Sexual and reproductive rights movements and counter movements from an interactionist perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACTEmpirical studies examining opposing movements’ interactions and strategic choices have expanded in the literature on social movements, especially in the field of conservative social movements, and especially concerning sexual politics. Here we start by discussing an alternative way of thinking about how movements are caught in interdependences with other movements and more generally their environment, based on the Eliasian concept of ‘configuration’. We think such a configurational approach offers a theorization of the structuration of society, enabling us to better apprehend the complex relationships between various allied and opposed actors. We then illustrate our argument by showing how it could effectively serve to think about the relational space of social movements in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, that is, the system of coordinates defining their situation in relation to each other at a given point in time. To do this we draw on existing literatures and the contributions in this special issue.