Diffusion of intersectionality across contemporary Spanish activism: the case of Las Kellys

Abstract

Intersectional politics has been widely associated with progressive Millennial activists. Accordingly, most social movement research focuses on progressive movements that adopt intersectionality as a guiding framework for organisation and mobilisation, mainly feminist, reproductive justice, LGBTQ and other movements spearheaded by university-educated Millennials. In contrast to most studies, we conduct a qualitative digital ethnography of Las Kellys, a Spanish grassroots movement with no explicit intersectional approach, but located at the intersection of the labour and feminist movements, and consisting of middle-aged, working-class (immigrant) women with no university background who fit their activism into their spare time. Our findings suggest that (1) Las Kellys deploys intersectional practices and disputes despite lacking an explicit intersectional approach, and (2) the development of intersectional practices and disputes in Las Kellys is the result of inter-movement diffusion processes from the anti-austerity protest cycle and the current wave of feminist protest. Moreover, we argue that the case of Las Kellys is part of a larger diffusion of intersectionality across contemporary Spanish activism as an outcome of the anti-austerity and feminist protest cycles.