Generations, Waves and Intersectionality in the Study of Feminist Movements

If we want to know if and how national, transnational, regional and global controversies over politics of inclusion and exclusion in social movements have changed over a longer period of time, than several research strategies are available. The aim of this paper is to critically examine three of these strategies in relation to feminist movements. We start by focusing on the often-used notions of ‘generations’ and ‘waves’ as theoretical, descriptive and normative constructs in social movement theory and practice. We probe different and sometimes rival understandings of generations of feminists and waves of feminisms, the types of empirical entity they aim at grasping and their varying contextual uses. In a third move we compare these to an intersectional approach to narratives of feminist mobilizations. Throughout we discuss the usefulness and built-in limitations of generations, waves and intersectionality in terms of their capacity to grasp a) changes and continuities and b) lines of conflicts and common ground in feminist mobilizations. Empirically we take our starting point in examples from feminist mobilization in the Nordic region as these can be recognized in interviews and documents related to three large public events which mobilized thousands of people: Nordiskt Forum in Oslo 1988, Åbo 1994 and Malmö 2014. These are used as cases of mobilizations and they facilitate a comparison over time. All three Nordiskt Forum were organized with the United Nations initiatives for women as a backdrop and all included controversies over inclusion and exclusion in (transnational) feminist mobilizations. The results are helpful for our understanding of the ways in which we apply and theorize generations, waves and intersectionality in our studies of social movements.