Occupation: Organizer: A Critical History of Community Organizing in America

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A trenchant history of community organizing and a must-readfor the next generation of organizers seeking to learn fromthe successes, failures, and contradictions of the past.

The community organizing tradition is long overdue for reexamination. InOccupation: Organizerwork as part of the community, rather than standing apart from it.

Petitjean insists, can we learn to build durable, effective organizations for change.

Reviews

"In left-wing circles and right-wing fever dreams, the professional organizer has recently been a key protagonist. With its sympathetic yet rigorously critical treatment of the organizer and the contradictions inherent to the position, Occupation: Organizer helps us assess how to remake our world into the more democratic, just, and peaceful place we know it can be."Micah Uetricht,coauthor ofBigger than Bernie: How We Go From the Sanders Campaign to DemocraticSocialism

"An essential read for everybody interested in the history and contradictions of community organizing in the US." Eric Blanc, author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics

"Ever since Saul Alinsky first organized Chicagos Back of the Yards neighborhood nearly acentury ago, community organizers have been engaging in grounded but often-heroic struggles including the struggle to figure out exactly what they are trying to do. Clement Petitjeanbrings welcome historical perspective and deep insight to this conundrum, and by probing keytensions in the role itselfbetween professional and agitator, democrat and manipulator,Alinskys organizer and Ella Bakers spadeworkerhis book effectively dissects the paradoxesand possibilities of professionalization in an important kind of community work. Occupation:Organizer is an incisive yet nuanced study of how social-change work became communityorganizing and how its history clarifies the challenges ahead." William Sites, University of Chicago

"Occupation: Organizer is a deeply thought-provoking book that approaches community organizingand critically, the role of the organizerfrom the standpoint of the development of aprofession,with all the ironies and difficulties that entails. With a sharp and unsparing sociological eye, Clment Petitjean asks how the job of community organizer emerged over decades and how identifiable but unstable boundaries formed around it. It is a story that highlights both key figures and strategies in the professionalization process and the movements and institutions that made them effective. Petitjean leaves the reader with both an appreciation of the work organizers do and a deep unease about the profession itself.Occupation: Organizer brings new perspectives to current thinking about nonprofits, foundations, and the weakening of grassroots movements, and challenges us to think more clearly about present contradictions and the real futures that may emerge from them." John Krinsky, The City College of New York

Author Bio

Clment Petitjean is an associate professor of American studies at the Universit Panthon Sorbonne in Paris. He holds a PhD in sociology. His writing has appeared in academic journals and popular outlets like Jacobin, Contretemps, and Le Monde diplomatique.