Recognition Struggles and Social Movements Contested Identities, Agency and Power

This study looks comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences. The book addresses key debates on the political gender of multiculturalism and identity politics with original empirical research. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, it transcends social movement studies by confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

Recognition Struggles and Social Movements was the first book to look comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences. Combining theory and empirical research, it decodes the moral grammar of recognition into real struggles of collective actors who contest social hierarchies in arenas of power - from the Roma in Hungary to the Travesti prostitutes in Brazil, from abortion discourse in the US and Germany to the translation of feminist texts from East and West. Looking through multiple mirrors of gender, race/ethnic and sexual identities, the authors dramatize the competition and conflicts among groups vying for recognition. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, this book broke ground in social movement studies confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

Preface; Notes on contributors; Introduction Barbara Hobson; Part I. Shifting Paradigms? Recognition and Redistribution: 1. Rethinking recognition: overcoming displacement and reification in cultural politics Nancy Fraser; Part II. Frames and Claims: Authority and Voice: 2. The gendering of governance and the governance of gender: abortion politics in Germany and the United States Myra Marx Ferree and William A. Gamson; 3. Recognition struggles in universalistic and gender distinctive frames: Sweden and Ireland Barbara Hobson; 4. Movements of feminism: the circulation of discourses about women Susan Gal; Part III. Competing Claims: Struggles in Dialogue: 5. Contesting 'race' and gender in the European Union: a multi-layered recognition struggle for voice and visibility Fiona Williams; 6. Woman, black, indigenous: recognition struggles in dialogue Marilyn Lake; 7. U.S. women's suffrage through a multicultural lens: intersecting struggles of recognition Diane Sainsbury; 8. Conflicting struggles for recognition: the Roma struggle in the face of women's recognition Júlia Szalai; Part IV. Authenticity: Who Speaks for Whom?: 9. Scandalous acts: the politics of shame among Brazilian travesti prostitutes Don Kulick and Charles H. Klein; 10. Mobilizing for recognition and redistribution on behalf of others? The case of mothers against drugs in Spain Celia Valiente; Part V. Epilogues: Recognition and the struggle for political voice Anna Phillips; 'Reconstruction struggles' and process theories of social movements Carol Mueller; Notes; References; Index.

Recognition Struggles and Social Movements was the first book to look comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences.

Barbara Hobson is a Professor of Sociology and holds a chair in Sociology and Gender Studies at Stockholm University. Her most recent publications include Making Men into Fathers: Men, Masculinities and the Social Politics of Fatherhood (Cambridge, 2002), Gender and Citizenship in Transition and the co-edited collection (with Jane Lewis and Birte Siim) Contested Concepts: Gender and Social Politics.