Interest
in and the application of intersectionality has exponentially increased in
popularity in the last decade. Scholars and other stakeholders globally dealing
with various disciplines have grown interest in the concept and the theory.
There are scholars from disciplines that range from sociology, health sciences,
philosophy, political science, ethnic studies, anthropology, legal studies, as
well as feminist studies among others. They have drawn the concepts of
intersectionality to challenge inequalities and promote social justice through
promotion of social change in society. Policy makers, human rights activist,
and even the community mobilizers have also adopted the theory as they search
for improved approaches to handling and coming up with the permanent solution
to complex social issues. However, there is still a majority of people that are
not aware of intersectionality, do not also know what it means and why it is
such a crucial and innovative framework for research, policy and practice. The
research paper aims to offer knowledge and regarding definition, meaning and a
guide to intersectionality. It will explore the essential elements,
characteristics, how it is applicable across various disciplines at the same
time offering its relationship with social change processes as it alters social
problems.
The
word intersection is an English word whose noun means a place where two or more
roads meet, especially where there is a major highway involved. In mathematics,
it is called a meet or product. Therefore, Intersectionality is the study of
overlapping social identities as well as related systems such as oppression,
discrimination, and domination. The theory examines how the various cultural,
biological, and social factors interact in a varied environment usually with
simultaneous levels. Such categories include; religion, sexual orientation,
class, race, gender, age, religion and other axes of identity. The framework
can be used to illuminate on how systemic injustice and social inequality occur
on a multidimensional basis. An American Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first used
the term intersectionality in 1989. She defined it as, “The view that women
experience oppression in varying configurations and varying degrees of
intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are
bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society.
Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.†It was
because she was a feminist and the term was later expanded to include other
disciplines and areas. According to the intersectional theory, individuals
within a society have multilayered faced that they have to deal with over the
course of their interaction with the community. The classical
conceptualizations of oppression in society such as racism, classism,
homophobia, transphobia, sexism and others do not act on their own or
independently. They are intersectional in that they interrelate creating a kind
of a system of oppression reflected by a form of “intersection†that is like
the common ground of the multifaceted discrimination.
Intersectionality
is a very crucial model in the broader contexts such a social justice works and
demography. It, however, experiences difficulties due to the complexities
involved in making the multidimensional concepts explaining how the social
categorization of differentiation interact to form a kind of a social
hierarchy. For example, intersectionality asset that there is no single
experience of identity. In that rather than understanding racism solely
through, the lens of color it is crucial to consider other social categories
such as class, nation, ability or race in the quest to have a better
understanding of the range of racist concerns. The theory further suggests that
others shape the separate forms and expressions of oppression in that they are
mutually constructive. Therefore, to accurately understand racialization of the
oppressed group, one has to investigate the ways in which such structures,
social structures, and social representations or rather the ideas that suggest
representing groups and group members are shaped by factors such as gender,
sexuality, and class. In as much as it began as an exploration of oppression
facing women of color in the society, in the current society, it is applied to
all categories. It is, therefore, a method of studying the relationships among
various facets and modalities of social relationships and subject formations
(McCall, 1775).
Different
approaches could be applied for intersectionality due to its diverse use in
various fields. The three major approaches are:
1.
Inclusion/ Voice Models: Intersectionality may refer to a sharp
focus in all disadvantaged groups to give voice to their perspectives and
experiences. For example, low-income disabled African-American men. Choo and
Ferree (129) assert that this model is meant to focus on the inclusion of a
previously marginalized group of people. McCall (2005) defines it as ‘intra-categorical’
in that it is typically either a single category among a layer of other
categories of inequality or oppression that form an intersection that is either
an ideological construction or social setting or can be both. For example the
experiences of minority men in nursing. A study by Harvey Wingfield (2009)
indicated that race and gender intersect to limit the upward growth of the
minority men in the sector. The inclusion approach further argues that a
particular social group concurrently constituted by multiple statuses. The work
can also break down simplistic notions of status categories by pointing to
substantial heterogeneity within the groups.
2.
Relational/Process Models: The structural type that is a
process-centered analysis considers the transformations that occur when various
statuses meet (Choo and Ferree, 134). Instead of considering gender and race,
independently and how they affect one another; it considers how gender is raced
and how the race is gendered. The scholars that take the approach name it as
the ‘Inter-categorical’ (McCall, 1777). It means that one focuses on the
categories to identify patterns of relations between them. The
relational-process model may also attempt to determine whether particular is
more or less significant in a given situation and even when the approach is
often adopted with the strategic aim of liberating it and hence may end up
reinforcing the categories instead of breaking them. The possibility that race
and other social status could have its separate effect sets out relational or
process approach from the systematic approach.
3.
Systemic/Anti-categorical models: it is an entirely intersectional model
that does not see any category as more significant than the other does. Their
statuses and relationships with each other are problematized under the
postulation that they are continually and mutually representing each other.
Majority of the scholars that use this model reject the language of
intersection even when making use of race, gender, class and investigate the
relationships. The scholars take a complex and historically grounded approach
to understanding the intersections as always constructing race, class, gender
as well as other statuses such as the systematic inequalities (Choo and Ferree,
149). There are no effects on one aspect such as race since it is perceived as
being gendered, sexualized, or classed.
Intersectionality is
based on some fundamental tenets that include (Choo and Ferree, 147):
·
The human
lives cannot be fully explained and understood by taking into account single
categories such as race, gender, or socio-economic status. The lives of the
people in society are multifaceted and complex in many ways, and the realities
are shaped by a variety of factors and social dynamics that operate together.
·
When
making an analysis of a social problem, the significance of a given category or
structure cannot be prearranged. The categories, as well as their importance,
have to be discovered in the course of doing the investigation.
·
The
relationships and the power dynamics between social locations and processes
such as ageism, sexism, classism, and racism are interlinked. They can change
over time and be different depending on the geographical settings.
·
The
multiple level analysis linking the individual, experiences to broader
structures and systems are crucial for the revelation of how power relations
are experienced and shaped.
·
Individuals
can experience oppression and privileges concurrently depending on the
situation or particular context they are in.
·
Researchers,
scholars, policy makers, and activists have to consider their individual social
position, role, and power when taking intersectional approach. The reflexivity
should be in place before setting priorities and directions for their work.
·
Intersectionality
is explicitly oriented towards transformation, building coalitions among groups
and working towards social justice.
Proponents
of intersectionality in the field of social work hold that unless service
provider takes it into account, they will remain irrelevant and may even lead
to detrimental effects to segments of the population in the process of
disseminating their duties (Brown). Therefore, the service providers have an obligation to be
aware of the superficially unrelated factors that can have an impact on the
life of an individual and a person’s life experiences. They should be careful
as they choose and adapt the methods to use to solve social issues and should
be keen on the response exuded because of their services. For example, women of
color abused should not just be encouraged to report all domestic abuse cases
to the police due to the police brutality and inequality against the women of
color and hence may get little or no help. They should, therefore, coin other
approaches to deal with the social problem. It is also impossible to exude
social change in such a situation without applying the intersectional models to
address the problems since it tackles the issue from a holistic and fully
informed level considering all the angles of society (Brown).
In
psychology, the incorporation of intersectional theory has been done since the
1950s. The psychological effects span a range of variables although the
person-situation effects are the most examined category (Brown). Therefore, psychologists do not
construct the interactions effect on issues such s gender and race as either
worth noting or less important than other effects. Oppression is a subjective
construct and even on reaching an objective definition, person by situation
effects will make it difficult to consider particular individuals as uniformly
oppressed. For example, Black men are perceived as being violent which
indicates a disadvantage in the police interactions and attractive which
connotes advantage in the context of courtship. Additionally, the
intersectionality theory has been falsified by psychological research
indicating that the additive effect of oppressed identities is not necessarily
negative. For example, black gay men are perceived as possessing positive
traits. However, there has been some recent publications that point to a
development of the psychology of intersecting (Brown).
Social
change is usually achieved through the spirit of social movements to push for
change. The spirit of social movements is further useful in the case of
intersectional activism that is activism that addresses multiple forms of
discrimination or oppression such as racism, sexism, and classism (Woehrle, 270). Intersectional activism is
crucial to changing the people’s hearts, perceptions, and minds, which leads to
social change. It is also an important tool to explain how the leaders of
social movements influence others through the indication and demonstration of
the interlink or intersection of then various social problems that they face
and hence the need for collective action.
Intersectionality
has led to the recognition of a collective form of identity that has provided
scholars with a means to make sense out of the labor of those who influence
social movement or protects organizations. It has created a way that is both
useful and influential to both the activism organizers and academics to see an
organization through its values and goals that have ultimately led to social
change (Woehrle, 273). The ability to
simplify the formerly complex messages to reusable and recognizable parts is
useful in making a clear and impactful statement that inspires and sustains
social change. Social change was too vague a term and hence the need for groups
to have an identity marker so that what they stood for and those that needed
the cause was public and easy to access. The intersectionality model offered
this to individuals as they recognized the basic aspects of the complex society
that lead to social segregation and inequality (Woehrle,
274).
For
social change to happen, it requires numbers and sympathy and. Therefore, there
is need to establish a shared identity and inspiration for a large number of
people. It is the identity and the sense of commonality of issues offered by an
intersectional view (Doetsch-Kidder, 200). The community can address various
social problems by use of a single platform therefore joining different
individuals with differing interests making a huge social movement that is
efficient to bring about social change (Doetsch-Kidder, 203). For example, the
feminists may recognize that racism is also gendered and, therefore, work
together with the civic activists and the movement against racism thus
increasing the number of people in a single movement that achieves both the end
of racism and gender inequality. The numbers are essential to bringing about
social change in the given society (Doetsch-Kidder, 205).
In
conclusion, intersectionality is explicitly oriented towards transformation,
building coalitions among groups and working towards social justice. It is an
approach that recognizes that social problems in the society have multiple
layers that form complex structures and therefore, social change can only be
possible through addressing all the issues at their point of intersection. The model
further indicates that various social problems all have a meeting point in that
they relate. Intersectionality is, therefore, crucial to achieving social
change and solving social problems in society. Although it began among
feminists, it is applicable in a variety of fields with scholars, researchers,
and policy makers across various disciplines paying keen interest on the
model’s key tenets to apply intersectionality in the diverse fields.
Works cited
Brown, Marni A., "Coming Out Narratives: Realities of Intersectionality."Dissertation,
Georgia
State University, 2011.http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss/63.
Choo, Hae Yeon & Myra Marx Ferree. “Practicing Intersectionality
in Sociological Research: A
Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions,
and Institutions in the Study of Ineqialities.†Theory and Society. 28(2),
2010:129-149
Doetsch-Kidder
Sharon. Social Change and Intersectional Activism: The
Spirit of Social
Movement. London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2012. Pp. 200-250.
McCall, Leslie. "The Complexity of Intersectionality.†Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and
Society.30(3), 2005: 1771-1800
Woehrle Lynne. Intersectionality and Social Change (Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2014. Pp. 270-275.
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