the substantive chapters focuses on a single
campaign or organization and provides in-depth analysis of issues and participants.

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