Event Description
Erin Adam, PhD, Queer Alliances: Paradoxes and Power in the Formation of Rights-Based Movement Coalitions
Since the early 2000s, inter- and intra-movement coalitions composed of organizations within the LGBTQ, labor, and immigrant rights movements have formed at the local level in Washington State and Arizona. However, coalition unity that culminated in important wins like marriage equality and in-state financial aid for undocumented students came at a cost in both states.
While the movements expanded and unified, they often simultaneously ossified around goals that matter to the most advantaged segments of their respective communities in each state context. The result is a paradox: coalitions do sometimes form within and across movements, promote enduring unity across seemingly divergent movement contexts, and facilitate rights campaign wins. Yet, these coalitions can simultaneously reinforce hierarchical exclusions through the continued marginalization of issues that uproot conventional power dynamics, like police violence and economic inequality. Adam's talk seeks to examine and explain this paradox.
Erin Adam, PhD, assistant professor at Hunter College, received her MA and PhD at the Political Science Department at the University of Washington and her JD from UW School of Law. She was a Comparative Law and Social Studies (CLASS) and Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR) fellow, a Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies graduate student associate, and a graduate student instructor. Her research delves into how hierarchical power dynamics shape social movements, focusing on the formation of grassroots, intersectional coalitions across the LGBTQ, labor, and immigrant rights movements. She specializes in American politics, public law, and political theory, with an emphasis on critical race and critical queer studies, feminist theory, intersectionality, social movements, and interest groups.
The LGBTQ Speaker Series is funded by multiple organizations across Drexel: The Office of International Programs, LGBTQA+ Faculty and Professional Staff CRG, Women and Gender Studies Program, the Department of Sociology, The Department of Global Studies, The Africana Studies Program, the Alumni Association, the Student Center for Diversity and Inclusion, the Department of Politics and the Center for Public Policy.
Please note: This evening event is an Alumni Association event. Please click here for admission and RSVP info.
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