Showing papers on "Intersectionality published in 2016"

Incorporating intersectionality into psychology: An opportunity to promote social justice and equity.

Abstract: Intersectionality is receiving increasing attention in many fields, including psychology. This theory or framework has its roots in the work of Black feminist scholar-activists, and it focuses on interlocking systems of oppression and the need to work toward structural-level changes to promote social justice and equity. Thus, the current interest in intersectionality in psychology presents an opportunity to draw psychologists' attention more to structural-level issues and to make social justice and equity more central agendas to the field. The large, ever-growing bodies of research demonstrating the wide-ranging adverse consequences of structural- and interpersonal-level oppression, inequality, and stigma for the health and well-being of many diverse groups of people support that these issues are central to the field of psychology. We as individual psychologists and the field as a whole can work to fully incorporate the insights of intersectionality and therefore contribute to making social justice and equity more central across the varied subfields and realms of our work. Specific ways that we can do this are to (a) engage and collaborate with communities, (b) address and critique societal structures, (c) work together/build coalitions, (d) attend to resistance in addition to resilience, and (e) teach social justice curricula. There are important examples both within and outside of psychology that can guide us in achieving these goals. These suggestions are meant to foster conversation and consideration by psychologists across all subfields and areas of focus. (PsycINFO Database Record

Intersectionality in Quantitative Psychological Research: I. Theoretical and Epistemological Issues

Abstract: Intersectionality has become something of a buzzword in psychology and is well-known in feminist writings throughout the social sciences. Across diverse definitions of intersectionality, we find three common assumptions: (1) There is a recognition that all people are characterized simultaneously by multiple social categories and that these categories are interconnected or intertwined. (2) Embedded within each of these categories is a dimension of inequality or power. (3) These categories are properties of the individual as well as characteristics of the social context inhabited by those individuals; as such, categories and their significance may be fluid and dynamic. Understanding intersectionality as an approach and critical theory, rather than as a falsifiable theory, we consider its potential within research using quantitative methods. We discuss positivism, social constructionism, and standpoint epistemology in order to examine the implications of these epistemologies for research methods and to explo...

Intersectionality in Quantitative Psychological Research II. Methods and Techniques

Abstract: Intersectional approaches, which consider how simultaneous membership in multiple social categories characterize our experiences and are linked to power and privilege, have deep roots in feminist p...

The Theory and Praxis of Intersectionality in Work and Organisations: Where Do We Go From Here?

Abstract: Intersectionality is understood as a metaphor (Cuadraz and Uttal, 1999; Acker, 2011), a concept (Knapp, 2005; Styhre and Ericksson-Zetterquist, 2008), a research paradigm (Hancock, 2007a; Dhamoon, 2011), an ideograph (Alexander-Floyd, 2012), a broad-based knowledge project (Collins, 2015), and an analytical sensibility (Crenshaw, 2015). In spite of these diverse definitions, intersectionality has been central to the study of inequality, identity and power relations in recent history (Cho et al., 2013), highlighting the inseparability of categories of social differences such as race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and nation, and calling attention to the systemic power dynamics that arise as multiple dimensions of social difference interact across individual, institutional, cultural and societal spheres of influence (Collins, 2000; McCall, 2005; Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2011; Weber, 2010). Coined as a term by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to “counter the disembodiment of Black women from Law” (Crenshaw, 2014), intersectionality captured the

Unaccounted Foundations: Black Girls, Anti-Black Racism, and Punishment in Schools

Abstract: For nearly three decades, racial formations theory has influenced ideas, discourses and political projects surrounding race and racism in the United States. The theory holds that although race is a...

Using Multiple-hierarchy Stratification and Life Course Approaches to Understand Health Inequalities: The Intersecting Consequences of Race, Gender, SES, and Age.

Abstract: This study examines how the intersecting consequences of race-ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics status (SES), and age influence health inequality. We draw on multiple-hierarchy stratification and life course perspectives to address two main research questions. First, does racial-ethnic stratification of health vary by gender and/or SES? More specifically, are the joint health consequences of racial-ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic stratification additive or multiplicative? Second, does this combined inequality in health decrease, remain stable, or increase between middle and late life? We use panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 12,976) to investigate between- and within-group differences in in self-rated health among whites, blacks, and Mexican Americans. Findings indicate that the effects of racial-ethnic, gender, and SES stratification are interactive, resulting in the greatest racial-ethnic inequalities in health among women and those with higher levels of SES. Furthermore, racial-ethnic/gender/SES inequalities in health tend to decline with age. These results are broadly consistent with intersectionality and aging-as-leveler hypotheses.

Beyond dichotomies: Gender and intersecting inequalities in climate change studies.

Abstract: Climate change and related adaptation strategies have gender-differentiated impacts. This paper reviews how gender is framed in 41 papers on climate change adaptation through an intersectionality lens. The main findings show that while intersectional analysis has demonstrated many advantages for a comprehensive study of gender, it has not yet entered the field of climate change and gender. In climate change studies, gender is mostly handled in a men-versus-women dichotomy and little or no attention has been paid to power and social and political relations. These gaps which are echoed in other domains of development and gender research depict a 'feminization of vulnerability' and reinforce a 'victimization' discourse within climate change studies. We argue that a critical intersectional assessment would contribute to unveil agency and emancipatory pathways in the adaptation process by providing a better understanding of how the differential impacts of climate change shape, and are shaped by, the complex power dynamics of existing social and political relations.

What is Racism

Abstract: This article provides a definition of racism inspired in the work of Frantz Fanon, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and contemporary Caribbean Fanonian Philosophers. It discusses racism in relation to zone of being and zone of non-being. Racism is discussed as a dehumanization related to the materiality of domination used by the world-system in the zone of non-being (violence and dispossession) as opposed to the materiality of domination in the zone of being (regulation and emancipation). The approach shows how intersectionality of oppressions work differently for oppressed people in the zone of being as opposed to oppressed people in the zone of non-being. While in the zone of being oppressions are mitigated by racial privilege, in the zone of non-being oppressions are aggravated by racial oppression.

Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies

Abstract: Contents: Preface, Mary Evans Framing intersectionality an introduction, Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar and Linda Supik Section I Intersectionality's Transatlantic Travels a " Geographies of the Debate: Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics, KimberlA(c) Crenshaw Intersectionality as buzzword: a sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful, Kathy Davis The discursive politics of feminist intersectionality, Myra Marx Ferree. Section II Emerging Fields in Intersectionality: Masculinities, Heteronormativity and Transnationality: Marginalized masculinity, precarization and the gender order, Mechthild Bereswill and Anke Neuber Neglected intersectionalities in studying men: age/ing, virtuality, transnationality, Jeff Hearn Exposures and invisibilities: media, masculinities and the narratives of wars in an intersectional perspective, Dubravka Zarkov Sexuality and migration studies: the invisible, the oxymoronic and heteronormative othering, Kira Kosnick Psychosocial intersections: contextualising the accounts of adults who grew up in visibly ethnically different households, Ann Phoenix. Section III Advancing Intersectionality: Potentials, Limits and Critical Queries: Beyond the recognition and re-distribution dichotomy: intersectionality and stratification, Nira Yuval-Davis Embodiment is always more: intersectionality, subjection and the body, Paula Villa Intersectional invisibility: inquiries into a concept of intersectionality studies, Gudrun Axeli Knapp Intersectional analysis: black box or useful critical feminist thinking technology?, Nina Lykke Postscript, KimberlA(c) Crenshaw Index.

A review of occupation-based social classifications for social survey research

Abstract: This article is a review of issues associated with measuring occupations and using occupation-based socio-economic classifications in social science research. The review is orientated towards researchers who undertake secondary analysis of large-scale micro-level social science datasets. This article begins with an outline of how to handle raw occupational information. This is followed by an introduction to the two main approaches to measuring occupations and a third lesser known but intellectually innovative approach. The three approaches are social class schemes, social stratification scales and the microclass approach. International comparisons are briefly described and a discussion of intersectionality with other key variables such as age and gender is provided. We are careful to emphasise that this article does not advocate the uncritical adoption of any one particular occupation-based socio-economic measure over and above other alternatives. Rather, we are advocating that researchers should choose f...

Stereotypes of Black American Women Related to Sexuality and Motherhood.

Abstract: Intersectionality theorists and researchers suggest the importance of examining unique stereotypes associated with intersecting group identities. We focus on the unique stereotypes of Black women i...

Disparities at the intersection of marginalized groups

Abstract: Purpose Mental health disparities exist across several dimensions of social inequality, including race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and gender. Most investigations of health disparities focus on one dimension. Recent calls by researchers argue for studying persons who are marginalized in multiple ways, often from the perspective of intersectionality, a theoretical framework applied to qualitative studies in law, sociology, and psychology. Quantitative adaptations are emerging but there is little guidance as to what measures or methods are helpful.

10 Best resources on… intersectionality with an emphasis on low- and middle-income countries.

Abstract: Intersectionality has emerged as an important framework for understanding and responding to health inequities by making visible the fluid and interconnected structures of power that create them. It promotes an understanding of the dynamic nature of the privileges and disadvantages that permeate health systems and affect health. It considers the interaction of different social stratifiers (e.g. 'race'/ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, geography, age, disability/ability, migration status, religion) and the power structures that underpin them at multiple levels. In doing so, it is a departure from previous health inequalities research that looked at these forms of social stratification in isolation from one another or in an additive manner. Despite its potential use and long history in other disciplines, intersectionality is uncommonly used in health systems research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To orient readers to intersectionality theory and research, we first define intersectionality and describe its role in public health, and then we review resources on intersectionality. We found that applications in public health mostly increased after 2009, with only 14 out of 86 articles focused on LMICs. To arrive at 10 best resources, we selected articles based on the proportion of the article that was devoted to intersectionality, the strength of the intersectionality analysis, and its relevance to LMICs. The first four resources explain intersectionality as a methodology. The subsequent six articles apply intersectionality to research in LMIC with quantitative and qualitative analysis. We provide examples from India, Swaziland, Uganda and Mexico. Topics for the studies range from HIV, violence and sexual abuse to immunization and the use of health entitlements. Through these 10 resources, we hope to spark interest and open a needed conversation on the importance and use of intersectional analysis in LMICs as part of understanding people-centred health systems.

Revealing Intersectional Dynamics in Organizations: Introducing ‘Intersectional Identity Work’

Abstract: Little consensus exists regarding conducting intersectional studies. We introduce ‘intersectional identity work’ as an approach for examining individuals’ experiences at the nexus of multiple identities. Incorporating identity work as a theoretical and analytical framework, we use journals and interviews to examine identity-heightening episodes that trigger meaning-making of intersecting senior, gender and ethnic identities among British Asian and black women and men. Our analysis reveals how intersecting identities are leveraged in encounters with subordinates, superiors and clients. Intersectional locations provide resources and cues for claiming or restricting privileged and disadvantaged status in asymmetric power positions. Intersectional identity work expands and restricts identification at juxtaposed locations. It offers a prospect for elucidating intersectional dynamics present in a range of identity configurations and addresses critiques that individual-level intersectional analyses at intersections are mere narrative. We encourage further research that examines other socially salient identities using our approach to develop theory on how multiple identities play out in everyday experience.

Health Inequities, Social Determinants, and Intersectionality

Abstract: | In this essay, we focus on the potential and promise that intersectionality holds as a lens for studying the social determinants of health, reducing health disparities, and promoting health equity and social justice. Research that engages intersectionality as a guiding conceptual, methodological, and praxis-oriented framework is focused on power dynamics, specifically the relationships between oppression and privilege that are intrinsic to societal practices. Intersectional knowledge projects aimed at studying this interplay within and across systems challenge the status quo. Whether reframing existing conceptualizations of power, implementing empirical research studies or working with community organizations and global social movements, intersectional inquiry and praxis are designed to excavate the ways in which a person’s multiple identities and social positions are embedded within systems of inequality. Intersectionality also is attentive to the need to link individual, institutional, and structural levels of power in a given sociohistorical context for advancing health equity and social justice. DISCUSSION PAPER Perspectives | Expert Voices in Health & Health Care Health Disparities, Inequity, and Social Determinants: A Brief Context The urgency to promote health, reduce health disparities, and address the social determinants of health is highlighted in countless reports (World Health Organization, 2006, 2015; Hankivsky and Christoffersen, 2008). In short, problems in health disrupt the human developmental process. They undermine the quality of life and opportunities for children, youth, and families, particularly those exposed to vulnerable circumstances. Despite incremental change within and across health-serving agencies and increased health education and scrutiny of patient care, we continue to see significant disparities in the quality of health and life options that children in racial and ethnic minority, low-income homes and neighborhoods experience (Bloche, 2001). Research has uncovered several interconnections between health and environmental and social factors (Chapman and Berggren, 2005; Thorpe and Kelley-Moore, 2013), but has not always shifted paradigms sufficiently to either disentangle intersecting inequalities or tease apart the ways in which social factors and structural barriers at once interlock to prevent meaningful and sustainable change. In this essay, we focus on the potential and promise that intersectionality holds as a lens for studying the social determinants of health, reducing health disparities, and promoting health equity and social justice. Collins and Blige (2016) describe intersectionality as Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways. When it comes to social inequality, people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each

The diversity of gendered adaptation strategies to climate change of Indian farmers: a feminist intersectional approach.

Abstract: This paper examines climate change adaptation and gender issues through an application of a feminist intersectional approach. This approach permits the identification of diverse adaptation responses arising from the existence of multiple and fragmented dimensions of identity (including gender) that intersect with power relations to shape situation-specific interactions between farmers and ecosystems. Based on results from contrasting research cases in Bihar and Uttarakhand, India, this paper demonstrates, inter alia, that there are geographically determined gendered preferences and adoption strategies regarding adaptation options and that these are influenced by the socio-ecological context and institutional dynamics. Intersecting identities, such as caste, wealth, age and gender, influence decisions and reveal power dynamics and negotiation within the household and the community, as well as barriers to adaptation among groups. Overall, the findings suggest that a feminist intersectional approach does appear to be useful and worth further exploration in the context of climate change adaptation. In particular, future research could benefit from more emphasis on a nuanced analysis of the intra-gender differences that shape adaptive capacity to climate change.

Women's Experience of Workplace Interactions in Male-Dominated Work: The Intersections of Gender, Sexuality and Occupational Group

Abstract: Informal workplace interactions are powerful organizational processes producing inequalities in male-dominated work, where sexuality is frequently employed as a means of control over women. The article considers whether women can derive support from interactions with male and female colleagues, drawing on qualitative research with women working in the UK construction and transport sectors. The article contributes an empirical application of McCall's intercategorical intersectional approach, examining gender, sexuality and occupational group. It highlights the benefits and challenges of extending McCall's multi-group method to qualitative analysis. Stereotypical associations of lesbians with ‘masculine’ work are challenged, showing how gendered and heterosexual norms constrain workplace interactions for both heterosexual women and lesbians. Therefore organizational measures should address not only formal workplace processes, but the informal interactions affecting women's survival in male-dominated work.

Whose personal is more political? Experience in contemporary feminist politics:

Abstract: Whose personal is more political? This paper rethinks the role of experience in contemporary feminism, arguing that it can operate as a form of capital within abstracted and decontextualised debates which entrench existing power relations. Although experiential epistemologies are crucial to progressive feminist thought and action, in a neoliberal context in which the personal and emotional is commodified powerful groups can mobilise traumatic narratives to gain political advantage. Through case study analysis this paper shows how privileged feminists, speaking for others and sometimes for themselves, use experience to generate emotion and justify particular agendas, silencing critics who are often from more marginalised social positions. The use of the experiential as capital both reflects and perpetuates the neoliberal invisibilisation of structural dynamics: it situates all experiences as equal, and in the process fortifies existing inequalities. This competitive discursive field is polarising, and creates selective empathies through which we tend to discredit others¹ realities instead of engaging with their politics. However, I am not arguing for a renunciation of the politics of experience: instead, I ask that we resist its commodification and respect varied narratives while situating them in a structural frame.

Toward an Intersectional Approach in Developmental Science: The Role of Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Immigrant Status.

Abstract: Developmental theory and research have often focused on a single social identity category, for example, race or sexual orientation, and examined the consequences of that category on life outcomes. Yet intersectional models of social disadvantage (eg, Cole, 2009; Crenshaw, 1995; King, 1988) suggest that social categories combine to shape the experiences and life outcomes of individuals across life domains. In this chapter, we review empirical research that offers insight into the intersectionality of social identities across three critical developmental periods, namely, middle childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. We also consider the consequences of intersecting identities across several life domains, including intergroup relations and political and civic engagement. Recognizing that the body of work on social identities is expansive, we focus our review on race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigrant status. In each developmental stage, we discuss what we know, drawing from the limited empirical literature, and offer suggestions on where we need to go moving forward. We conclude that research that focuses on as a single category and ignores the specific domain of development provides an incomplete and inaccurate picture that will hinder efforts to develop culturally appropriate and clinically effective prevention and intervention programs to meet the needs of our diverse children and youth living in the United States.

Wedding intersectionality theory and identity work in organizations: : South african indian women negotiating managerial identity

Abstract: This paper addresses the continuing tension between focusing on identities and categories rather than processes and systems in intersectionality research, based on a study of the identity work of South African Indian women managers. We wed intersectionality theory with extant understandings of managerial identity work in organizations to demonstrate the dynamic interaction between both identities and categories and the institutionalized processes and systems by which they are formed, shaped and reshaped over time. Specifically, we demonstrate through life story interviews of 13 South African women managers how an individual's managerial identity is not formed solely by personal and social identities in the workplace but by the socio-historical political and cultural contexts within which individuals and groups are embedded. These contexts shape not only the racio-ethnic and gender identities of individuals but also the processes of racialization, gendering and culturalization that create and reinforce particular social locations in society and in the workplace.

Intersectionality and Social-Reproduction Feminisms: Toward an Integrative Ontology

Abstract: 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 the dialectical relationship 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.

Introduction to the special issue: intersectionality and entrepreneurship

Abstract: We briefly review the ethnic entrepreneurship paradigm, identifying the problems associated with an approach that emphasizes the salience of one social group, ethnicity, to the exclusion or downplaying of others, such as race, class, and gender. We introduce an intersectional approach to the study of (ethnic) enterprise, reviewing the literature and using the articles in this special issue to demonstrate the utility of this perspective. We close by encouraging the use of this approach in future research.

Causally Interpreting Intersectionality Theory

Abstract: Social scientists report difficulties in drawing out testable predictions from the literature on intersectionality theory. We alleviate that difficulty by showing that some characteristic claims of the intersectionality literature can be interpreted causally. The formalism of graphical causal modeling allows claims about the causal effects of occupying intersecting identity categories to be clearly represented and submitted to empirical testing. After outlining this causal interpretation of intersectional theory, we address some concerns that have been expressed in the literature claiming that membership in demographic categories can have causal effects.

Toward diversity-responsive medical education: taking an intersectionality-based approach to a curriculum evaluation

Abstract: Recent years have seen a rise in the efforts to implement diversity topics into medical education, using either a ‘narrow’ or a ‘broad’ definition of culture. These developments urge that outcomes of such efforts are systematically evaluated by mapping the curriculum for diversity-responsive content. This study was aimed at using an intersectionality-based approach to define diversity-related learning objectives and to evaluate how biomedical and sociocultural aspects of diversity were integrated into a medical curriculum in the Netherlands. We took a three-phase mixed methods approach. In phase one and two, we defined essential learning objectives based on qualitative interviews with school stakeholders and diversity literature. In phase three, we screened the written curriculum for diversity content (culture, sex/gender and class) and related the results to learning objectives defined in phase two. We identified learning objectives in three areas of education (medical knowledge and skills, patient–physician communication, and reflexivity). Most diversity content pertained to biomedical knowledge and skills. Limited attention was paid to sociocultural issues as determinants of health and healthcare use. Intersections of culture, sex/gender and class remained mostly unaddressed. The curriculum’s diversity-responsiveness could be improved by an operationalization of diversity that goes beyond biomedical traits of assumed homogeneous social groups. Future efforts to take an intersectionality-based approach to curriculum evaluations should include categories of difference other than culture, sex/gender and class as separate, equally important patient identities or groups.

A Canadian qualitative study exploring the diversity of the experience of family caregivers of older adults with multiple chronic conditions using a social location perspective

Abstract: Background A little-studied issue in the provision of care at home by informal caregivers is the increase in older adult patients with chronic illness, and more specifically, multiple chronic conditions (MCC). We know little about the caregiving experience for this population, particularly as it is affected by social location, which refers to either a group’s or individual’s place/location in society at a given time, based on their intersecting demographics (age, gender, education, race, immigration status, geography, etc.). We have yet to fully comprehend the combined influence of these intersecting axes on caregivers’ health and wellbeing, and attempt to do this by using an intersectionality approach in answering the following research question: How does social location influence the experience of family caregivers of older adults with MCC?

Intersectionality and planning at the margins: LGBTQ youth of color in New York

Abstract: Through an intersectional lens, this article reflects on the dialog between planning and gender, feminist, and queer studies to analyze the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color (YOC) community in New York City (NYC) The community is subject to multiple disenfranchisements, given their ethno-racial status, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation This community's limited access to safe public spaces and amenities, housing, health services, job training, and other opportunities is an urban planning challenge insufficiently understood or addressed Our methodology includes participant observation and analysis of an LGBTQ YOC tour of West Village in NYC, interviews with LGBTQ individuals and NGO staff, life stories, observations in LGBTQ-friendly meetings and facilities, and content analysis of LGBTQ reports and media coverage The research shows the agency of an LGBTQ youth group as a resilient community organization effectively participating in planning processes and exe