Counter-Public Enclaves and Understanding the Function of Rhetoric in Social Movement Coalition-Building

Abstract

Social movement scholarship has focused primarily on public rhetoric and single-issue movements. This focus has led to limited understanding of the function of “protected enclaves” within movement-building, at the same time that we know little about coalition-building. This article fills this gap in the literature by examining how activists in coalition interpret external rhetoric within protected enclaves. Using data collected during a field research project, this essay shows how rhetoric functions to facilitate coalition-building between a queer rights and a migrant rights organization by demonstrating how activists interpret rhetoric from 3 primary sources: media, legislation and policy, and law enforcement.

Keywords:

• Coalitional Subjectivities
• Enclaves
• Immigration
• Queer
• Rhetoric of Social Movement

This essay emerges from the author's doctoral dissertation. For help on various stages of preparing this manuscript, many thanks go to activists with Coalición de Derechos Humanos and Wingspan, Sarah Amira De la Garza, Dan Brouwer, H. L. T. Quan, Sara McKinnon, and the CQ editor and blind reviewers. Arizona State University's Graduate and Professional Student Association provided financial support for this research.

Notes

As McGee (1980) argued, approaching social movements as a phenomenon is problematic when it is the meanings of words and actions that produce social movement that should be of interest. In this way, when social movements is used as a noun, it suggests that a movement is a phenomenon. Using social movement in its verb form, as in a process of people coming together to create meanings and potentially make progress toward a particular social change, reduces the possibility of limiting social movement studies to the investigation of things. To keep the dynamism of movement alive, I typically use social movement as a verb and not a noun.

I follow Luibhéid (2005) in primarily utilizing migrant and queer when referring to people, as opposed to other terms like immigrant, gay, or lesbian. Luibhéid argued that queer “rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration … ,” and it suggests that “transformation needs to occur across a wide range of regimes and institutions, not just the sexual … ” (p. x). Sedgwick (1990) also emphasized the importance of universal logics as opposed to minoritizing logics. Queer also indicates that other categories “were historically formed through specific epistemologies and social relations that upheld colonialist, xenophobic, racist, and sexist regimes” (Luibhéid, 2005, p. xi). Queer is not without its problems (e.g., see Cohen, 1997; E. P. Johnson, 2001; Rudy, 2000), but it marks some of these difficulties and histories. Moreover, I follow Luibhéid's lead in using the term migrant. She explained that migrant refers to “anyone who has crossed an international border … ” (p. xi). This term challenges distinctions between documented, undocumented, refugee, and asylum-seeker because such distinctions often can be relatively arbitrary as people traverse between them. For example, one might be a legal asylum-seeker one day, and then have the asylum claim denied, compelling deportation proceedings. She or he may decide it is better to risk staying in a country illegally than returning to her or his country of origin. Moreover, a vast number of undocumented immigrants in the United States simply overstayed their visitor's visas, again moving them from “legal” to “illegal” status from one day to the next. Refusing these terms draws attention “to the ways that these distinctions function as technologies of normalization, discipline, and sanctioned dispossession” (Luibhéid, 2005, p. xi). I use migrant strategically and politically, as I have seen firsthand how one's possession of legal documents does not necessarily lead to better treatment by others or improved material realities. Certainly, “being legal” affords opportunities otherwise unavailable, and yet often oppression that appears to target the undocumented has significant implications for those with documents. For all these reasons, I hope to minimize emphasis on legality with the use of migrant.

All participants were offered an opportunity to select a pseudonym. Several elected not to; therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the names used are participants' actual first names.

As a point of recent information, Arizonians approved a 2008 ballot referendum, Proposition 102, which created a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. It did not impact civil unions or domestic partner benefits. However, in 2009, the Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed legislation that revoked domestic partner benefits for non-married state employees, which had only been instituted 1 year earlier (see Pallack, 2009).

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) statement was located at http://www.glaad.org/media/release_detail.php?id=3964. This URL is no longer active. GLAAD's involvement in this event is mentioned in its 2007 summary of media advocacy, Media Advocacy: Fighting Defamation. Changing Hearts and Minds, available at www.glaad.org/Document.Doc?id=30 (as a pdf).

Wingspan has suffered from major cuts in funding throughout the budget crisis; the link to their public policy and advocacy Web page does not, as of this writing, indicate any staff member who is connected with policy at this time.

The Coalition to Defeat Prop 200 was a Tucson-based collection of activists, started by members of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos and other local activists. As a temporal coalition, it disbanded after the 2004 election. Their Web site, www.defeat200.org, no longer exists.

Wingspan's full statement against Proposition 200 reads as follows:.

• Wingspan, Southern Arizona's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender [LGBT] Community Center's mission is to promote the freedom, equality, safety, and well-being of LGBT people in Southern Arizona. Because the intent of Proposition 200 is contrary to Wingspan's mission, Wingspan opposes Proposition 200. Wingspan opposes Proposition 200 because it needlessly makes voter registration more difficult, at a time when voter participation, particularly of marginalized people, is critical. Wingspan opposes Proposition 200 because we believe it will compromise our ability to provide vital social services to the community. Wingspan opposes Proposition 200 because the radical, racist, right-wing, anti-immigrant backers of Proposition 200 are many of the same individuals from fringe groups who actively work against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. Wingspan opposes Proposition 200 because we believe Proposition 200 wrongly scapegoats immigrants for social problems in the United States, including high rates of unemployment and underemployment, inadequate health care systems, and a failing economy. LGBT people are also often wrongly scape-goated [sic] for social problems. For these reasons, Wingspan stands together with other progressive organizations and fair-minded Arizonans against Proposition 200.

Links to these statements can be found at Coalición de Derechos Humanos and Wingspan Joint Statement: Stand Against Racism and Homophobia (2006, October 24; http://wingspan.org/content/news_wingspan_details.php?story_id=353) and Coalición de Derechos Humanos and Wingspan—Joint Statement: Continued Stand Against Racism and Homophobia (2006, November 28; http://wingspan.org/content/news_wingspan_details.php?story_id=359). Elsewhere, I have conducted an analysis of these public statements in relation to queer and migrant rhetoric produced by national organizations. Chávez, K. R. (2010). Border (in)securities: Normative and differential belonging in LGBTQ and immigrant rights discourse. Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, 7(2), 136–155.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karma R. Chávez

Karma R. Chávez (Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2007) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin.