1st Edition

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

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    Originally conceived by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 as a tool for the analysis of the ways in which different forms of social inequality, oppression and discrimination interact and overlap in multidimensional ways, the concept of 'intersectionality' has attracted much attention in international feminist debates over the last decade. Framing Intersectionality brings together proponents and critics of the concept, to discuss the 'state of the art' with those that have been influential in the debates that surround it. Engaging with the historical roots of intersectionality in the US-based 'race-class-gender' debate, this book also considers the European adoption of this concept in different national contexts, to explore issues such as migration, identity, media coverage of sexual violence against men and transnational livelihoods of high and low skilled migrants. Thematically arranged around the themes of the transatlantic migration of intersectionality, the development of intersectionality as a theory, men's studies and masculinities, and the body and embodiment, this book draws on empirical case studies as well as theoretical deliberations to investigate the capacity and the sustainability of the concept and shed light on the current state of intersectionality research. Presenting the latest work from a team of leading feminist scholars from the US and Europe, Framing Intersectionality will be of interest to all those with interests in gender, women's studies, masculinity, inequalities and feminist thought.

    Preface

    Mary Evans

    1. Framing intersectionality; an introduction

    Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar and Linda Supik

    Section I: Intersectionality's Transatlantic Travels – Geographies of the Debate

    2. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics

    Kimberlé Crenshaw

    3. Intersectionality as buzzword: a sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful

    Kathy Davis

    4. The discursive politics of feminist intersectionality

    Myra Marx Ferree

    Section II: Emerging Fields in Intersectionality: Masculinities, Heteronormativity and Transnationality

    5. Marginalized masculinity, precarization and the gender order

    Mechthild Bereswill and Anke Neuber

    6. Neglected intersectionalities in studying men: age/ing, virtuality, transnationality

    Jeff Hearn

    7. Exposures and invisibilities: media, masculinities and the narratives of wars in an intersectional perspective

    Dubravka Zarkov

    8. Sexuality and migration studies: the invisible, the oxymoronic and heteronormative othering

    Kira Kosnick

    9. 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

    10. Beyond the recognition and re-distribution dichotomy: intersectionality and stratification

    Nira Yuval-Davis

    11. Embodiment is always more: intersectionality, subjection and the body

    Paula Villa

    12. Intersectional invisibility: inquiries into a concept of intersectionality studies

    Gudrun Axeli Knapp

    13. Intersectional analysis: black box or useful critical feminist thinking technology?

    Nina Lykke

    Postscript

    Kimberlé Crenshaw

    Biography

    Helma Lutz is Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

    Maria-Teresa Herrera Vivar, MA is a scientific staff member at the chair of Women's and Gender Studies, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

    Linda Supik is a scientific staff member at the chair of Women's and Gender Studies, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

    'Finally here it is: the long awaited state-of-the-art textbook on intersectionality with a predominantly European slant. It is both a thickly descriptive and a steeply theoretically embedded endeavour. Tracing the European "success story" of a traveling concept, we are sensitized to intersectionality's multiple manifestations in a European context, which also depend on the national theoretical preoccupations which preceded it and on linguistic cultural capital.' - Gloria Wekker. Utrecht University. The Netherlands

    'This collection captures the very pliability of intersectionality through deep description, creative application and original research. Its robust intellectual heft is showcased through explorations of masculinity, labor movements, embodiment, and migration. A much-appreciated engagement with one of the most theoretically significant interventions of the past two decades, it represents the continued unfolding of intersectionality and its new generation of possibilities.' - Lisa Jean Moore, State University of New York, USA

    'This volume may well serve as a manifestation of the critical theoretical engagements that intersectionality compels. There are both discernible similarities and prominent disagreements in these author’s dialogues, which are in my opinion precisely what Kathy Davis sees as the working of a good feminist theory. As such, this volume surely puts another mark on its traveling trajectory, and makes ripple on the butterfly chain of feminist politics of transformation.' - Nordic Journal of Migration Research

    'Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies provides a comprehensive overview of differing definitions, discussions and usages of this ‘chimerical’ concept (p. 45), with a focus on the European context.' - Irish Journal of Sociology