Sexual and reproductive rights movements and counter movements from an interactionist perspective

ABSTRACT

Empirical studies examining opposing movements’ interactions and strategic choices have expanded in the literature on social movements, especially in the field of conservative social movements, and especially concerning sexual politics. Here we start by discussing an alternative way of thinking about how movements are caught in interdependences with other movements and more generally their environment, based on the Eliasian concept of ‘configuration’. We think such a configurational approach offers a theorization of the structuration of society, enabling us to better apprehend the complex relationships between various allied and opposed actors. We then illustrate our argument by showing how it could effectively serve to think about the relational space of social movements in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, that is, the system of coordinates defining their situation in relation to each other at a given point in time. To do this we draw on existing literatures and the contributions in this special issue.

KEYWORDS:

• Opposing movements
• Interactionism
• Configuration
• Sexual rights
• LGBTQ

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and particularly Graeme Hayes for his valuable suggestions which helped to reinforce the clarity of our demonstration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Rules of intervention are generally understood as stemming from the law (Gusfield, 1981, chapter, p. 2), from learned mechanisms defining conduct and organization (McPhail, 1991; Wright, 1978 on crowds and riots; Fillieule & Tartakowsky, 2013 on demonstrations) and from more implicit constraints, notably with respect to decorum and civility (Turner, 1969 on the public perception of protest).

2. And see also (Carstocea, 2006; Chetaille, 2011; Kollman, 2009; Kuhar, 2011; Paternotte, 2011; Paternotte & Kollman, 2013; Rédai, 2012; Stychin, 2001; Wilson, 2013a).

3. An American singer, Anita Bryant became known in the seventies as an outspoken opponent of gay rights in the US. In 1977, she ran the ‘Save Our Children’ campaign to repeal a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olivier Fillieule

Olivier Fillieule is professor of political sociology at the University of Lausanne and a research director at Paris 1-Sorbonne. Among his last books are Demonstrations (2010), Social movement studies in Europe. A state of the art, co-edited with G. Accornero (2016), Marseille, années 68, co-edited with I. Sommier (2018) and Changer le monde, changer sa vie. Enquête sur les militantes et les militants des années 68 en France, co-edited with S. Béroud, C. Masclet, and I. Sommier (2018) A list of his research interests and publications is available on: https://unil.academia.edu/OlivierFillieule.

Christophe Broqua

Christophe Broqua is a socio-anthropologist at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS; French National Centre for Scientific Research) in France. His early research focused on AIDS and gay activism in France. Since 2003, he has devoted his research to sexual/gender minorities and AIDS-related mobilizations in French-speaking West Africa (Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal). His last book is Action = Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France (Temple University Press, 2020). A list of his publications is available on: https://cnrs.academia.edu/ChristopheBroqua