ABSTRACT
From the 1960s, people began to talk about the emergence of ‘new social movements’. These movements are referred to as ‘new’ for a number of reasons, which we will explore in this chapter, but the main reason they have been described as such is because they raise issues and make demands about identity, lifestyle, and difference that are quite distinct from the class-based, socioeconomic claims and demands of the labour movement. However, as we shall see, the novelty of these movements has been the subject of much debate and contention, which is one of the reasons why the word new is sometimes placed in inverted commas in this chapter.
