Territorial Governments: Associations Collaboration in the Field of Gender Equality in France

This chapter mobilizes a comprehensive methodology and adopts a historical perspective on the relationships between governments and associations in the organizing of gender equality public policies in a French region. It outlines the methodology and contextualizes the case of gender equality public policies. The chapter reviews the literature on governments–associations collaboration from a territorial perspective. Governments–associations collaborations are strategic, because associations are involved in initiatives with local communities and are close to the needs of citizens and territories. Public policy area materializes the institutional and managerial translation of demands arising from the organizing of the feminist social movement, with associations being its main organizational form. In the 1990s, Black women's associations, whose multiculturalist referential differs from the French republican universalism official philosophy, succeeded in integrating collaboration by proving their territorial expertise.