From Workers to Entrepreneurs: Articulating Femininity in Indian Sex Worker Activism

• In Event: 027 - Regular Session. Social Deminsions of AIDS

Abstract

Critiques of North American social movement theory suggest a gradual shift in the discipline, since the 1970s, from an interest in explaining movement goals and their relationship to social structure to a narrower focus on strategies and tactics. In the process, the ideological content of social movements has been sidelined. Yet for scholars of the women’s movement or the LGBTQ movement—particularly those who take an intersectional approach to studying movement formation—questions about collective identity formation and the articulation of interests, as well as the ideological content of movement strategies and aims, have long played a central role. This paper argues that feminist and intersectional approaches, often sidelined in mainstream social movement theory, bring to the field a rich tradition of studying the relationship between identity, interests, and ideology in social movements. Using the case of sex worker activism and HIV/AIDS programs in India, I show how an intersectional approach attentive to local political “fields” sheds light on how groups with similar social conditions articulate remarkably different goals, intricately tied to different articulations of femininity and feminine work. More generally, an intersectional approach helps to refocus attention on how ideological choices shape the kinds of alliances movement groups seek out as they define their goals.

Author

• Gowri Vijayakumar, Brandeis University