Feminist Movements and Barriers to Participation: A sociological study of Ni Una Menos protest tactics and accessibility

Progressive social movements that contend with issues of marginality, insecurity, and structural oppressions risk inadvertently replicating such power discrepancies in their activism and protest through exclusionary tactics and in-group practices. Protest tactics are differently accessible to intersectional identities, and different tactics and practices of participation risk excluding certain groups. This research seeks to understand how the accessibility of participation and perceptions of the costs of participating in social movements diverge based on intersectional identities. Analysing individuals’ decisions to participate will yield insight into participants’ agency in shaping protest tactics, and how tactics may exclude individuals due to differently perceived costs of participation. This research engages Ni Una Menos participants and non-participants. Ni Una Menos is the progressive social movement against femicide that originated in Argentina. It began with an unprecedented online presence and enormous march in Buenos Aires in 2015 with more than 250,000 participants. Its use of digital tactics and relatively accessible and popular physical protesting lowered barriers to participation. Its relative accessibility increased its potential for inclusion and widespread participation; however, certain exclusionary practices still mitigated participation. Survey and interview data yield an overview of the Ni Una Menos movement, demographics of research participants, participation methods and accessibility, and risks of participation. Moving beyond traditional top-down views of social movements, this research engages a bottom-up analysis that elucidates exclusionary practices from the ‘ingroup’ of the movement that mitigated participation for certain intersectional identities and men. Additionally, the low value attributed to digital tactics (both seen in research participant values and reflected theoretical research), in addition to their high risk of trolling, lessened digital participation. This likely affected both actual and perceived participation levels. Accordingly, this research expands understandings of social movements and protest tactics through a bottom-up and critical stance towards participation and considerations of protest tactics.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Master of Philosophy (MPhil)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Spangler, Claire

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sanchez Rivera, Rachell

Licence

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.109736

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/370265