social movements, sociology of knowledge, disciplinary norms, interdisciplinarity, normativity, sociology of the global South
is paper reflects on the implications of the contemporary diversity of intellectual approaches to the study of social movements. Sketching some of the key dimensions of difference in the field, it explores the normative intellectual questions raised by /acknowledging this diversity as well as the intellectual history questions involved in explaining it. In a global perspective, the question of what a “social movement studies of the global South” might mean exemplifies the challenge involved. The paper draws on Aristotle’s typology of knowledge to suggest some ways of handling this situation, before concluding with some open questions.