A view from the bridge: Insider/Outsider perspective in a study of the Welfare Rights Movement

Abstract

This article examines the use of a conceptual framework informed by intersectionality in a study of women’s participation in the Welfare Rights Movement occurring in the United States from 1964–1972. The author explores how the participants’ and the researcher’s status as insiders and/or outsiders within the movement based on race, class, and gender interacted within the overall research process. The different ways that insider/outsider status was reflected in the cross-class, cross-race social movement work of the participants is explored. The usefulness of this framework and approach to exploring the sometimes shifting statuses of insider/outsider within the research process itself is also examined.