The face of a child in need is a visual trope that is at the forefront of the politics of spectacle in emergency news and aid initiatives. Images of children’s faces work on both affective and ethical levels, appealing to compassion and to a discourse of universal human rights. Acknowledging both the cultural fascination with and distrust of images of children, this article focuses on the strategies of persuasion used by an international NGO Save the Children in their child sponsoring (...) campaign. Identifying the ways that both NGO guidelines and strategies shape the way the image is composed and framed, and engaging with the concepts of ‘sponsoring,’ ‘saving,’ and ‘parenting,’ the article follows how the campaign configures financial help as an affective, rather than economic, relationship between the donor and the beneficiary. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate how gendered nationalism is articulated through everyday practices in relation to immigrant integration policy and the intersectional production of inequality in South Korea. By using ethnographic data collected at community centers created to implement national “multicultural” policy, I examine the individual perspectives and experiences of Korean staff and targeted recipients. To defend their own “native” privileges, the Korean staff stressed the gendered caretaking roles of marriage migrants and their contribution to the nation as justification for (...) state support. The migrants, while critical of the familial responsibilities imposed on them in Korea, underscored their gendered value to the nation to offset their subjugated position. The diverging perspectives of the two groups are informed by “everyday” nationalism, generated through constantly gendered terms and effects. Bringing together the literature on nationalism and migration through a focus on reproductive labor, I expose how national boundaries are drawn through quotidian practices of gendered nationalism, with significant implications for gender and ethnic hierarchies. (shrink)

The term ‘intersectionality’ recognises the need for a ‘holistic approach’ in the determination of the right to be free from discrimination and violence. While the European Court of Human Rights has never expressly used the term, this article argues that the recent case of B.S. v Spain provides an example of a more robust use of Article 14 of the convention taking into account the real life experiences of those facing intersectional discrimination. The decision recognising the special vulnerability of a (...) migrant, female sex worker is therefore both welcome and necessary. (shrink)

The theoretical perspectives of intersectionality and poststructuralism have contributed meaningfully to advancing issues of social injustice within the realm of women's health research. However, the question of whether the two approaches are epistemologically commensurate has been at the heart of a polarized debate within third‐ and fourth‐wave feminist literature in recent years. In this paper, we draw on the extant literature to explore existing dilemmas within this debate and critically reflect on points of epistemological tension and congruence between the two (...) perspectives. It will be demonstrated that intersectionality and poststructuralism, especially feminist poststructuralism, represent concordant theoretical perspectives and a synthesized theoretical framework for application in qualitative research into women's health will be proposed. We argue that an intersectional feminist poststructuralist framework contributes to a deepened analysis of women's disparate healthcare experiences, and the social mechanisms, power relations, and discourses that mediate these experiences, while offering avenues for advocacy and political praxis on a multitude of levels. (shrink)

This article contributes to the revision of the concept of system in social theory using complexity theory. The old concept of social system is widely discredited; a new concept of social system can more adequately constitute an explanatory framework. Complexity theory offers the toolkit needed for this paradigm shift in social theory. The route taken is not via Luhmann, but rather the insights of complexity theorists in the sciences are applied to the tradition of social theory inspired by Marx, Weber, (...) and Simmel. The article contributes to the theorization of intersectionality in social theory as well as to the philosophy of social science. It addresses the challenge of theorizing the intersection of multiple complex social inequalities, exploring the various alternative approaches, before rethinking the concept of social system. It investigates and applies, for the first time, the implications of complexity theory for the analysis of multiple intersecting social inequalities. Key Words: complexity theory • inequality • intersectionality • social theory. (shrink)

El artículo analiza el desarrollo de la interseccionalidad como concepto presente en el proceso de juzgar con perspectiva de género, en particular, su impacto en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Corte IDH). La metodología utilizada es cualitativa, principalmente, revisión de sentencias de la Corte IDH. De las 13 sentencias seleccionadas en el período 2015-2022 se concluye que la Corte IDH ha incorporado progresivamente la perspectiva interseccional y la ha usada como categoría analítica para estudiar, entender y (...) hacer frente a las discriminaciones que constituyen una forma agravada de discriminación y barreras de acceso a la justicia. (shrink)

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities, recognition of different voices, and critiques of the public and private dichotomy, are particularly suited for dealing with the challenges of contentious and contested processes of citizenship. We argue more (...) specifically that feminist debates and practices provide fruitful contributions for the citizenship challenges that the European Union must face. (shrink)

The enduring significance of gender and how it intersects with class in the organization of parenting, domestic and professional work has been obscured in contemporary neoliberal contexts. This article examines how Greek academic women conceptualize and enact motherhood and the classed and gendered strategies they adopt to reconcile ‘good’ motherhood with notions of the ‘good’ academic professional. It draws on semi-structured interviews about the career narratives of 15 women in Greek medical schools in the aftermath of the Greek recession. The (...) analysis presented in this article is informed by a feminist post-structuralist paradigm and an emic approach to intersectionality. Motherhood emerged in the data as a dynamic concept, and a network of practices both constrained and enabled by gendered and classed family and work cultures. Drawing on a neoliberal ‘DIY’ and ‘having it all’ discourse, Greek mothers claimed that they could achieve almost anything professionally, if they organized their private lives sensibly. They drew on idealized discourses of motherhood, but they also contradicted these notions by doing non-traditional forms of motherhood, such as remote or transnational motherhood, afforded by their privileged social positioning and academic careers. Further research is required to investigate configurations of classed motherhood in less prestigious professions. (shrink)

Feminists may overlook the way that our practices of reading and writing serve as discursive technologies of power, particularly if we fail to acknowledge the dominance of the invisible subject position of the (middle-class, heterosexual) white woman. Under such circumstances, specific seemingly neutral rhetorical strategies can serve as potent tools of dominance, infusing the reading situation with strategies of subordination that go unremarked because they are authorised by tradition and convention. I examine here the use of a specific rhetorical device (...) in a specific context, the evocation of a comment by Judith Butler that I call The Case of the Et Cetera, as it appears in six critiques of intersectionality by European scholars and one by a North American scholar relying on the European narrative. I argue that Butler’s comment is used to deploy a pattern of rhetoric that I call managing intersectionality. This move depoliticises intersectionality by making it the property of a white managerial subject position that is treated as racially unmarked. My target is the metadiscursive regime that authorises this uninterrogated reinscription of racialised hierarchy in feminist academic argument. (shrink)

This article examines a fundamental theoretical aspect of the discourse on ‘intersectionality’ in feminist and anti-racist social theory, namely, the question whether intersecting social divisions including those of sex, gender, race, class and sexuality are interacting but independent entities with autonomous ontological bases or whether they are different dimensions of the same social system that lack separate social ontologies and constitute each other. Based on a historical reconstruction of its genesis, the article frames this as a dispute between system-theoretical and (...) dialectical, ‘Critical Theory’-related approaches and argues that the latter better capture the dynamics of contemporary society, including the perspective of its transcendence. (shrink)

Much is written about quantitative techniques and feminist and gender studies. Despite convincing arguments in favour of utilizing these methods, they are still largely absent in the heartland of gender studies. In this article, this is related to the observation that methods are tied to epistemological positions and consequently quantitative studies are a priori associated with overgeneralization. A new perspective – the diversity continuum – is presented in order to contextualize research and make it possible to judge it relatively. This (...) shows that quantitative research can increase the understanding of differences and similarities. Subsequently, it is discussed how quantitative research can be utilized to understand differences between people using existing basic techniques. In line with the conceptualization of diversity, this includes techniques to study intersectionality and how developments have different effects on men and women. The continuum and techniques are illustrated by an example of political interest. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the currently sparse literature on transnational families and gender. It focuses on the retrospective accounts of Caribbean-born adults who as children were serial migrants, joining their parents in the UK following a period of separation. It considers aspects of their relationships with their siblings and with their mothers and fathers. The article illuminates what the serial migrants viewed as contradictory everyday practices that produced ‘non-shared environments’. It discusses three ways in which transnationalism appeared to (...) be a central part of the serial migrants’ family lives. First, it was embodied. Second, it was lived as cultural difference between Caribbean-born and UK-born siblings. Third, it was reported to be evident in parental practices. The article illustrates the importance of viewing gendered narratives in a psychosocial intersectional perspective. (shrink)

Today intersectionality has expanded from being primarily a metaphor within structuralist feminist research to an all-encompassing theory. This article discusses this increasing dedication to intersectionality in European feminist research. How come intersectionality has developed into a signifier for ‘good feminist research’ at this particular point in time? Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial theory the authors examine key articles on intersectionality as well as special issues devoted to the concept. They interrogate the conflicts and meaning making processes as well as the (...) genealogies of the concept. Thus, the epistemology and ontology behind the ‘intersectional turn’ in feminist theory is the main concern here. The authors argue that the lack of ontological discussions has lead to its very popularity. Intersectionality promises almost everything: to provide complexity, overcome divisions and to serve as a critical tool. However, the expansion of the scope of intersectionality has created a consensus that conceals fruitful and necessary conflicts within feminism. (shrink)

The concept of intersectionality is on its way to becoming a new paradigm in gender studies. In its current version, it denominates reciprocities between gender, race and class. However, it also allows for the integration of other socially defined categories, such as sexuality, nationality or age. On the other hand, it is widely left unclear as to which level these reciprocal effects apply: the level of social structures, the level of constructions of identity or the level of symbolic representations. This (...) article advocates an intersectional multi-level analysis which takes into account reciprocal effects between the various levels. This approach includes an analytical grasp of and methodical reflection on these reciprocal effects as well as making them empirically accessible. (shrink)

Discourses often uncover underlying social boundaries related to concepts such as ethnicity, gender and religion. By applying an intersectional approach, this article shows how the gendering of ethno-religious boundaries is central in the narratives of parents of Belgian, Italian and Moroccan origin, living in Flanders, Belgium. These processes are extremely salient when discourses on partner choice are discussed, as is the focal point in the current study. The construction of boundaries and identities are deeply influenced by dominant social representations. The (...) results show how the construction and justification of boundaries can also have restrictive consequences for individuals. Parents want to restrict daughters for their own good, and exogamy seems to be the prerogative of sons. (shrink)

Since its inception, the concept of `intersectionality' — the interaction of multiple identities and experiences of exclusion and subordination — has been heralded as one of the most important contributions to feminist scholarship. Despite its popularity, there has been considerable confusion concerning what the concept actually means and how it can or should be applied in feminist inquiry. In this article, I look at the phenomenon of intersectionality's spectacular success within contemporary feminist scholarship, as well as the uncertainties and confusion (...) which it has generated. Drawing upon insights from the sociology of science, I shall show how and why intersectionality could become a feminist success story. I shall argue that, paradoxically, it is precisely the concept's alleged weaknesses — its ambiguity and open-endedness — that were the secrets to its success and, more generally, make it a good feminist theory. (shrink)

In this article, we argue how instant messaging (IM) is actively made into a communicative space of their own among migrant girls. Triangulating data gathered through large-scale surveys, interviews and textual analysis of IM transcripts, we focus on Moroccan-Dutch girls who use instant messaging as a space where they can negotiate several issues at the crossroads of national, ethnic, racial, age and linguistic specificities. We take an intersectional perspective to disentangle how they perform differential selves using IM both as an (...) ‘onstage’ activity through which they express their communal, public and global youth cultural belongings and as a ‘backstage’ activity through which they articulate their individual, private and intimate identity expression. Instant messaging appears to be a space where they can strategically (re-)position themselves. The relationship between the online world of IM and the off-line world is shown to be intricate and complex; at certain points, both worlds overlap and at others they diverge. Despite all existing constraints that are both related to gender restrictions, often disenfranchised family backgrounds, religious dictums, and surveillance by parents, siblings and peers, which affect Moroccan-Dutch girls in specific ways, IM is also understood as a unique space for exerting their agency in autonomous, playful and intimate ways. (shrink)

This paper elucidates and illuminates the notion of post colonialism and post-modernism as an epitome upon which discourse on development related issues in the post-colonial world is premised. Secondly, the paper situates the emergence post colonial critical perspectives generally using development in the South as a point of reference. The paper specifically focuses on feminist postcolonial critical perspectives on gender, race and class. Accordingly, the paper explicates the implications of intersectionality on the development discourse in the South and its multiplicative (...) (not additive) effects on gender discrimination, women subordination and women agency with particular reference to the feminization of work and allocation of resources. The paper then looks at the indispensability of the intersectional methodology in the understanding of development related issues in the South before concluding accordingly. It ought to be born in mind that the paper envisages the North and South in terms of the Brandt commission(Klaus, 2002,p.5) demarcation or description but does not only look at the South in terms of territorial cartographies but also social ones(Robinson, 2002) as well in the sense that South race connections will greatly contributetothe marginalisation of Southerners or people of colour even if there are territorially situated in North for various reasons such as migration, slavery etc. (shrink)

Whereas intersectionality presents a fruitful framework for theoretical and empirical research, some of its fundamental features present great confusion. The term ‘intersectionality’ and its metaphor of the crossroads seem to reproduce what it aims to avoid: conceiving categories as separate. Despite the attempts for developing new metaphors that illustrate the mutual constitution relation among categories, gender, race or class keep being imagined as discrete units that intersect, mix or combine. Here we identify two main problems in metaphors: the lack of (...) differentiation between positions and effects and the problem of reification. We then present a new metaphor that overcomes these two problems: a basket of apples. We argue that considering social positions as the diverse properties of different apples avoids reification by considering categories as properties and not as objects themselves, and at the same time it allows us to think about the effects dimension from a plural and contextual approach. With this shift, we propose a reframing of the discussion in debates on intersectionality theory on the relation among categories, their in/separability and fragmentation. (shrink)

The globalization, increased migration, and mobility of workforce necessitate the need to study religious diversity in organizations, which has not yet received adequate academic attention of management scholars. The paper attempts to define and understand the nuances of religious diversity with the help of certain theories from psychology and sociology domains. It aims to present the legal provisions of different countries regarding workplace religious discrimination and endeavours to synthesize and analyze the pros and cons of religious diversity at workplace. The (...) paper follows a systematic literature review approach. The descriptive analysis of search results and thematic analysis of the literature reviewed has been presented. It is found that the theories from other domains can be borrowed to understand the root cause of different perceptions for religious diversity. The favourable and unfavourable outcomes of workplace religious diversity have been identified and categorized at two levels i.e. individual and organizational. It is realized that the favourable outcomes of bringing religion to workplace outnumber the unfavourable outcomes and therefore it is time to leverage workplace religious diversity. Lastly, the paper attempts to equip the human resource managers with certain strategies to better deal with religious diversity issues at the workplace. (shrink)

This article probes the relative absence of religion within discussions of intersectionality, and begins to address this absence by bringing intersectionality studies into conversation with another significant field within feminist theory: the study of religious women's agency. Although feminist literatures on intersectionality and religious women's agency have garnered a great deal of scholarly attention, these two bodies of work have rarely been engaged together. After surveying both fields, I argue that research on religious women's agency not only exposes an ambiguity (...) at the heart of intersectionality between identity and oppression, but also challenges several aspects of intersectionality studies, especially as recent theorists increasingly turn away from identity politics in favor of a structural critique of power. These aspects of intersectionality include its often unsituated critique of power, as well as its reliance on a negatively defined consensus on anti-oppression. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider how to conceptualize “diasporic” subjects, namely those whose identities and homes cannot be easily attributed, with regard to the political and racial dynamics of intra-group tensions, alliances, and divergences of interest. These concerns are important relatives to topics that Critical Race Theorists and Critical Race Feminists have readily addressed, such as the war on terror, the not-so-gradual erosion of dignity and rights protections accorded to non-citizens, and the increasing antagonism, surveillance, and brutality toward Latino and (...) Muslim migrants. As such, the former issues should become central concerns for Critical Race Theorists. In what follows, I want to introduce a framework called “interstitiality” as a way to address them. (shrink)

This article examines how immigrant careworkers relate dynamically with the Norwegian gender regime. While the importation of careworkers contributes both to the practical maintenance and to the undermining on a more ideological level of the Norwegian gender regime, it also brings in new constellations and possibilities. In this article examples from two studies are discussed in the light of institutional and intersectional perspectives. It describes features of the Norwegian gender regime that are especially relevant to carework, and the highly gendered (...) distribution and sharing of carework across the public and private domains. One central Norwegian form of care institution, the nursing home, then comes into focus. Making use of empirical examples from fieldwork and interviews, the article discusses how, as immigrant careworkers increasingly staff these institutions, new light is thrown on existing power structures, while at the same time these structures may be challenged through the fluidity of situational and relational gendering processes. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has been an incredibly powerful tool for understanding and improving organisations, and their relationship with other actors in society. That these critical ideas are now accepted within mainstream business is due in no small part to the influence of stakeholder theory. However, improvements to stakeholder engagement through stakeholder theory have tended to help stakeholders who are already somewhat powerful within organisational settings, while those who are less powerful continue to be marginalised and routinely ignored. In this paper, we (...) argue that one possible obstacle preventing less powerful stakeholders from speaking up and/or being heard by organisations is found at the ontological level, where we have identified an ‘essentialist self’ underpinning the stakeholder concept. By deconstructing the stakeholder concept through how it is defined, discussed and debated, and linking this back to the practical consequences of the theory for the least powerful stakeholders, we are able to make three contributions. One, through our deconstruction, it is clear that at an ontological level, stakeholder theory is underpinned by an implicit, and problematic, assumption of the ‘essentialist self’, where the organisation is treated as the ‘natural, universal self’, and anyone not closely resembling this narrow (and unrealistic) view of self is treated as ‘other’. Two, we build on the work of authors such as Wicks et al. (Bus Ethics Q 4(4):475–497, 1994), who highlight the need for consideration of the self within stakeholder theory. We thus take our findings from contribution one and begin to build a more holistic view of the self within the stakeholder concept, where each self is encouraged to recognise common selves outside and inside the corporation. Third, we link the theoretical discussion to the practical by discussing some imperfect ways in which a more holistic, enriched stakeholder concept might begin to help mitigate marginalisation for some stakeholders. (shrink)

The increase in ethnically and linguistically diverse older adults in Canada necessitates attention to their experiences and needs for healthy ageing. Arab immigrant women often report challenges in maintaining health, but little is known about their ageing experiences. This interpretive descriptive study uses a transnational life course framework to understand Arab Muslim immigrant women's experiences of engaging in health‐promoting practices as they age in Canada. Women's stories highlight social dimensions of health such social connectedness, social roles and social support that (...) are constructed and maintained within different migration contexts across the life course. Barriers and facilitators to healthy ageing in this population centred around five themes: (i) the necessity of staying strong, (ii) caring for self while caring for others, (iii) double jeopardy of chronic illnesses and loneliness, (iv) inadequate support within large social networks and (v) navigating access to health‐supporting resources. The findings point to transnational connections and post‐migration social support as major influencers in creating facilitators and barriers to healthy ageing for Arab Muslim immigrant women. (shrink)

Seeking to capture the multi-layered, contradictory, nature of subjectivities and social positions through a framework which insists upon the complex, dynamic nature of the social, intersectionality feminism has inspired Marxist-Feminists to push the social-reproduction feminism paradigm beyond a narrow preoccupation with gender/class relations. Yet even its most politically radical articulations stop short of fully theorising the integrative logic they espouse. This article explores the roots of this under-theorisation, and suggests that a more fully integrative ontology informs certain formulations of social-reproduction (...) feminism. In understanding the social as constituted by practical human activity whose object (the social and natural world) is organised capitalistically, social-reproduction feminism highlights thedialecticalrelationship between the capitalist whole and its differentiated parts. The challenge for Marxist-Feminism is to embrace this dialectical approach while building on the insights of intersectionality feminism to more convincingly capture the unity of a complex, diverse social whole. (shrink)

In this article, I use Lorena Cabnal’s notion of territorio cuerpo-tierra to analyse seventeen in-depth interviews with women leaders of rural social movements and other organisations in Colombia. In the interviews, social leaders condemn violence that is epistemic, systemic, militarised and that permeates all ambits of life. They denounce how the coloniality of power operates, while at the same time they propose alternatives for a better life from their own cosmovisions by enacting food sovereignty and constructing feminisms from ‘below’. I (...) demonstrate how these social leaders’ actions are entangled in decolonial feminist struggles, which undermine the way in which women in the Global South have been constructed as ‘objects’ or ‘in need of saving’. These women are not ‘victims who need saving’, but politically active subjects who enact change locally and nationally through their ‘territories bodies-lands’. Not only do their narratives highlight the intimate relationship of the body with the land, but I argue that we must follow their lead in order to dismantle the coloniality of power. (shrink)

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the ‘secularization thesis’. Conflicts between the claims of women's equality and the claims of religion are well-documented vis-à-vis all major religions and across all regions. The (...) ongoing moral panic about the presence of Islam in Europe, marked by a preoccupation with policing Muslim women's dress, reminds us of the centrality of women and gender power relations in the interrelation of religion, culture and the state. Added to postmodern and other critiques of the secular-religious binary, most sociological research now contradicts the equation of modernization with secularization. This article focuses on the challenges that these developments pose to politically oriented feminist thinking and practice. It argues that non-oppressive feminist responses require a new critical engagement with secularism as a normative principle in democratic, multicultural societies. To inform this process, the author maps and links discussions across different fields of feminist scholarship, in the sociology of religion and in political theory. She organizes the main philosophical traditions and fault lines that form the intellectual terrain at the intersection of feminism, religion and politics in two broad groups: feminist critiques of the Enlightenment critique of religion; and feminist scholarship at the critical edges of the Enlightenment tradition. The author argues that notwithstanding the fragmented nature of feminist debates in this area, common ground is emerging across different politically oriented approaches: all emphasize ‘democracy’ and the values that underpin it as the larger discursive frame in which the principle of secularism can be redefined with emancipatory intent in a neo-secular age. (shrink)

The literature on Dalit women largely deals with issues of violence and oppression based on intersections of class, caste, and gender. Women’s bodies, sexuality, and reproductive choices are linked to the ideological hegemony of the caste–gender nexus in India, with marriage and sexual relations playing crucial roles in maintaining caste boundaries. Often, the ways in which women manipulate their multiple, interlinked identities as women, Dalits, workers, and homemakers to resist control over their bodies, negotiate conjugal loyalty and love, and construct (...) a sense of selfhood is missed in the analyses. Based on research in rural Tamil Nadu, I analyze Dalit women’s narratives that reflect multiple concerns and dilemmas about marital choice and violence, generating in the process a deeper understanding of agency, voice, and gender relations, as fluid, dynamic, and intersecting in response to changing experiences, positionalities, and subjectivities. (shrink)

How does so much gender inequality endure in an era when many laws and policies endorse principles of gender equality? This essay examines this dilemma by considering Susan Moller Okin's criticism of “false gender neutrality,” research on implicit bias, and the shifting relation of gender bias to American law. I argue that these are crucial elements of the modern cycle of gender inequality, enabling it to operate through a perverse “invisible-hand” mechanism. This framework helps convey how underlying gender bias influences (...) individual behaviors that generate, legitimate, and mask broad patterns of inequality. Contemporary legal conflicts reflect many of these dynamics, which appear in controversies over gender-based violence, gender discrimination in pay and promotion, and women's reproductive health care benefits. This analysis advances our understanding of how the contemporary cycle of gender inequality operates, the complex links between individual behavior and structural bias, and the difficulty of pursuing gender justice through prevailing frameworks of law and liberalism. It also underscores the continued importance of feminists' collective work to address “invisible” as well as visible biases. (shrink)

As part of a celebration of Susan Okin's Justice, Gender, and the Family, this article notes how some impacts of the book were so accepted that their original source has been forgotten. It goes on to make three critical arguments about 1) Okin's pared-down account of gender injustice, 2) her choice to embrace the Rawlsian distributive view of justice, and 3) her treatment of the family as the linchpin of gender injustice.

This article develops a model of relational happiness that challenges popular individualized definitions and emphasizes how it can enhance the sociological analysis of inequality. Many studies of happiness suggest that social inequalities are closely associated with distributions of happiness at the national level, but happiness research continues to favour individual-level analyses. Limited attention has been given to the intersubjective aspects of happiness and the correlations between it and higher social equality. Conversely, key theoretical debates about inequalities, such as Axel Honneth (...) and Nancy Fraser’s exchanges, have only indirectly touched on happiness. A relational approach to happiness is not new, but what this article offers is a new combination of a relational understanding of happiness as an intersubjectively, culturally experienced complex of emotions with discussions about recognition of marginalized groups and redistribution of material resources. This combined approach can further debates about understanding and remedying social inequalities. It argues that theories and measurements of happiness must consider how it can be achieved collectively through working at mutual respect as well as greater material equality. (shrink)

This article is about the materiality of difference, about race, sex and sexual differences among others. To find out about these differences and their materialities, this article looks not into bodies but rather at how bodies are positioned in spaces and how they are enacted in practice. In the first part of the article, the focus is on the relationality of identities and how they are made and unmade in specific practices. The second part of the article attends to the (...) various histories and practices that are drawn together in one specific body and how they help to enact a particular version of the body. Differences, it is argued, are not given ‘entities’ out there, awaiting dis-covery; rather they are effects that come about in relational practices. This indicates that materiality is not simply a given that can be taken on board, but it is the very configuration through which differences can be articulated. (shrink)

Taking up Kimberlé Crenshaw's conclusion that black feminist theorists seem to continue to find themselves in many ways “speaking into the void” (Crenshaw 2011, 228), even as their works are widely celebrated, I examine intersectionality critiques as one site where power asymmetries and dominant imaginaries converge in the act of interpretation (or cooptation) of intersectionality. That is, despite its current “status,” intersectionality also faces epistemic intransigence in the ways in which it is read and applied. My aim is not to (...) suggest that intersectionality cannot (or should not) be critiqued, nor do I maintain that celebratory applications/interpretations are immune from epistemic distortion when it comes to interpreting intersectionality. Rather, my goal is to demonstrate that critiques of intersectionality are one important site to examine hermeneutic marginalization and interpretive violence; the politics of citation; and the impact of dominant expectations or established social imaginaries on meaning-making. In so doing, I aim to consider more fully how entrenched ways of thinking are frequently relied upon to interpret and critique intersectionality, even as these are often the very frameworks that intersectionality theorists have identified as highly problematic tools of misrepresentation, erasure, and violation. This slippage away from intersectionality's outlooks, whether in critical or laudatory contexts, is a pivotal site of epistemic negotiation we must examine more closely. (shrink)

In 1998, the Labour government introduced legislation broadening British sentencing powers in relation to crimes aggravated by the offender's hostility towards the victim's actual or perceived race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Gender is a notable omission from this list. Through a survey of eighty-eight stakeholders working in the violence against women (VAW) sector, this paper explores both the potential benefits and possible disadvantages of adding a gender-based category concerned with VAW to British hate crime legislation. The majority of participants (...) believed that a hate crime approach would offer significant benefits, especially in terms of the symbolic power of the law to send a message to society that VAW is unacceptable. However, most also recognised that the addition of a VAW category to current legislation would involve major practical and conceptual difficulties, not least those resulting from problematic assumptions about the nature of hate crimes versus VAW, and a general unwillingness on the part of policy-makers to address the socio-cultural inequalities that underpin VAW. Overall, the fact that the majority of participants favoured inclusion, on the basis that the possible symbolic benefits were likely to outweigh the potential practical disadvantages, is significant: it speaks to the power of hate crime legislation to challenge many forms of inequality and discrimination still endemic in British society. (shrink)

This article identifies philosophical tensions and limitations within contemporary intersectionality theory which, it will be argued, have hindered its ability to explain how positioning in multiple social categories can affect life chances and influence the reproduction of inequality. We draw upon critical realism to propose an augmented conceptual framework and novel methodological approach that offers the potential to move beyond these debates, so as to better enable intersectionality to provide causal explanatory accounts of the ‘lived experiences’ of social privilege and (...) disadvantage. (shrink)

Intersectionality has been adopted as the preferred term to refer to and to analyze multiple axes of oppression in feminist theory. However, less research examines if this term, and the political analyses it carries, has been adopted by women’s rights organizations in various contexts and to what effect. Drawing on interviews with activists working in a variety of women’s rights organizations in France and Canada, I show that intersectionality is only one of the repertoires that a women’s rights organization might (...) use to analyze the social experience and the political interests of women situated at the intersection of several axes of domination. I propose a typology of four repertoires that activists use to reflect on intersectionality and inclusiveness. Drawing on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the interview data, I show that hegemonic repertoires about racial or religious identity in one national context shape the way activists and organizations understand intersectionality and its challenges. The identity of organizations, as well as their main function, also shape their understanding of intersectional issues. (shrink)

In her 2007 book "Epistemic Injustice" Miranda Fricker argues that "the silent by products of residual prejudice in a liberal society" are often the most difficult biases to eradicate. In this essay, I provide several examples of the kind of residual prejudice Fricker describes. I then propose a principle of "intellectual empathy" (with four component elements) as a methodological remedy for eradicating this kind of bias in good critical thinking.

This paper examines the link between the regulation of marriage migration and national boundary-making processes in South Korea through the analysis of “fraudulent marriage” discourses. Corresponding to the goals of the Korean government based on the gendered and racialized construction of the Korean nation, populations of marriage migrants are hierarchized according to various intersecting axes of gender, age, class, and “race.” Based on a critical race and intersectional feminist framework and critical security studies, I examine multiple intersections of the social (...) relations, which hierarchize marriage migrants. While certain marriage migrants are constructed as desirable because they embody particular sets of characteristics, other marriage migrants outside these parameters are actively constructed as undesirable and suspected of fraudulent marriage. The discriminatory distinctions drawn among differentially racialized and gendered marriage migrants raise significant social justice concerns. The article concludes with a brief discussion of strategies pursued by marriage migrants and their Korean spouses to undermine discourses of fraudulent marriages. (shrink)

In feminist theory, intersectionality has become the predominant way of conceptualizing the relation between systems of oppression which construct our multiple identities and our social locations in hierarchies of power and privilege. The aim of this essay is to clarify the origins of intersectionality as a metaphor, and its theorization as a provisional concept in Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s work, followed by its uptake and mainstreaming as a paradigm by feminist theorists in a period marked by its widespread and rather unquestioned--if, (...) at times, superficial and inattentive--usage. I adduce four analytic benefits of intersectionality as a research paradigm: simultaneity, complexity, irreducibility and inclusivity. Then, I gesture at, and respond to some critiques of intersectionality advanced in the last few years, during which the concept has increasingly come under scrutiny. (shrink)

COVID-19 has uncovered the vulnerabilities, inequalities and fragility present within our social community which has exposed and exacerbated the pre-existing racial and socioeconomic inequalities that disproportionately affect health outcomes for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people. Such disparities are fuelled by complex socioeconomic health determinants and longstanding structural inequalities. This paper aims to explore the inequalities and vulnerabilities of BAME communities laid bare by the Public Health England (PHE) reports published in June 2020, concluding with suggested strategies to address (...) inequalities in a post COVID-19 recovery. (shrink)

Over the last few years, intersectionality has become not only one of the most prominent topics of feminist theory in Europe, but also one of its most serious challenges, pressing us to acknowledge that European nations are not homogeneous entities and calling for more complex accounts of gender relations and forms of gender injustice. Currently, many scholars embrace intersectionality as a concept, but there is no consensus about what adequate theoretical accounts of intersectionality with regard to European contexts should look (...) like. Drawing on theoretical positions that have been put forward within the current intersectionality debate in German-speaking countries, this article addresses two questions that are currently at stake: the what-question of intersectionality, asking what it is, which forms of inequality we focus on as intersecting; and the how-question of intersectionality, focusing on how we should conceptualize what is happening when forms of inequality intersect. (shrink)

Whereas intersectionality presents a fruitful framework for theoretical and empirical research, some of its fundamental features present great confusion. The term ‘intersectionality’ and its metaphor of the crossroads seem to reproduce what it aims to avoid: conceiving categories as separate. Despite the attempts for developing new metaphors that illustrate the mutual constitution relation among categories, gender, race or class keep being imagined as discrete units that intersect, mix or combine. Here we identify two main problems in metaphors: the lack of (...) differentiation between positions and effects and the problem of reification. We then present a new metaphor that overcomes these two problems: a basket of apples. We argue that considering social positions as the diverse properties of different apples avoids reification by considering categories as properties and not as objects themselves, and at the same time it allows us to think about the effects dimension from a plural and contextual approach. With this shift, we propose a reframing of the discussion in debates on intersectionality theory on the relation among categories, their in/separability and fragmentation. (shrink)

Intersectionality is the notion that concerns the complexity of the experiences of individuals in virtue of their belonging to multiple socially significant categories. One of its main insights is that the way society is structured around categories such as gender, race, sexuality, class, etc., produces distinctive and specific forms of discrimination and privilege for groups in the intersections. In this paper, we suggest conceiving intersectionality as a general metaphysical framework wherein specific claims to the effect that the experiences of discrimination (...) of Black women, among others, can be fruitfully formulated and examined. The main claim is that intersectional experiences emerge from the conjunction of social categories when social structures make them relevant vis-à-vis discrimination and privilege. We then argue that our view has three main virtues: metaphysical neutrality, explanatory flexibility and methodological openness. Explaining these virtues will allow us to contrast our proposal with alternatives from the recent literature. (shrink)

White women's racism has been the topic of many critiques, discussions and conflicts within British feminist theory and politics over the last fifty years, driven by women of colour's insistence that white feminists must take on board the significance of race in order to stop perpetuating racism. Yet still today, feminist academia and activism in Britain continues to be white-dominated and to participate in the reproduction of racism and whiteness. This article examines the role of dominant historical narratives of feminism (...) in enabling this reproduction, arguing that there is a direct correlation between how the feminist past is constructed in relation to race and racism and how feminist theory and politics are articulated in the present. Focussing on three contemporary feminist texts that address feminism itself as a subject, it highlights three techniques used in these texts that, it is argued, are commonly employed in the narrative reproduction of white feminist racism. These are: (1) the erasure of the work of British feminists of colour; (2) white feminist co-option of work by feminists of colour; and (3) the narration of feminist theory and politics as having ‘moved on’ from racism. These techniques lead to evasion of the topic of white feminist racism, both historically and in the present. They also reinforce the construction of British feminism as a story that belongs to white women. The article argues that in order to work towards ending white supremacy, white feminists must relinquish control of the feminist narrative and stop moving on from the topic of white feminist racism. (shrink)

In this paper I take up a critical position in regard to the theme of debility around which this collection is framed. I argue that theorisations of ‘debility’ do little to progress theory and policy in regard to disability and share many of the problems inherent to the social model. I also suggest that the theorisation of debility is rooted in and reinforces ablebodied privilege. I begin with a critical analysis of the social model of disability and explore the dualisms (...) by which it either negates the body altogether or can only conceive the disabled body in negative terms. I then go on to explore how Puar's work on debility continues this negation of the disabled body. From this position I use the work of Inahara to excavate the foundations of ablebodied privilege. In Inahara's work gender is the analytic starting point, but for me white privilege is a much more effective mechanism through which to understand the impact and reproduction of ablebodied privilege— what McRuer refers to as ‘compulsory ablebodiedness'—which I argue underpins Puar's work. I conclude with some reflections upon how a critical analysis of ablebodied privilege might function and I reiterate its importance for a critical theory that goes beyond the mere repetition of binary structures of ablebodiedness and disability. (shrink)

‘Intersectionality’ has taken on a complex position in the field of feminist scholarship over the last decade. Debate on the concept has swung back and forth, from buzzword to harsh critique. Amid these discussions, many feminist scholars have thought about Audre Lorde and the role of her writings in the debates over intersectionality. Lorde’s radical literary feminism has often been seen both as reflecting a politics of identity, on the one hand, and as shifting and situational, on the other. Intersectionality (...) has also been claimed either to be recycling the ideas of identity politics or to be forging new ways to grasp decentered identity positions and power structures. This article aims to tell a story about the roots of intersectionality through – and alongside – the legacy of Lorde’s feminism, by revisiting certain identity-political ideas. The radical nature of Lorde’s thinking is in many ways connected to politicized writing styles and rebellious literary forms. The main focus in this article is therefore extended to cover the role and implications of radical writing styles for intersectionality. The article argues that the oeuvre of telling the story of intersectionality through Lorde’s feminism opens up a new perspective on the genealogy of intersectionality. (shrink)