About

Rachel L. Einwohner is a political sociologist specializing in social movements. Her research focuses on the dynamics of protest and resistance, including questions related to protest emergence and effectiveness, the role of gender and other identities in protest dynamics, protesters' sense of efficacy, and the creation of solidarity in diverse movements. She has conducted theoretically-driven analyses of various movements and protest cases, such as the U.S. animal rights movement, the college-based anti-sweatshop movement, and Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Einwohner is part of an interdisciplinary research team that uses Twitter data to examine diversity and inclusion in contemporary social movements. Her scholarly work has been published in prominent journals including the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, and Mobilization. She has received funding from the NSF and the NEH. Her latest book, 'Hope and Honor: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust' (Oxford University Press, 2022), explores resistance movements in Jewish ghettos during Nazi occupation in Warsaw, Vilna, and Łódź. Additionally, she has co-edited two volumes: 'The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women's Social Movement Activism' and 'Identity Work in Social Movements.' Einwohner has also served as the Chair of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements in the American Sociological Association.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Social Science
• Law
• Computer Science
• Public relations
• Social psychology
• Geography
• Political economy
• Aesthetics
• Internet privacy
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Black lives matter and say her name: how intersectional solidarity strengthens movements for social justice

  Politics Groups and Identities · 2025-01-19

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• Introduction: gender, activism, the binary, and beyond

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-08-21

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  In this Introduction to the volume, we draw on the case of MeToo, a viral feminist mobilization, to illustrate the importance of examining gender in social movements. To do so, we ask a series of questions: How does gender shape the dynamics of MeToo? What do we learn about this feminist mobilization, and other movements, by taking gender into account? And what questions about gender and social movements remain unanswered? Through the lenses of the gender binary, intersectionality and a global perspective, we investigate what MeToo can offer in terms of understanding gender and activism, as well as its limitations. We draw on the idea of “beyond the binary” to explore the constraints of binary-focused research and illustrate what needs to be investigated to understand a world in flux around traditional ideas of gender. We conclude with suggested lessons for social movement scholars and activists as they engage in their own studies of gender and activism.

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• Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany By Wolf Gruner. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2023. Pp. 232. Hardcover $35.00. ISBN: 978-0300267198.

  Central European History · 2025-03-01

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• 12. Addressing the Missing Voices in Holocaust Testimony

  Cornell University Press eBooks · 2023-01-20

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• Instant Archives: Social Media and Social Movement Research

  Research in social movements, conflicts and change · 2023-07-03 · 2 citations

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  While social media data are used increasingly in studies of social movements, social media evolves far more rapidly than academic research and publication. This chapter argues that researchers should adopt historical and archival approaches to social media data. Treating social media data as an “instant archive” – one that is self-curated, is co-constituted, and changes rapidly – we caution researchers to pay attention to the features of this archive and their implications for working with the data therein. Applying insights from recent discussions of archival methods for social science research to the specific features of social media data, we explore how platform features, repressive effects, and user innovations affect the content of the instant archive. We then offer strategies for researchers' methodological approaches, including how best to select units of analysis and platforms, how to collect and interpret archival materials, and how to identify silences in the data.

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• Addressing the Missing Voices in Holocaust Testimony

  Cornell University Press eBooks · 2023-01-15 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter explores some methodological issues in using survivor testimony from the USC Visual History Archive. Are studies based on survivor testimonies biased, and if so, can these biases be addressed? What research questions can be answered using survivor testimonies, and what questions cannot be answered? Can social scientists properly study the Holocaust by using survivor testimony? The chapter addresses these questions by drawing on the author's use of Holocaust survivor testimonies in a study of Jewish resistance. In her studies of the Warsaw and Vilna Ghetto Uprisings, the author analyzes ways to include the missing voices of those who did not survive as a prerequisite to assessing the validity of survivors' voices as reflections of the entirety of the Holocaust victims' experience.

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• Hope and Honor

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022 · 23 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  • Computer Science

  Abstract Holocaust accounts typically cast Jewish victims as meek, going “like sheep to the slaughter.” Given such portrayals, people ask, “Why didn’t Jews resist?” But Jews did resist, staging armed uprisings in ghettos and camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. This book’s goal is not to dispel the myth of Jewish passivity; however, it instead argues that Jewish resistance deserves explanation. Research on social movements shows that protest occurs when protesters have an opportunity for action and both the material resources and belief in themselves to get their protest off the ground, but members of Jewish resistance movements lacked these factors. So why did they fight back? Using methods of comparative-historical sociology, the book answers this question by comparing three Jewish ghettos during World War II: Warsaw (site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943), Vilna (where activists planned for armed resistance in the ghetto but could not achieve that goal), and Łódź (where no plans for armed resistance emerged). It finds that resistance rested on Jews’ assessments of the threats facing them, and especially on their hope for survival. Somewhat ironically, armed resistance took place only once activists reached the critical conclusion that they had no hope for survival and saw such resistance as the best response to their situation. These findings have implications for other examples of resistance under extreme conditions, such as prison riots and rebellions of enslaved people.

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• Understanding Resistance

  2022-01-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Chapter 2 presents the book’s theoretical argument, which goes beyond existing theories of social movement emergence. Drawing on work on threat assessment and framing in social movements, it argues that the armed resistance in the ghettos rested on critical conclusions and resonant responses. First, based on their assessments of the threats facing them, Jews in each ghetto reached conclusions about whether they were likely to survive. If survival was possible then taking up arms against the Nazis was foolhardy, but a firm belief in the inevitability of their deaths made armed resistance acceptable. Second, Jews in the ghettos had to fashion responses to that perceived threat that matched meaningfully, or resonated, with how they framed their circumstances. The three-case comparison demonstrates that framing and assessments of threat varied across the three ghettos and help explain why a sustained uprising happened in Warsaw but not in Vilna or Łódź.

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• Data Sources

  2022-03-03

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Subject Comparative and Historical Sociology Political Sociology Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

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• List of Illustrations

  2022-03-03

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Subject Comparative and Historical Sociology Political Sociology Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

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Frequent coauthors

• Soon Seok Park

  Oxford University Press (United Kingdom)

  5 shared

• S. Laurel Weldon

  Carleton College

  2 shared

• Valeria Sinclair‐Chapman

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  2 shared

• Paul Burstein

  Seattle University

  2 shared

• Elle Rochford

  University of Delaware

  2 shared

• Toska Olson

  2 shared

• Jared M. Wright

  2 shared

• Thomas V. Maher

  Clemson University

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  University of Washington

  1997

• MA, Sociology

  University of Washington

  1991

• BA, Sociology

  University of Pennsylvania

  1988

Awards & honors

• Alumni Awards