Intersectionality's Definitional Dilemmas

2015/04/04 by Patricia Hill Collins, Patrícia Hill Collins · 31 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies #Gender Politics and Representation

paper · pdf · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142

Abstract

The term intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena. Despite this general consensus, definitions of what counts as intersectionality are far from clear. In this article, I analyze intersectionality as a knowledge project whose raison d'être lies in its attentiveness to power relations and social inequalities. I examine three interdependent sets of concerns: (a) intersectionality as a field of study that is situated within the power relations that it studies; (b) intersectionality as an analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social phenomena; and (c) intersectionality as critical praxis that informs social justice projects.

Citations

• Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis
• Masculinity and nationalism: gender and sexuality in the making of nations
• When Multiplication Doesn't Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm

Cited by

• Social Identity Map: A Reflexivity Tool for Practicing Explicit Positionality in Critical Qualitative Research
• Compartmentalizing Intersectionality: Feminist Translations in Anti-Racist and Anti-Rape Activism in Japan
• Cultural capital on the move: ethnic and class distinctions in Asian-Australian academic achievement
• Intersectionality without Fragmentation
• She Plays ‘With a Bit of Anger!’: Natural Athleticism and Misogynoir Stereotypes Within Mediated (re)Constructions of Black and White Women Footballers in Soccer Matchday Commentary
• Diversity Through Precarity? Gender, Race, and Work in Digital Journalism
• The Experience of Birth Trauma: ‘The Machine Just Kept Trundling Me Along’
• Canada's GBA+ framework in a (post)pandemic world: Issues, tensions and paths forward
• The Moral Labour of Legitimacy: Recognition, Misrecognition and Entrepreneurial Evaluation in Racialised Markets
• The Population Neuroscience-Dementia Syndemics Framework to better understand global sex and gender-based risk in low- and middle-income countries
• The shift to stock-based compensation and gender inequality in wealth in the United States
• Armed Conflict and Unwanted Births in Colombia
• ‘Eyo, mixed girl check’: The commodification of embodied performance in the #mixedgirlcheck trend on TikTok
• Sexual harassment and abuse in the equine sector
• Silence, Power, and Inequality: An Intersectional Approach to Sexual Violence
• Offering safe passage: grading systems and gendered enrollment patterns in undergraduate mathematics
• Toward Intersectionality as Critical Praxis in Federal Civil Rights Enforcement
• An intersectional analysis of contestations within women’s movements: the case of Scottish domestic abuse policymaking
• Uncovering the Transformative Labor in Black Women's Community Work
• Feminist Politics, Coalition Building, and Movement Legacies: Abortion Rights Activism in Argentina since the 2001 Crisis
• Intersectionality of Disabled People through a Disability Studies, Ability-Based Studies, and Intersectional Pedagogy Lens: A Survey and a Scoping Review
• Artistic Value for Whom?
• Retheorizing Intersectional Identities with the Study of Chinese LGBTQ+ Migrants
• Beyond Dietary Acculturation: How Latina Immigrants Navigate Exclusionary Systems to Feed Their Families
• Adverse childhood experiences patterns and biological aging in a representative sample of older Americans
• Perceptions matter: Physical neighborhood disadvantage and older adults’ emotional health
• ‘The EndSARS movement is an umbrella for other challenges’: Assessing Nigeria’s EndSARS protest through the theoretical lens of intersectionality
• A Feminist Account of Intersectional Algorithmic Fairness
• The triple burden: low-SES women and the binds of caretaking, work, and college
• The Development and Evaluation of the Intersectional Privilege Screening Inventory for Use With Counselors‐in‐Training
• We out here: Remixing student engagement in education via black women’s hip-hop narratives featuring rapsody’s album <i>eve</i>

Related

• Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis
• Using intersectionality responsibly: Toward critical epistemology, structural analysis, and social justice activism.
• Intersectionality 101
• Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions, and Institutions in the Study of Inequalities
• Intersectionality as multi-level analysis: Dealing with social inequality