101551 Understanding Society Assessment Three: Take-home case study Q: How can the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in Australia and/or the USA be understood sociologically?

 The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement started in 2013 when Martin's murderer was acquitted, and Alicia Garza and two others coined the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which expanded following the death of George Floyd in the United States last year. The death of George Floyd, a black man who died of suffocation because of the excessive force of a white police officer who inspired the BLM movement, provoked worldwide protests. The movement has seen waves of public protests all over the world and, from a sociological standpoint, contributed to creating social change and showing the roles of structure and agency. Therefore, in this essay, the social structure and agency associated with the BLM movement and through the balance between the two, what social changes are will be elaborated. When it comes to the BLM movement, it is apparent that social structure and agency play an important role in explaining why social movements emerge and the varied effects they have. The ability of an individual to act independently and make their own decisions is known as agency (McCormack 2018). Structure refers to elements that influence or limit an agent’s capability, such as social group, race, and so on, and sometimes defined as ‘patterned social relations’ (Alexander 2016, p. 29). Social structure can be both restricting and enabling of human agency (Poole & Germov 2019). The use of disproportionate force by police against black individuals in the United States has provoked outrage, while more than 400 Aboriginal people have been imprisoned and died in Australia