Social Movements and Europeanization: Resisting and Embracing Intersectionality in the Periphery

How are the boundaries of exclusion and inclusion (re)formed within social movements in contexts beyond those where intersectionality as a theoretical and political framework originated and developed? How does the increased attention to intersectionality in such contexts—because of its employment in supranational-level political discourses and practices, upon which national social movements draw— structure national-level political activism? Answers to these questions are important for understanding the transnational effects of intersectionality vis-à-vis social movements. This paper offers novel responses to these questions through the study of Cyprus, as a country caught between tradition and Europeanization, where civil society politics—especially around issues of gender and sexuality—and the introduction of intersectionality into national political discourses is a recent phenomenon. It links gender, sexuality and politics literature and Europeanization literature and examines the LBGTQI movement, the women’s peace movement and the power dynamics within and across them. It employs a qualitative research design and thematically analyzes empirical ethnographic data that include interviews with activists. It finds that because of the predominance of nationalism and partitocracy, these movements often resort to elite activism. This tactical approach carries the peril of exacerbating intragroup exclusions and inhibiting intergroup collaboration. However, it also finds that people from varied backgrounds and often different priorities have managed to form themselves into two diverse, yet unified groups that employ intersectional strategies and set intersectional goals. Therefore, it argues that outside the “West”/ “Europe,” intersectionality is not necessarily a prerequisite for political action that recognizes the existence of multiple and overlapping forms of oppression, even though intersectional consciousness is often a result of such action, particularly when reinforced through external political discourses and practices that find their way into local ideological and practical repertoires and become central in challenging the political status quo and power imbalances within and across movements.