Book reviews and editorial mentions of Line Nyhagen Predelli and
Beatrice Halsaa (2012), Majority-Minority Relations in Contemporary
Women’s Movements: Strategic Sisterhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Book review by Monica Threlfall (2015) in International Journal of Iberian Studies 28
(2-3): 285-286.
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Article,id=19974/
Quotes from Threlfall’s review:
‘In recent years, comparative studies of women’s movements in advanced
democracies have been thin on the ground, and those concerned with specific
aspects of women’s lives – such as organized women’s relations with the ethnic
minority women of their country, all the more so. That it should include Spain in its
analysis makes this book ground-breaking before one even opens it. Yet the main
aim of this book is to bring together the subjects of women’s movements, gender
equality, citizenship and ethnic diversity in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom
around the theme of ‘strategic sisterhood’. In this way it reframes the by now classic
preoccupations of women’s movements with gender and citizenship in the light of
rising concerns with multiculturalism and the experience of ethnic minorities’.
[…]
‘Thus, it can be said that this book sparks an important new debate around what I
suggest could be termed a new branch of third-wave feminism, or rather a tributary
of it that then flows back into the mainstream to give it added impulse. But most
usefully, for those engaged in this highly complex research world, Nyhagen and
Halsaa masterfully guide us through and reformulate a key range of concepts,
terminologies and empirical discoveries that act as critical briefings for the
researcher as well as showing us the richness of minority women’s activism. In this
sense, the book is a gift’.
Book review by Alison Woodward (2015) in The Sociological Review 63: 526-528.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12300/abstract
Quotes from Woodward’s review:
‘Despite claims of global sisterhood, a recurring criticism of the European women’s
movement was that it was mostly ‘white’. This book’s subtitle Strategic Sisterhood
indicates its focus on the fraught relations between various and varicolored sectors
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of the Norwegian, Spanish, and British women’s movement from the sixties until
today. Dense research pulls apart the relations between majoritarian (‘white’)
women’s movements and minority movements. There is little research on these
interactions and virtually nothing in a comparative framework. Besides its important
empirical contribution, the research develops new insights into the relations
between state policy structures, social (identity- associated) movements and
demands, and the possibilities of fuller citizenship for women’.
‘The focus of the book is on the eventual alliances between the relatively (ethnically)
segregated feminist and women’s movement organizations in Spain, Norway, and
the United Kingdom. A product of the EU project Gendered Citizenship in
Multicultural Europe: The Impact of Women’s Movements (FEMCIT 2007-2011),
which was one of the first comparative European projects to examine the
intertwined complexities of sexual orientation, gender, race / ethnicity, religion and
migration with citizenship, the book profits from the project’s sophisticated
theoretical framing. Using a complex multi-method approach, the team interviewed
activists and women’s organization representatives and government officials and
complemented this material with documentary research. The main focal points are
the issues of violence against women and of racism and discrimination. The empirical
research provides a rich illustration of how and when ethnic minority women begin
mobilizing in each setting and around which issues. Thanks to the inductive approach
there is also substantial information about the strategies utilized and types of claims
made in each setting. Finally there is an analysis of the success of movement actions
on policy. The choice of the issue of violence against women is fortunate, as this is
one of the questions that could be expected to have a unifying potential’.
[…]
‘Two dense theoretical chapters develop the relation between gendered citizenship
and political participation and how the literature on political opportunity structures
can help explain impact on policy. The work also develops new insights into framing
and claiming in social movement theory. The authors combine notions of the
resonance of frames used by movement actors towards policy makers and an
analysis of the responsiveness of policy at the levels of access, agenda setting, policy
formation, and implementation’.
[…]
‘This ambitious and rich volume offers much to the sociology of social movements,
to scholarship bridging migration and gender studies, and to comparative equality
policy studies. Empirically the interviews articulate the frustration and critique of
minority women towards the established women’s movement and expose the
mechanisms of the gradual entente. The work also adds to historical and current
knowledge about the range of women’s movements and state apparatuses. The
snapshots of organizations and insights into the liveliness and variety of movements
also expose significant challenges to cooperation. Sensitivities about legitimate voice
undermine potential for common cause, so that both Spain and Norway show
relative low levels of cooperation, while the UK has been building foundations.
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Recent European changes toward multiple discrimination approaches in equality
policies are complicating the picture. Divided and unequal governmental opportunity
structures lead to approaching women’s movement claims in a segregated way.
These results are generally relevant for social policy studies as is the interesting
analysis of factors affecting success. Given the topical question of violence, this book
can be used not only for those studying social movements, race and gender policy,
but also for specialists on violence against women’.
Book review by Lise Rolandsen Agustín (2014) in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist
and Gender Research 22:3, 238-242, DOI: 10.1080/08038740.2014.923507
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08038740.2014.923507#abstract
Quotes from Rolandsen Augustin’s review:
‘The book deals with the timely issue of the relations, interactions, and mutual
perceptions of minority and majority women mobilizing in civil society organizations
in three different national contexts, namely: Norway, the United Kingdom, and
Spain’.
…. ‘Furthermore, the authors argue that there is a need for majority women’s
organizations, which are increasingly engaging in minority issues, also to reflect upon
whiteness as well as their own situation as privileged (mobilizing) actors. The book
contributes with important findings in this regard and sets out a comprehensive and
effective framework for exploring these relations further by combining rich and
original empirical material with in-depth (national) contextualizations within a
relevant and timely look at majority/minority civil society relations as they play out
in multicultural society.’
Book review by Birte Siim (2014) in Tidsskrift for Kjønnsforskning (Norwegian
Journal of Gender Research) 38 (no.2), 184-193.
https://www.idunn.no/tfk/2014/02
Quote from Siim’s review:
‘I find that the book has made an important contribution to feminist theory and
research by filling a gap in current research about interactions between majority and
minority women’s movements. The double comparative research strategy across
racial and ethnic boundaries is innovative and has resulted in original research
results. These results can stimulate further reflections about the future of the
women’s movement and state feminism. One major contribution is to provide
knowledge about representation/non-representation, recognition and
misrecognition within the women’s movement. This raises critical questions about
the understanding and viability of the women’s movement and feminism in Europe
in the 21st century. Is it still alive and kicking, or is the women’s movement
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fragmented not only organizationally but also ideologically? Is it still possible to talk
about strategic sisterhood, or do we need new concepts and strategies? Another
contribution is to provide knowledge of women’s activists’ perceptions about
possibilities and barriers for political influence. This raises questions about feminist
strategies and the future of state feminism. Has state feminism really been a great
success and to what extent can it accommodate diversity, or do we need new
strategies and concepts?’
Editorial by Gail Lewis (2013), entitled ‘I Only Connect: The difficult imperatives of
being minor’ in European Journal of Women’s Studies 20(1) 3–7.
DOI: 10.1177/1350506812466366 ejw.sagepub.com
http://ejw.sagepub.com/content/20/1/3.full.pdf+html
Quote from Gail Lewis’s editorial:
‘The importance of Majority–Minority Relations lies in its insistence on the
systematic exposition, mapping and analysis of the forms assumed and relations
within and between women’s movements and their claims making in three European
countries – Norway, Spain and the UK. Its particular significance and contribution is
that the authors produce their mapping and analysis via a double comparison –
across three nation-state formations, marked by their particular histories, policy
regimes and institutional forms; and a comparison of feminist and/or women’s
movement organizations that are defined as majority or minority. In this double
comparison, they have captured the variable and shifting temporalities; the
multiplicities of form and claim; the tensions, conflicts, negotiations and alliances;
and the differentiated impacts on policy and advancement of citizenship enactment
associated with women’s movements in the three nation-state formations and
among the ethnically diverse constellations of women’s movement organizations
operating within and across these nation-state formations. Similarly, they have done
this double comparison via the application of a set of conceptual resources and
methodological approaches that allowed them to take seriously the notion that
structures of alterity are always relational, involving positions of privilege and
subordination or exclusion. Moreover, and significantly, this conceptual and
methodological scaffolding allowed them to take seriously the idea that
transformation of such structures of alterity requires those positioned as unmarked
and privileged to examine the conditions that produce such relational effects and
the investment of the unmarked/privileged in that privilege.
Framing the research in this way has resulted in an inclusive research document that
shows the relative, contextually contingent achievements, failures and particularities
of feminist and women’s movement activism and claims making. In keeping with the
movement of double comparison they have also attempted to identify the points at
which there has been an expansion, i.e. a move towards greater inclusivity, among
what they term majoritized women’s movement organizations and policy actors.
And there should be no doubt at all about the labour involved in carrying out this
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double-comparison: intellectual, practical, emotional labour that needs to be
recognized and applauded. This is nowhere less true than in terms of the memory
work that the researchers engaged in as they sought to unravel the ways in which
forms of gendered whiteness became constituted as an unmarked category and yet
which was foundational to processes of identity formation and feminist practice for
many ‘majoritized’ feminists in Europe. In this the book contributes to the ever
expanding archive of feminist whiteness studies but here bringing it into alignment
with feminist research on citizenship policy and practice’.
Book review by Karen O’Reilly (2013) in Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of
Feminist Geography 20 (8): 1042-1044. DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2013.850793
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2013.850793#abstract
Quotes from O’Reilly’s review:
‘This is an ambitious and comprehensive study, firmly locating women’s movement
analysis in the context of cultural communities, time and place’.
‘This is a theoretically rich empirical study, with critical discussions of multiculturalism, intersecting inequalities and citizenship as ongoing practices producing
patterns of privilege and disadvantage’.
Book review by Joyce Gelb (2015) in Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 36:1, 128131. DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2014.955414
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1554477X.2014.955414#abstract
Quote from Gelb’s review: ‘The three books reviewed are ambitious, thought
provoking, and significant both theoretically and empirically. They present important
research and analyses that enrich our understanding of the challenges and successes
faced by women internationally and in the nation-state’.
Book review by Whitney Stark (2013) in Women’s Studies International Forum, vol.
38, May-June 2013, p. 149
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539513000423
Quote from Whitney’s review:
‘This carefulness and contextualization are helpful for understanding, and for
showing the ways in which addressing social dynamics and activist strategy can be
performed. The project has its merits in this practice and care’.
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Reviews of chapter by Line Nyhagen Predelli, Beatrice Halsaa and Cecilie Thun (2012)
entitled ‘Citizenship is not a word I use’: How women’s movement activists
understand citizenship’. In Beatrice Halsaa, Sasha Roseneil and Sevil Sümer, eds.
(2012), Remaking Citizenship in Multicultural Europe:Women’s Movements, Gender
and Diversity, pp. 188-212. Palgrave Macmillan: London and New York
LSE Review of Books – review by Keerty Nakray. Available at:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/05/23/book-review-remakingcitizenship-in-multi-cultural-europe-womens-movement-gender-and-diversity/
Quote from Nakray’s review:
‘The chapter authored by Line Nyhagen Predelli, Beatrice Halsaa and Cecilie Thun,
titled “‘Citizenship Is Not a Word I Use’: How Women’s Movement Activists
Understand Citizenship” brings forward the poignant issue of the disconnect
between academic discourses on citizenship and activist struggles for women’s
rights. Citizenship remains a difficult concept within academic feminist thinking, and
it struggles to generate an overarching framework for articulating strategies for
women’s inclusion in society. The current theoretical framework around inclusive
citizenship has not translated itself into practical knowledge that could facilitate the
everyday struggles of feminists in society. The authors found that activists prefer
women’s rights or the human rights frameworks, or gender equality or social justice
frameworks, as tools to articulate their aspirations for substantive equality. In faceto face interviews with 30 women’s movement activists, one interviewee succinctly
highlighted that “citizenship is not a word I use… But as a feminist doing the work I
do, it wouldn’t be the language I would use. It is a secondary concern to me as a way
forward” (p. 201). This certainly highlights the need for further engagement and
communication between the two of the most pivotal and indispensable agencies of
the feminist movement’.
Review by Ilaria A. De Pascalis in European Journal of Women’s Studies 20 (4) 468–
471. Available at: http://ejw.sagepub.com/content/20/4.toc
Quote from De Pascalis’s review about our chapter:
‘This is the main issue discussed in the last chapter of the volume, addressing the
activists’ refusal to use the word ‘citizenship’. We face so many limitations to full
citizenship for minoritized women all over Europe that the word ‘citizenship’ is out
of place. Line Nyhagen Predelli, Beatrice Halsaa and Cecilie Thun underline the
barriers to inclusion, participation and belonging continually posed against
minoritized women. Therefore, they declare the importance to ‘remake’ both the
concept and practice of lived citizenship, to promote inclusion, participation, justice
and equality. Their essay is deeply involved with the normative and political agenda
of the FEMCIT project, recognizing the essential role performed by women’s
movements in changing citizens’ everyday lives’.
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