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This essay argues that grounded utopian movements (GUMs) have generally been overlooked in recent cross-disciplinary theorizations of social movements, and seeks to rectify the neglect. GUMs, unlike other social movements, do not seek recognition either from capitalist institutions or modern nation-states, but are instead grounded in visions of alternative "ideal places" (utopias), and set out to establish alternative ways of living which their members find more just and satisfying than at present. We discuss the Ghost Dance of the Great Plains, the Rastafari movement of the Caribbean, and the long-durée Maya movement as grounded utopian movements of the periphery, to illustrate major aspects of theoretical, epistemological, and methodological approaches to the study of GUMs. We conclude with a brief treatment of the global justice movement as a contemporary GUM. [Keywords: grounded utopian movements, social movements, Ghost Dance, Rastafari, long-durée Maya movement, global justice movement]
The Ghost Dance movement in the United States, the Rastafari of Jamaica and the Maya Movement of Guatemala, and other movements like them have been widely referred to in the anthropological literature as "revitalization," "cult," and "nativistic" movements (Barrett 1977; England 2003; Linton 1943; Wallace 1956; Warren 1998). Although these ascriptions have been debated, central to these movements has been innovative use of cultural resources such as religious beliefs, the creation of new cultural formations and meanings, and the manifestation of culturally-embedded movement practices. We refer to these movements and others like them as grounded utopian movements.
Grounded utopian movements, such as the Ghost Dance, Rastafari, and Maya are thoroughly modern movements; they are not "archaic" or "premodern" formations. They have emerged, persisted, disappeared, and reemerged across decades, even centuries. These movements are "utopian" in that they point to a " ideal place" (utopia)-like the new world of the Ghost Dance or Mount Zion for the Rastafari-and by implication, to a better time and more satisfying social relationships and identifications. "Utopian," however, also connotes impracticality, romanticism, and for some observers, irrationality and flightiness. Although all movements have a utopian dimension because they imagine alternative futures (Gusfield 1994:69) and their interest in utopia points to a commonality across movements, grounded utopian movements have been distinctive in that their visions of strong utopias have formed to counteract conditions of racist imperial...