Minority Women Activists and Austerity: Three Challenges for Building Intersectional Solidarity

In this paper we seek to explore the effects of the 2008 economic crisis and austerity measures on the activism of minority women and their advocates in Scotland, England and France. Drawing on our pilot study, we explore the opportunities for minority women activists to articulate claims and a politics that names multiple forms of inequality – racism and gender inequality and poverty accentuated by the crisis – to build solidarity across different interest groups and promote a sense of an intersectional solidarity. Our findings demonstrate the case-specific dynamics at play that give shape to the following challenges for minority women’s activism in contexts of austerity: 1) whose crisis counts? 2) who speaks and who listens? and 3) what role does the third sector play in minority women’s activism?