Coalitions of Contention in Camps as Political Laboratories - Antimilitarist and Feminist Alliances and Coalition Work as Contigent Social Processes

The first of the eleven women resistance camps took place in Hunsrueck (FRG) since 1983, where amazing broad coalitions of feminists against militarism and men's violence formed. These early camps give an example for the coalition work that is necessary to form such coalitions (f.e. development of proceedings to manage conflicts as part of institutional arrangements) and this work can be illustrated as a contingent social process for alliances. It turns out that political camping is more than a means to an end for protest on the ground, since cohabitation at the camps proves to have functioned as a motor of these coalitions. This shows the structural significance of the camp as a political laboratory, as a utopian forum, as a territorial based, temporary, reflexive form of organisation, mobilisation, participation, action and protest, also but especially for broad political alliances. The early women resistance camps in Hunsrueck are a camp with specific (e.g. feminist) characteristics and criteria that can not or not be adequately described with current approaches of coalition theories.