ABSTRACT
The wide collection of empirical case studies presented in this volume are testimony to the range of ways in which privileges manifest themselves, and the extent to which they are acknowledged and confronted by those ‘with’ and ‘without’ privilege. The chapters illustrate how intersectionality has been taken up (or indeed resisted) by activists in order to expose and resist privilege. As the various chapters demonstrate, whilst many activists across time and space, and in relation to different social movements, have, to varying degrees, sought to engage with our three intersectional approaches – collective identity, coalitional politics, and inclusivity – the desire or hope for intersectionality does not always result in the confrontation of privileges. In this concluding chapter, we tie together the key empirical findings and theoretical puzzles that emerge from the preceding chapters, in order to set out a future research agenda that brings together intersectionality, privilege, and social movement studies. We focus our concluding remarks upon three questions: (1) To what extent has intersectionality become synonymous with ‘good’ feminist and queer activism? (2) How and when do we understand intersectionality to have been ‘achieved’? (3) What effect does the type of social movement organisation and form of organising have on the ability to confront privilege?
