On Organizing as Practice

Abstract

Abstract BBCO is a practice more than it is a craft or art. Most accounts tend to frame BBCO as an activity by single individuals. The lone professional organizer has become the emblem of BBCO, a single stand-in for a collective practice. This chapter argues that BBCO is a practice. The activity of organizing can be best understood by following the action itself rather than focusing on individual actors or actor organizations. One consequence of this account is a richer description of the role of sacred values in the life of BBCO counterpublics and a truer account of the feel of the practice of BBCO. By figuring BBCO as a practice, we can gain greater insight into how sacred values fit into the life of the BBCO constituency and how the organizing involves individual and collective agents taking positions in fields of power where sacred values play important roles.