Intersectionality and its discontents: Intersectionality as traveling theory

Sara Salem First Published April 22, 2016 Abstract ‘Intersectionality’ has now become a major feature of feminist scholarly work, despite continued debates surrounding its precise definition. Since the term was coined and the field established in the late 1980s, countless articles, volumes and conferences have grown out of it, heralding a new phase in feminist and gender studies. Over the past few years, however, the growing number of critiques leveled against intersectionality warrants us as feminists to pause and reflect on the trajectory the concept has taken and on the ways in which it has traveled through time and space. Conceptualizing intersectionality as a traveling theory allows for these multiple critiques to be contextualized and addressed. It is argued that the context of the neoliberal academy plays a major role in the ways in which intersectionality has lost much of its critical potential in some of its usages today. It is further suggested that Marxist feminism(s) offers an important means of grounding intersectionality critically and expanding intersectionality’s ability to engage with feminism transnationally. References Aguilar D (2012) Tracing the roots of intersectionality. Monthly Review. Available at: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/aguilar120412.html (accessed 5 January 2015). Google Scholar Ahmed L (1982) Western ethnocentrism and perceptions of the harem. Feminist Studies 8(3): 521–534. Google Scholar Crossref Ahmed L (1992) Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Google Scholar Ahmed S (2007) The nonperformativity of antiracism. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 7(1): 104–126. Google Scholar Al-Ali Nadje (2005) Reconstructing gender: Iraqi women between dictatorship, war, sanctions and occupation. Third World Quarterly 26(4–5): 739–758. Google Scholar Crossref Amin S (1977) Imperialism and Unequal Development. New York: Monthly Review Press. Google Scholar Amin S (1980) Class and Nation, Historically and in the Current Crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press. Google Scholar Arruzza C (2014) Some remarks on gender. Viewpoint Magazine. Available at: viewpointmag.com/2014/09/02/remarks-on-gender/(accessed 24 January 2016). Google Scholar Barrett M (2014) Women’s Oppression Today: The Marxist/Feminist Encounter. London: Verso. Google Scholar Bhandar B (2013) Race, gender, and Class. International Socialist Network. Available at: internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/ideas-and-arguments/analysis/151-brenna-bhandar-race-gender-and-class (accessed 5 January 2015). Google Scholar Bilge S (2013) Intersectionality undone. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 10(2): 405–424. Google Scholar Crossref Brown W (1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, Vol. 6. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar Butler J (1989) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar Carbado DW (2013) Colorblind intersectionality. Signs 38(4): 811–845. Google Scholar Crossref Carbin M, Edenheim S (2013) The intersectional turn in feminist theory: A dream of a common language? European Journal of Women’s Studies 20(3): 233–248. Google Scholar Link Cho S, Crenshaw K, McCall L (2013) Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs 38(4): 785–810. Google Scholar Crossref Collins PH (2002) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. London: Routledge. Google Scholar Crenshaw K (1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299. Google Scholar Crossref Crenshaw K (2001) First decade: Critical reflections, or a foot in the closing door. UCLA Law Review 49: 1343–1394. Google Scholar Crenshaw K (2011) Postscript. In: Lutz H, Herrera Vivar MT, Supik L (eds) Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-faceted Concept in Gender Studies. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 221–233. Google Scholar Davis A (2011) Women, Race, and Class. New York: Vintage. Google Scholar Davis K (2008) Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory 9(1): 67–85. Google Scholar Link Edkins J, Vaughan-Williams N (2009) Critical Theorists and International Relations. London: Routledge. Google Scholar Erel U, Haritaworn J, Rodríguez E, Klesse C (2010) On the depoliticisation of intersectionality talk: Conceptualising multiple oppressions in critical sexuality studies. In: Taylor Y, Hines S, Casey ME (eds) Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 56–77. Google Scholar Crossref Farris S (2014) The intersectional conundrum and the nation state. Viewpoint Magazine. Available at: viewpointmag.com/2015/05/04/the-intersectional-conundrum-and-the-nation-state/ (accessed 24 January 2016). Google Scholar Federici S (2012) Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Google Scholar Ferree M (2013) Inequality and intersectionality: Disentangling the politics of discourse. In: Intersectionality – A Cross-Disciplinary Ex-Change, workshop, Free University Brussels, 16 December 2013. Google Scholar Foucault M (1970 [1966]) The Order of Things. New York: Vintage. Google Scholar Fraser N (2006) Mapping the Feminist Imagination: From Redistribution to Recognition to Representation. London: Springer. Google Scholar Fraser N (2007) Feminist politics in the age of recognition: A two-dimensional approach to gender justice. Studies in Social Justice 1(1): 23–35. Google Scholar Crossref Fraser N (2013) Fortunes of Feminism: From State-managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. London: Verso Books. Google Scholar Grillo T (1995) Anti-essentialism and intersectionality: Tools to dismantle the master’s house. Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 10: 16–30. Google Scholar Haritaworn J (2012) The Biopolitics of Mixing: Thai Multiracialities and Haunted Ascendancies. London: Routledge. Google Scholar James S, Beese B (1975) Sex, Race and Class. New York City: Falling Wall Press. Google Scholar Lazarus N (1999) Nationalism and Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar Crossref Lazarus N (2011) The Postcolonial Unconscious. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar Crossref Lewis G (2009) Celebrating intersectionality? Debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies: Themes from a conference. European Journal of Women’s Studies 16(3): 203–210. Google Scholar Lewis G (2013) Unsafe travel: Experiencing intersectionality and feminist displacements. Signs 38(4): 869–892. Google Scholar Crossref Lykke N (2005) Intersectionality revisited: Problems and potentials. Kvinnovetenskaplig Tidskrift 2(3): 7–17. Google Scholar MacKinnon CA (1982) Feminism, Marxism, method, and the state: An agenda for theory. Signs 7(3): 515–544. Google Scholar Crossref Mies M (1998) Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar Mitchell E (2013) I am a woman and a human: A Marxist feminist critique of intersectionality theory. Libcom.org. Available at: libcom.org/library/i-am-woman-human-marxist-feminist-critique-intersectionality-theory-eve-mitchell (accessed 5 January 2015). Google Scholar Mohanty CT (2013) Transnational feminist crossings: On neoliberalism and radical critique. Signs 38(4): 967–991. Google Scholar Crossref Nash J (2008) Rethinking intersectionality. Feminist Review 89(1): 1–15. Google Scholar Crossref Patil V (2013) From patriarchy to intersectionality: A transnational feminist assessment of how far we’ve really come. Signs 38(4): 847–867. Google Scholar Crossref Petzen J (2012) Queer trouble: Centring race in queer and feminist politics. Journal of Intercultural Studies 33(3): 289–302. Google Scholar Crossref Said E (1983) Traveling theory. In: The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 226–247. Google Scholar Said E (2001) Traveling theory reconsidered. In: Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays. London: Granta Books, pp. 436–452. Google Scholar Seymour R (2013) The point of intersection. Leninology. Available at: www.leninology.com/2013/03/the-point-of-intersection.html (accessed 5 January 2015). Google Scholar Smith S (2013–2014) Black feminism and intersectionality. International Socialist Review. Available at: isreview.org/issue/91/black-feminism-and-intersectionality (accessed 5 January 2015). Google Scholar Tomlinson B (2013) Colonizing intersectionality: Replicating racial hierarchy in feminist academic arguments. Social Identities 19(2): 254–272. Google Scholar Crossref Walgenbach K (2010) Postscriptum: Intersektionalität - Offenheit, interne Kontroversen und Komplexität als Ressourcen eines gemeinsamen Orientierungsrahmens. In: Lutz H, Herrera Vivar MT, Supik L (eds) Fokus Intersektionalität - Bewegungen und Verortungen eines vielschichtigen Konzeptes. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, pp. 245–256. Google Scholar Crossref