Date of Award

2026-05-22

Degree Name

PhD Leadership Studies

Dissertation Committee

Antonio Jiménez-Luque, PhD, Chair; Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik, PhD, Member; Zachary Gabriel Green, PhD, Member

Keywords

activist; burnout; activist burnout; San Diego; immigrant rights; leadership; adaptive leadership theory; narrative inquiry;

Abstract

Activist burnout has been identified as one of the greatest threats to social movement sustainability, and the lived experience of paid immigrant rights activists remains undertheorized. This narrative inquiry explored activist burnout among 10 San Diego County immigrant rights activists, revealing how this community understands burnout, what factors contribute to its production, and how activists sustain themselves within it. Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry methodology, the researcher conducted in-depth individual interviews with ten activists representing a range of intersectional identities and roles. Narrative profiles were analyzed through holistic narrative reading, narrative reporting, structural and emergent coding, and cross-narrative identification of resonant threads. Clandinin and Connelly’s commonplaces of temporality, sociality, and place were used as a first interpretive lens. Two emergent lenses were used as appropriate to the data: adaptive leadership theory and hope theory. Four resonant themes emerged. First, participants describe burnout as a nonlinear, cumulative process that crosses thresholds of capacity and is frequently misrecognized or deferred. Burnout produced identity disruption rather than the cynicism central to dominant occupational burnout frameworks. Second, burnout, produced by the effort-futility dynamic and the ideal activist norm, is amplified by the San Diego borderland context. Third, relational solidarity emerges as the primary external adaptive resource. Fourth, activists lean on the internal scaffolding of spiritual and cultural anchors, collective meaning-making, and purpose-driven reframing of hope-as-discipline. This study contributes to activist burnout theory and adaptive leadership scholarship and offers actionable implications for individual activists and movement organizations committed to building sustainable conditions for justice work.

Document Type

Dissertation: Open Access

Department

Leadership Studies

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