Social Movements and Transnational Change: The Case of Feminism at the United Nations

Social movement studies have devoted space to the women's and feminist movement since the 1970s, especially in its national declinations and regarding what was happening in Europe and the United States. Through the feminist sociologists that have defined a transnational perspective comprehended as an empirical and theoretical field, we have a reinterpretation of feminist movements, their past and new theoretical perspectives valuable to the entire field of inquiry. Focusing on a specific form of transnational feminism, which arose during the Conferences on Women organized by the United Nations, we can observe how certain classical theoretical assumptions applied to the phenomenon are questioned through its temporal and spatial dimensions, broadening the gaze and the possibilities of interpretation. The temporal dimension, punctuated by the collective actions of protest, did not allow us to see the continuity over time of feminism through its “abeyance structures” and a composite “social movement community” that brought into actors not foreseen by traditional theories of reference. In this way, we can redefine the temporality and quality of feminist action, allowing for a reorientation of the protest cycle theory. Instead, the transnational dimension, which becomes political practice and theoretical gaze, shows us feminisms in places other than those defined by the West. Indeed, spatiality shifts, showing the emergence of one of the first forms of intersectionality acted and theorized by women from the Global South. At the same time, crucial is the analysis of the role played by international institutions, such as the United Nations, which provided a political opportunity that enabled the emergence of transnational ideas and practices.