Intersectionality at the Macro Level: Social Theory as Practice (Chapter prepared for Routledge Handbook of Intersectionality, Kathy Davis and Helma Lutz, editors) (original) (raw)
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INTERSECTIONALITY: MULTIPLE INEQUALITIES IN SOCIAL THEORY(2012)
•intersectionality is reviewed by scholars in their own perspectives •Six dilemmas ~critical realism and on complexity theory in order to find answers to the dilemmas in intersectionality theory. •Unresolved Theoretical Dilemmas •Structural and Political Intersectionality •Categories or Social Relations? •Fluidity or Stability? •Class and Non-class Inequalities •Competing or Cooperating Projects?
6 Inequality, intersectionality and the politics of discourse
2009
framing feminist alliances 85 for the distinctiveness and importance of their unique location . I share the critical view of intersectionality as a static list of structural locations and as leading to a problematic form of identity politics, but still contend that only an intersectional analysis can do justice to the actual complexity of political power and social inequality.
Sociological Theory, 2010
In this article we ask what it means for sociologists to practice intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to inequality. What are the implications for choices of subject matter and style of work? We distinguish three styles of understanding intersectionality in practice: group-centered, process-centered, and system-centered. The first, emphasizes placing multiply-marginalized groups and their perspectives at the center of the research. The second, intersectionality as a process, highlights power as relational, seeing the interactions among variables as multiplying oppressions at various points of intersection, and drawing attention to unmarked groups. Finally, seeing intersectionality as shaping the entire social system pushes analysis away from associating specific inequalities with unique institutions, instead looking for processes that are fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex. Using several examples of recent, highly regarded qualitat...
Intersectionality as Theory and Practice
Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews
Everybody is talking about intersectionality these days. Whether one is out of the loop and wondering what all the fuss is about or in the inner circle and trying to decide whether and how to use it most effectively as a tool, either of the two books reviewed here-Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons, by Anna Carastathis, and Intersectionality, by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge-will prove an invaluable guide. Before considering the arguments the authors advance for why the approach they take is particularly useful, it may help to step back and consider what NON-intersectional sociology looked like. In the 1980s, Elaine Hall and I surveyed all the most widely used textbooks in introductory sociology; and, among other things, we found that race, class, and gender didn't, and in some ways couldn't, intersect to inform a basic sociological understanding of inequality. These books captured the prevailing wisdom of their time: class was a macro-structural arrangement organizing societies; race was a group membership defining cultural identities, institutionalized barriers, and political mobilization; and gender was a biosocial characteristic cultivated through childhood socialization and maintained by deep-seated ''traditional'' attitudes (Ferree and Hall 1996). Operating at different levels of social organization, gender, class, and race were understood then as social processes independent of each other and ranked by the priority given them in the ''classics'' of social theory: class was definitely structurally significant, but race and gender were ''identities'' and ''epiphenomenal.'' Since then, this consensus has largely been replaced, not without struggle, by a commitment to understanding these processes as all working at all three levels, as being far from Contemporary Sociology 47, 2
Sociological Theory, 2010
In this article we ask what it means for sociologists to practice intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to inequality. What are the implications for choices of subject matter and style of work? We distinguish three styles of understanding intersectionality in practice: group-centered, process-centered, and system-centered. The first, emphasizes placing multiply-marginalized groups and their perspectives at the center of the research. The second, intersectionality as a process, highlights power as relational, seeing the interactions among variables as multiplying oppressions at various points of intersection, and drawing attention to unmarked groups. Finally, seeing intersectionality as shaping the entire social system pushes analysis away from associating specific inequalities with unique institutions, instead looking for processes that are fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex. Using several examples of recent, highly regarded qualitative studies, we draw attention to the comparative, contextual, and complex dimensions of sociological analysis that can be missing even when race, class, and gender are explicitly brought together.
Book Review: Intersectionality As Critical Social Theory
European Journal of Social Theory, 2020
Intersectionality has become quite the buzzword in contemporary sociology, yet scholars still debate whether it is a concept, a theory, a methodology, or all three. In Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Patricia Hill Collins extends the genealogy of foundational literature on this framework, contextualizing the usefulness of intersectional standpoints in understanding social inequality. With eight substantive chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue, Collins intriguingly poses more questions than she provides answers. Rather than definitively charting out the nuanced utility of intersectionality as a critical social theory, Collins provides readers with the theoretical and conceptual foundations necessary for us to do this work ourselves.
2009
In this article we ask what it means for sociologists to practice intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to inequality. What are the implications for choices of subject matter and style of work? We distinguish three styles of understanding intersectionality in practice: group-centered, process-centered, and systemcentered. The first, emphasizes placing multiply-marginalized groups and their perspectives at the center of the research. The second, intersectionality as a process, highlights power as relational, seeing the interactions among variables as multiplying oppressions at various points of intersection, and drawing attention to unmarked groups. Finally, seeing intersectionality as shaping the entire social system pushes analysis away from associating specific inequalities with unique institutions, instead looking for processes that are fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex. Using several examples of recent, highly regarded qualitative studies, we draw attention to the comparative, contextual, and complex dimensions of sociological analysis that can be missing even when race, class, and gender are explicitly brought together.
Intersectionality: old and new endeavours?
Gender Place and Culture, 2018
This short comment on intersectionality raises three points for further thought and discussion: The first has to do with the rich tradition of feminist interventions in academe and in political struggles which adopted intersectional approaches before a field of 'intersectionality studies' was developed. The second is a note about the difficult and complex passage from individual subject formation to the constitution of collective identities, following the logic of intersectional analysis and theorizing, Finally, the third point puts forward some thoughts on positionality as 'perspective' from which to interpret the complexities of intersectional analyses and seek to forge solidarities and alliances beyond individual identification.