Category: Daily updates

They’re not 100% finished, but tonight I was able to send 2 of my 4 core chapters to my third committee member.

Some things which I am still looking for more evidence about:

• The salience of climate change as a political issue had risen before the divestment movement began in 2012
• Climate change is especially salient to young people
• 350.org encouraged campus fossil fuel divestment campaigns to use informal, non-hierarchical forms of organizing

I am working on incorporating corrections to chapter 2/4 (on mobilizing structures) within the next day or so. Then I can move on to wrapping up chapter 4/4 (framing) with more rounds of comments and changes with committee members. Then I can re-write the introduction and conclusion, fill in any remaining important gaps, and get the whole dissertation to the internal external and external external examiners.

Four substantive chapters make up the argument of my dissertation, covering metaphors or categories from the academic literature on contentious politics: the political opportunity structure where activists develop approaches to advance their goals; the mobilizing structures they use to choose priorities and make decisions; the repertoires of contentious actions they perform; and the framing which comprises their world view and theory of how to achieve political change.

I have written many versions of each, in drafts going back for at least a couple of years now. Continuous interaction with my advisory committee is making them more concise and focused on defending specific claims.

I had a fourth version (v4) of the thesis a couple of years ago, but it was an intolerable 700 pages and my committee members had many other comments on what was important to conclude and how to structure the argument.

A few months ago I had a sixth version (v6) available for the committee (the fifth was clean sheet rewrite which I never got far into). It was cut to about 50 pages per chapter to leave room in a standard 300 page dissertation for an introduction and conclusion.

Since then and in close consultation with my committee I have been revising the introductions to each substantive chapter — which lay out a structure and argument and explain how the content of the chapter relates to the through story of the dissertation. With a round or two of meetings or comments we revise an introduction, then I redraft the rest of the chapter based on the largely-formed raw material of v6.

Tonight I sent the revised version of the repertoires chapter, which along with political opportunity and mobilizing structures (which they have already seen and told me to proceed from) will comprise 3/4 of the main text.

I have been very grateful for an enormous amount of sympathy, aid, and support from family members and friends. The whole PhD experience has been shaped by the people who I have been fortunate enough to be close with over these years. Your aid has been indispensable throughout this process of coming up with a book-size idea… and then wrenching it out of my brain as an actual book.

Some time ago, I wrote a new introductory chapter because my previous issue context and literature context chapters were too long. My committee said they aren’t happy with it and it needs changes, but first I should go through and revise my four core chapters.

I have nearly finished that now, with two revised chapters sent and two just needing a couple of passes to be done in the same way.

Now I have been told that the first of those revised chapters needs substantial work, and to be rewritten again into a new structure.

The only way forward is to do what they want, but it’s hard to express how exhausting the process of editing something into a ready to submit state before substantially revising it and then editing again has been.

There’s still a new conclusion to write too, so not one word of the dissertation is now finalized.