Professionalization of Women's Health Groups in Sao Paulo: The Troublesome Road towards Organizational Diversity

Abstract

This article gives an overview of the origins and characteristics of the women's health movement in Sao Paulo as a specific example of a social movement. It focuses, in particular, on its organizational diversity which includes, but is not restricted to, differences between professionalized and non-professionalized organizations. In this respect, three questions seem important: (1) what happens to the potential of social movements when they become dependent for funding on mainstream institutions such as foundations and international aid agencies; and more interestingly for organizational research, how do changes in organizational forms and practices such as formalization and professionalization impinge upon (2) the solidarity and collective identity of these groups and (3) the way they bring change about? In broader terms, this article wishes to promote an understanding of social movement fields as plural, organizationally and otherwise. It points to the advantages of this organizational diversity, as well as to the problems and tensions it brings about.