Why are we here? Patterns of intersectional motivations across the resistance

Can a crowd of individuals who are motivated by a range of issues related to racial identity, class, gender and sexuality mobilize around a shared issue, and, if so, how does this process work in practice? To date, limited research has explored intersectionality as a mobilization tool for social movements. This paper expands recent work on how intersectional motivations influence the constituencies at protest events by comparing across some of the largest events that have taken place in Washington, DC since the Resistance began. We explore patterns of motivations of participants in marches over the first year of the Trump Presidency. Our analyses demonstrate how individuals’ motivations to participate represented an intersectional set of issues and how patterns of issues emerge. However, when we look across the marches, we find that the patterns are not durable, indicating the limitations of interpretations of the Resistance as a unified intersectional movement.