Dr Gia Nardini on how Social Movements succeed

What makes some social movements successful and others not? That's what my guest on this episode Dr Gia Nardini, an Assistant Professor at Denver University, set out to find out when she examined the Black Lives Matter movement last summer.

Gia specialises in consumer experience and last summer, She and her colleagues were planning to study how the Marriage Equality movement had been so successful. The idea being that many of the drivers behind consumer behaviour — in simple terms, what makes us buy things — are also of relevance when it comes to successful social justice movements.

As Black Lives Matter protests broke out across the US and globally, Gia and her team shifted their approach - why study something that had happened, when you could study something that was happening? So they pivoted and began to look at a social justice movement in real-time. 

What emerged were some interesting insights into what makes social movements successful. Rather than just write a piece of research, what Gia and her team did was to author a guide that other social movements can use. The secret sauce that makes social justice movements successful — or not.

I find this fascinating. Why do some campaigns succeed and others fail? And how does someone specialising in consumers, think of the idea of applying that to social movements?

In our discussion, we explore the findings of her latest research and her earlier work on experiencing.

For more on Gia 👉 https://daniels.du.edu/directory/gia-nardini/

To read her research on Social Movements 👉 https://www.du.edu/news/research-why-was-black-lives-matter-so-successful

For more on Experience vs Memory 👉https://www.headspace.com/blog/2015/08/19/remembering-vs-experiencing/