Intersectional practice in contemporary social movements
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Intersectional practice in contemporary social movements Judith C. De Jong1 · Liza M. Mügge1
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020
Book reviewed: Gendered Mobilizations and Intersectional Challenges: Contemporary Social Movements in Europe and North America Jill A. Irvine, Sabine Lang and Celeste Montoya (eds) (London: ECPR Press/Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019), 324 pp. ISBN: 9781785522895 How is intersectionality practiced in present-day social movements? This question is at the heart of Gendered Mobilizations and Intersectional Challenges, edited by Jill Irvine, Sabine Lang and Celeste Montoya. Acknowledging the surge in intersectionally inspired social movements, the contributors aim to identify conditions that facilitate or impede intersectionality from being practiced. The collection puts the spotlight on various social movements that are active across Europe and North America, incorporating differently marginalised groups, asking when are they successful?; when do they fail?; and how to create common ground across difference? Intersectional in its analysis and practice, the volume’s contribution is twofold. It provides researchers with methodologies and concepts to critically investigate the intersectional scope of social movements. Introducing the term “gendered mobilization,” the volume directs attention to the gendered claim movements make by addressing gender-based inequalities, but also within broader coalitions like Occupy. Contributions draw on experiences in traditional Anglo-Saxon and West European contexts, but also include countries that are often overlooked, such as Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey and Puerto Rico. Gendered Mobilizations provide activists with reflexive criteria and tangible advice to improve the intersectional potential and practice of their movements. The different chapters beautifully illustrate how activists come to incorporate or neglect differently positioned groups. For instance, Nicole Doerr’s chapter on refugee solidarity activism in Germany and Denmark vividly shows how misunderstandings between refugees and officials arise from positional inequalities. She proposes that
* Judith C. De Jong [email protected] Liza M. Mügge [email protected] 1
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Vol.:(0123456789)
J. C. De Jong, L. M. Mügge
political translators, such as volunteers, can act as critical mediators to increase equal interaction between unequally positioned groups. From the different contributions, the relevance of understanding intersectional practice in social movements immediately becomes clear. The chapters demonstrate how the degree to which social movements open or close themselves to unequally positioned categories of people can impact their success. In a chapter on Puerto Rican student movements, Fernando Tormos-Aponte convincingly shows how diversifying the movement to include intersectionally marginalised groups contributed to its flourishing and legitimacy. Practicing intersectionalit
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