This article examines intersectional praxis via a focus on what constitutes relevant axes of difference. The author argues that a discussion of relevance should focus on two important issues: (1) which categories are of analytic importance and (2) those categories that activists consider relevant. This approach allows for activist debates over the most important social divisions in society while establishing some minimal number of axes that must be included to qualify activism as intersectional. In the Uruguayan case, gender and class constitute minimally important axes of difference; however, race and, less centrally, sexuality and ability constitute central points of debate.

Fieldwork advice has increased and improved over the years. Yet, the bulk of political science fieldwork advice is general; it assumes that the subject to whom advice is given is simply a political scientist—in training, perhaps—with no other salient identities that might intercede (but see Mazzei and O'Brien 2005 and thePS2006 fieldwork symposium, The Methodologies of Field Research in the Middle East, for recent exceptions). Of course in reality it is not just the fieldwork setting that varies; the relationship of the researcher to the field matters a great deal—and that may be much more dependent on our specific identities than we have previously credited. It is not simply the subjects that we study, but us as well who have to negotiate sometimes sticky issues of race, class, gender, nationality, and so forth.

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This article discusses the way that gender forms civil society, particularly in the context of Latin America and the United States. It begins with a study of the history and development of the definition of civil society and its implications for women and gender. The next section discusses women’s historical and modern presence in civil society and considers whether civil society operates practically and conceptually as an autonomous sphere. The article also explores civil society’s ability to empower women and reproduce gendered norms of equality.

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