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Though the pro-war, pro-pollution, anti-DEI, pro-racism leaders and influencers in the US frequently claim[1] that the people in the streets protesting what they do are "paid professional protesters," that is a complete fabrication, as any activist who has been deeply involved in building social movements knows well. The next claim is that these paid professional protesters are funded by George Soros.
The actual career opportunities in the realm of resistance are relatively few and normally low paid. It is a career path for the conflict transformation student whose first consideration is the strong desire to make a living doing the movement work that is foremost in the spirit, heart, and mind of that student. In other words, to be realistic, the idea is to earn enough doing movement work so that the student isn't being a barista full-time and doing the movement work as a part-time volunteer.
For actual resisters, that is, people who can at times boldly get arrested and incarcerated in pursuit of movement building for peace and justice, a life crafted to allow for that is key. Some options include living in community and choosing a community that can flex with that approach. Such communities might include, for example, many Catholic Worker communities. Holding a Conflict Transformation or Peace Studies degree isn't a requirement for membership in such communities, but it would tend to orient the degree-holder who wishes to engage in resistance toward a corpus of knowledge that serves both the community and the campaigns or movements the graduate is drawn to.
There are some other opportunities for those who are drawn to research, perhaps with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict or the Albert Einstein Institution, and those positions pay far more than a typical community organizer who works for any number of organizations, some local[2], some national or international with local chapters. Examples might include Physicians for Social Responsibility, the American Friends Service Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, and more.
In various sectors, community organizers build political will for policy creation or defense. For example, some staff for Planned Parenthood work specifically as community organizers, especially in the wake of the US Supreme court Dobbs decision (overturning Roe v Wade), defending abortion rights state by state (Pottenger, 2024). Where feasible, those Planned Parenthood workers are unionized, which generally makes their positions more secure, with benefits that many local advocacy or movement organizations cannot afford.
One of the most interesting confluences in the employment picture for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies (CTPS) grads is the extent to which the theories learned open into creative responses that can prove highly successful.
So, for example, in a good Consensus Building class, the student learns many things that translate into excellent community organizing, not just at the 30,000-foot level but right in the literal face of interpersonal relationships. All CTPS courses have dignity, face, respect at the start line. But consensus organizing teaches that external resources, with appropriate conditions, can serve a community quite well. Old guard community organizers trained in the Alinsky adversarial model might well gain some concessions or even defeat an external party in the name of the community.
For example, a supermarket chain announces plans to build a new store in a community that is largely a food desert served inadequately by overpriced and understocked bodegas. A traditional organizer would whip opposition and likely successfully exclude that supermarket.
A consensus organizer educated in CTPS might do a more thorough assessment, analysis, and seek to set up exploratory meetings with the corporate team and a team designated by the community to dialog, discuss, learn, and then evaluate. The community team might seek to gain commitments from the corporation on a number of items, such as employees hired from the community, grants available to community organizations, fair labor practices including unionization, and more. A consensus organizer, educated with a CTPS degree, would likely achieve a strong record over time in such employment, developing a range of relationships that not only produce short term victories for the community, but showcase possibilities that translate into more mutual gain, even political favor, and opportunities for community prosperity based on integrity, DEI, and general uplift. This model, then, is one to employ and solidify a career grounded in community gratitude rather than a simple "He fights the bad guys" reputation too many old school community organizers have. Keeping out charlatans is important; bringing in collaborative parties is what keeps it more sustainable.
References
Pottenger, K. (2024). Planned Parenthood: Bargaining after Dobbs. New Labor Forum (Sage Publications Inc.), 34(1), 91–97. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/10957960241298934
[1] https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/compensated-activist-majority-protesters-paid/ NewsNation is a cover for rightwing "analysis" that is often an apparently sober examination of outrageous lies from far right sources, as though the lies have merit and only need to be examined from an assumption that they are true and, since they are, why? What are the arguments on both sides of the false claim? In this case, for instance, a supposed paid protester, who claims that the majority of the No Kings protesters are paid, supposedly argues that it doesn't mean that the protesters are insincere. This fake journalism can be slick and, to a person ignorant of it, convincing. In this case, as someone heavily involved in building social movements for six decades, I absolutely know it is a fake journalism story with literally zero truth.
[2] For example, in the early 1980s I was approached by a local peace activist in the far north of Wisconsin to start an actual paid organization. She and I and one other woman started it in Hayward, Wisconsin and called it Waging Peace. Jeanne was Education, Madge was Office Manager and Public Speaker, and I was Liaison to local peace groups across northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and northeastern Minnesota. We funded ourselves by a combination of direct mail appeals and small grants. We paid ourselves minimum wage. For each of us, it was simply a time in life where we had some financial obligations but not so overwhelming that we couldn't live on minimum wage and we were all driven to work full-time for peace and justice. In my case, I eventually became a full-time resister, going to prison for a direct disarmament action, but following that with using my Peace and Conflict Studies degree to get hired as an adjunct Peace and Conflict Studies professor, which ultimately led to a full-time professor appointment. This is a highly unusual career path, but it's my reality.
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