Constructing and Contesting Intersectional Representation Claims: an Analysis of Civil Society Organizations

To date, most research on the political representation of women focuses on their descriptive and substantive representation in legislatures. This approach to representation has been recently contested for several reasons. First, it limits representation to certain actors and spaces. Second, the emphasis on female legislators overlooks the fact that women are not a homogenous group. Third, it suggests the idea that individual legislators can represent the heterogenous interests of groups. And, fourth, it assumes that women’s interests already exist out there waiting to be articulated by legislators. In this article, I address these concerns by answering the following question: “How are intersectional representation claims constructed and contested?”. I propose an innovative case study, which takes into account new approaches to political representation, as well as new actors and sites. I focus on Saward’s claims-making approach, and Squire’s concept of the constitutive representation of gender, while employing an intersectional perspective. I analyze Catalan civil society organizations in order to understand the process of establishing women’s interests and how these interests become claims, as well as to comprehend the power relation dynamics between different groups of women. I use a combination of different methods; I hold semi-structured interviews with the representatives of the civil society organizations understudy, and I also examine documents produced by them. In order to analyze the data collected, I use grounded theory.