Fragmentation et stagnation : enjeux de mobilisation du mouvement LGBTIQ aux Philippines
This Master’s thesis investigates the development of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) movement in the Philippines from the fall of Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship in 1986 to the present moment. Since then, the LGBTIQ movement has developed rapidly. It was among the first in Southeast Asia to organise a Pride March and to constitute an LGBTIQ political party. However, despite this dynamism, LGBTIQ communities are still discriminated in the workspace, schools, and the healthcare system. Moreover, they are still the victims of homophobic crimes. To the present day, the movement has not been able to secure political protection for the rights and the safety of these communities. Although the current situation can be attributed to a certain extent to conservatism in the ruling class or the strong influence of Catholicism and homophobia, this thesis argues that the fragmentation and the lack of coherence of the movement iii has itself complicated the formulation and implementation of concrete policies. My analysis of the movement’s development throughout the last 30 years will highlight four fundamental conflicts resolving around 1. the definition of one collective identity, 2. the framing used to conceptualize these issues, 3. the different ideologies underlying the social activists’ actions, and 4. the divergence in organisational modes and strategies. As such, this thesis shifts attention from external factors to internal conflicts within the LGBTIQ movement of the Philippines. My arguments are based on 17 interviews with social activists, conducted between May and October 2015 in Manila. In the first two chapters of this thesis, I review current scholarship on social movements in general and about the Philippines and South East Asia in particular. This review will provide the theoretical foundation necessary to identify and understand the four identified social factors and their role on the fragmentation of the movement. In chapter four, I analyse the fragmentation of the movement based on the social activists’ scales of action, their targets of mobilization, and their mobilization trajectories. In chapter five, I analyze this fragmentation through the identified factors in the literature.
LGBTIQ Social movements Framing Collective identity Ideology Organisational modes Strategies