Old social markers, new political approaches

Abstract

The themes of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and religion, often referred to as identity issues, emerged in the public debate of Western countries in the second half of the 20th century; since then, they have been surrounded by controversy. This emergence is the result of the collective action of social movements that invested in dialogue (not always peaceful) with the State in search of a resolution to their demands for recognition and for social and political rights. Thus, second-wave feminist movements were successful in redefining the relationship between the public and private spheres, denouncing that the relationships produced in the private sphere had strong contours of a political project. In turn, civil rights movements presented forms of pressure to combat racial inequalities and to create fair legislation. The LGBTQIAP+ movements gained visibility from the 1980s onwards in the context of the fight for social rights and respect for expressions of sexuality. However, this emergence in a political debate in the second half of the 20th century led one to believe that they were recent issues. In fact, they are historical social markers and fundamental for understanding social relations. Furthermore, as defended by counter-hegemonic perspectives such as intersectional studies, postcolonial and decolonial analyses, these are not merely themes, but rather organizing elements of the world. They objectively configure social relations by establishing hierarchies of power, domination and prestige; and, in the same way, they organize work, education and other elements of quality of life, defining access and exclusion. Thus, it is not possible to read the world without considering them.