One of the first sessions I had the pleasure attending
during the AWID Forum was entitled “The ABC of Movement
Building.” It was presented by Srilatha Batliwala. This
session took the task of clarifying the term “movement,”
what makes it, and the basic steps that its building
involves.
To start the session, Batliwala made use of the
following quote: “A movement is an organized set of
constituents (people) pursuing a common political agenda
of change through collective action.”
The key concepts of this quote were the constituents,
their organizing, and the pursuit of the common goal.
Organized constituents differ from a spontaneous
uprising that comes up to protest, against a new factory
for example, and then subsides. The constituents of a
movement are the people who have organized themselves in
some way to be part of this movement.
The common political
agenda is critical. Movements have very sharp critical
analysis and agendas for change and the most operative
word is collective action, as in coming together and
acting together. When the constituents are organized,
they mobilize quickly because they are organized in both
formal and informal organizations. This means that
legally registered entities are not the only way to go.
For example, trade unions will often have factory level
units that are not necessarily registered legal entities
but they are organizing mechanisms, and the trade unions
they belong to can be the legal entities. In many
countries we have to find subversive ways to organize,
but it is still organizing, and that is what gives
collective power.
Movements have a deep, clear analysis of the problems
they want to correct, as well as a clear vision of what
they see as the more just order. In movement organizing,
the leadership should function on multiple levels.
However, this is not always true because what happens
frequently is the constitution of a strong leadership at
the top, which leads to other layers not having the same
voice. This forms a very “top down” movement.
The continuity over time is very important. We have to
make a distinction between movements and campaigns. The
continuity is what is required to achieve political
change. There is a diversity of strategies of political
struggles. Movements need a sharp analysis of the power
structure and the change one wants to create in this
structure of power.
Feminist movements
have very gendered political analyses and goals. They
have to reference how a struggle for a change affects
women. Thus, they would obviously use gendered strategy.
For example, when it comes to Climate Change and
Environment issues, women, and especially poor women,
deal with and experience climate change differently;
strategies should thus involve them take their problems
in consideration. It is important in feminist movements
that our constituents be the ones shaping the strategies
and goals. The process has to be very “bottom up”;
consequently women will be the critical mass and it will
have multiple layers of women’s leadership. We have seen
many movements claim they are working on women’s issues,
yet they have no women in any key positions. This
unfortunately continues to be a reality.
We have to raise consciousness and awareness to gather
women and build a large base. We have to have a clear
power analysis and agenda which is something that is
constantly being refined based on external realities. We
need to shift norms by raising awareness within every
household and community, by practicing power internally
and externally.
Finally, we all have internalized concepts of power that
are very patriarchal, yet we expect ourselves to
function differently when we acquire power. Different
functionality, however, will not happen without us
interrogating our history with power and how we use it.
We often forget that we are in this movement because we
experienced oppressive powers ourselves, that we are in
this movement to shift patriarchal rules. |
