Intersectionality is an academic approach that helps us makes sense of the complexity of social reality by acknowledging the interdependence of different social ‘locations’ or ‘categories’ in people’s lives, such as gender or race, to explain their social situation and life experience.
Intersectionality also helps us understand the mechanisms by which social inequality is reproduced in our daily interactions. Because of this, intersectionality provides strong discursive tools to fight inequality.
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I personally chose to work on this concept because it is both a comprehensive way to look at social interactions and understand social inequality by acknowledging people’s individuality and agency, and also because it provides strong analytical tools to assess social policy.
The link between intersectionality and social inequality has been present from the beginning. As an academic approach, intersectionality is rooted in “a long and deep history of Black feminist writing, Indigenous feminism, third world feminism, and queer and postcolonial theory” (Hankivsky et al 2014). It emerged during the 70s as part of the US’ civil rights movement, when activists and authors like Angela Davis pushed for a differentiation between men and women in the African-American struggle for equality. The idea of class, race and gender as interdependent categories was used to explain, for example, why black women’s voices were either being misplaced or ignored in the civil rights debate (McBean 2018).
The notion of intersectionality has evolved since then and has now become more intricate, with authors like Marx Ferree (2009) explaining that “the intersection of gender and race is not any number of specific locations occupied by individuals or groups (such as black women) but a process through with ‘race’ takes on multiple ‘gendered’ meanings for particular women and men (and for those not neatly located in either of those categories)”. This, in turn, can have decisive impact on people’s lives and on their capability to participate in society and fulfill their basic human rights.
What do we mean by the interdependence (or intersectionality) of different social ‘locations’ or ‘categories’?
As human beings, faces must be the single thing we are more accustomed to seeing and scrutinising. When we meet somebody for the first time, certain characteristics stand out for us that seem to provide information about this new person. From the colour of their skin to the tone of their voice, we somehow are able to ‘fit’ this person into our mental representation of society, based on our previously acquired knowledge.
By analysing society and human interactions through an intersectionality ‘lens’, we understand that these pre-conceived ideas about others are somehow organised into ‘sections’ of human identity. These sections may even have a name, such as ‘gender’, ‘race’ or ‘age’. An intersectionality approach tells us that, although we may perceive these categories as separate, they are in fact completely interrelated. The breaking down of a person into separate categories is a fictional, but powerful, exercise we are able to do in our minds.
These ‘sections’ (or ‘categories’, or ‘locations’) of human identity are social constructions. Through social interactions since birth, we learn how to make sense of others by recognising in them characteristics that we are taught are more significant. Simultaneously, these social constructions not only inform the way we see others, but also the way we see ourselves and how we create our own identity.
We use the term ‘locations’ to refer to these social constructions in order to acknowledge their fluency and variability through time and space. These interdependent ‘sections’ of human identity are constantly debated and deconstructed through social institutions that may challenge existing discourses or fight to maintain them. This means that definitions and valuations of these categories (and of the variations within them) remain firmly dependant on the specific time frame and the specific place we are researching about.
A useful way to understand the concept o
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