What Feminist Research Has Contributed to Social Movement Studies: Questions of Time and Belonging

Abstract

Feminist studies of women’s movements have enriched the field of social movement studies, challenging assumptions about movements’ life cycles, temporal scale, repertoires, institutionalisation and organisational form. This chapter highlights how feminist scholarship has both sat apart from and contributed to the field, refusing to be subsumed within the field’s established categories but not averse to productive dialogue. Presenting a study of women’s movements against violence in Australia, the chapter argues for an expansive conception of the shared project(s), in which the feminist institutions that have been created are being challenged from both ‘within’ and ‘beyond’ the movement.