Mediações: Revista de Ciências Sociais (Dec 2015)

Deliberating on intersectionality: women’s conferences in Recife

  • Maria-Hélène Sa Vilas Boas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5433/2176-6665.2015v20n2p208
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 2
pp. 208 – 234

Abstract

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Under what conditions can deliberation include marginalized social groups? Several feminist authors criticize deliberative theory for reproducing power relations between social groups. They defend the explicit recognition of marginalized social groups within deliberative devices. This article aims to analyze the dynamics of deliberation when it gathers a traditionally underrepresented group, women. Based on the study of women’s conferences in Recife, it shows that the combination the politics of recognition and deliberation can lead both to the integration and marginalization of different actors within the group of women, depending on the resources they have available to voice their perspectives.

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