Intersectionality Theory

CALL FOR PAPERS: Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

by Karen Soldatic

CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
more CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities

Guest Editors: Shaun Grech (Manchester Metropolitan University) & Karen Soldatic (University of New South Wales)

We are pleased to announce that we will be guest editing a special edition entitled Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities on behalf of the established refereed journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.

The aim of this special issue is to position disability within the colonial (the real and imagined), through which to explore a range of (often anxious) intersectionalities as disability is theorised, constructed, and lived as a post/neocolonial condition. While postcolonial theory and associated fields (e.g. critical theory, cultural studies etc.) have engaged with race, gender and ethnicity in the exploration of themes of identity, representation, space, historicity and the neocolonial, they have almost wholly bypassed disabled people- paradoxically limited to the subjectification of the able-bodied, or rather disembodying colonialism. Westerncentric fields of study such as disability studies often remain detached from the global South, the histories, contexts and cultures of these specific geopolitical spaces, and how disability is ontologically constructed and lived through a history replete with signifiers of power and empire and that frame the global. While some have adopted colonialism as a metaphor for the experience of disability (see for example Shakespeare, 2000), of colonized bodies by the medical profession, the colonial encounter per se, its creation of and implications for the disabled subject, remains inadequately theorised. In turn, disability is persistently removed from history and any contemplation of the post or neocolonial and efforts (discursive or material) at decolonizing these spaces and those within.

The special issue aims to transcend disciplinary, epistemological, methodological, spatial and historical boundaries. Engaging indigenous, post/neocolonial, disability studies, critical theory, psychology, Latin American Cultural Studies, and a range of other perspectives and literatures, and prioritising voices from the global South, we invite authors to engage in critical debate around colonialism to explore a range of thematic concerns (not exclusively):

• Colonial representations and the construction of the disabled body and mind
• The violence and disablism of colonialism
• Intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, gender and disability
• Empire and the domestication of bodies: globalisation, economics and beyond
• Disabled identities, metaphors and language, and their roles in subjugation
• From the colonial to the post/neocolonial: disability and contemporary lineages of imperialism
• Social identities and visions of disability
• Colonial medicalisation: identifying, labelling and ‘treating’ the disabled body
• The Christianising mission, biblical renditions and the disabled subject
• Decolonizing epistemologies, practices and lives: renegotiating power and contemplating global justice

We encourage authors to engage work on Southern theory and movements and approaches prioritising and promoting Southern epistemologies and counter-hegemonic knowledges emerging from struggles for justice.

Those wishing to submit an article, please email your full manuscript to both Shaun Grech (S.Grech@mmu.ac.uk) and Karen Soldatic (ajks123@bigpond.com). Please insert ‘Submission for Disability and Colonialism Special Issue’ in the subject line. Manuscripts will be sent anonymously for double peer review, and comments and recommendations relayed to authors through the editors.

Articles should not exceed 8,000 words in length, and include a 300 word abstract. The journal style guide is available here: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1369-801X&linktype=44.

Manuscripts should be submitted by no later than: 1st January 2013

Afterword -- Occupy Education: Learning and Living Sustainability by Tina Lynn Evans (Peter Lang, 2012)

by Richard Kahn

Forthcoming book. Order one today!

A kind of manifesto statement on the current state of the so-called socio-cultural turn in environmental education and... more A kind of manifesto statement on the current state of the so-called socio-cultural turn in environmental education and the ecological turn in critical pedagogy, as both move to frameworks of decolonization and hopeful dialogue and solidarity with sovereignty activists and indigenous scholars/educators. A call for hope in the form of the "wild jeremiad" is issued.

Marching Out From Ultima Thule: Critical Counterstories of Emancipatory Educators Working at the Intersection of Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Planetary Sustainability

by Richard Kahn

In The Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2009

Stella, F. “The language of intersectionality: researching ‘lesbian’ identity in urban Russia”. In Taylor, Y., Hines, S. and Casey. M. (eds.) Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality. Palgrave, 2010. ** Nominated for the Ira and Harriett Reiss Award 2011 (outstanding contribution to social science theory on sexuality) **

by Francesca Stella

The Invisibility of Privilege: A Critique of Intersectional Models of Identity

by Anna Carastathis

Published in Les Ateliers de l'Éthique 3(2), Autumn 2008.

Reconsidering Anti-Semitism and White Slavery in Contemporary Historical Fiction about Argentina

by Claire Solomon

Selftubes: Construction of Identities in Web Porn [Selftubes: konštrukcia identít vo webovom porne]

by Michal Bočák

Bočák, Michal. 2012. "Selftubes: Construction of Identities in Web Porn." Paper presented at conference Media and Text 3, Veľký Šariš (Slovakia), 21st – 22nd October 2010. [Paper in Slovak submitted for review.]

This study presents results of the qualitative analysis of constructions of identities in heterosexual pornographic... more This study presents results of the qualitative analysis of constructions of identities in heterosexual pornographic videos’ titles on pornographic websites (tubes). Conceptualising porn as a contemporary Western androcentric discourse of sexuality, the author argues that if porn ought to appeal to socially determined desires of its consumers, it can’t be done only by shooting the bodies in detail: it has to represent identities as “ready-made”, widely shared social categories – these are what assign the status of imaginable social situation to (otherwise “mechanical”) sex act. Moreover, in a pornographised culture which is accepting a pornographic logic also beyond the pornosphere it can be reasoned that the porn partakes on re-/defining of identities (meaning not only genders and desires) significantly. The analysis of porn videos’ titles clearly confirms an introductory theoretical conceptualisation of the identity/subjectivity as an unstable, situational entity as well as it proves the multiplicity and intersectionality of identity, stated by its present theories. It appears notably in the systematic power structuring of the intersections of gender, racial/ethnic, age and other social categories, which actually are, according to the author of the study, naturalising the central gender asymetry and the androcentric order.

Keywords: pornography – porn – web – subject – identity – construction – video’s title – intersectionality – asymetry – androcentrism

Lost in the Categorical Shuffle: Evidence for the Non-Prototypicality of Black Women.

by Erin L. Thomas

w/J. F. Dovidio

The intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) posits that people with membership in... more The intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) posits that people with membership in multiple subordinate social groups experience social invisibility as a result of their non-prototypical social statuses. Thus, for Black women, “invisibility” refers to a general failure to fully recognize them as members of the Black race and female gender (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008). The present research provides empirical support for the core assumption of the intersectional invisibility hypothesis – that Black women are non-prototypical within their race and gender ingroups. In a speeded categorization task, participants were slower to associate Black women versus Black men with the category “Black” and slower to associate Black women versus White women with the category “woman.” We discuss the implications of this work for social categorical theory development and future intersectional research.

The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press

by Alan Wong

Wong, Alan. “The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press”. Global Media. 4.1 (2011): 145-162. Web.

Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and... more Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and religious traditions and practices in Quebec has incited much debate in this region. Labelled the “reasonable accommodation” issue by the local press, this controversy, which has its roots in neo-nationalist sentiments born of the Quiet Revolution, has incited responses ranging from denunciations of racist discrimination to calls for more stringent measures to ensure the assimilation of non-Westerners into Québécois culture. As Monika Kin Gagnon points out, this concept has moved beyond its legal origins to become a “social discourse” in the culture at-large, in that many in Quebec are vocally expressing their anxieties over the idea that the rights of newcomers has reached a tipping point, whereby the limits of reason are now over-stretched, weakening the dominant population’s values and identity. Much of this fear was stoked by certain stakeholders in the 2007 Quebec election, namely politicians and media outlets, when reasonable accommodation was highlighted as a major issue. This paper provides an analysis of that election and the campaigns leading into it, revealing how the press and the leaders of the three major political parties were complicit in transforming some negligible and private incidents into a greater menace endangering the very existence of Quebec society. By tracing the genealogy of “the reasonable Québécois”, I will demonstrate how reason and racism became intertwined during the course of this debate over rights, identity, and citizenship in Quebec.

Keywords: Election; Immigrants; News Media; Québec; Racism; Reasonable Accommodation; Religion

’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press

by Alan Wong

Jenicek, Ainsley, Edward Lee, and Alan Wong. “’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press”. Canadian Journal of Communications 34.4 (2009): 635-658. Print

Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of... more Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of persecution for their sexual orientation. Many articles rely on culturally racist and classist stereotypes of sexual minorities to demonstrate claimants’ legitimacy. Refugees’ stories are further deployed as “mediating agents” to confirm Canada’s “superiority” over other regions, particularly those identified as Islamic. To determine what thematic constructions are most prevalent among Canadian news sources, the authors conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) and secondary textual analysis of articles culled from five Canadian English-language newspapers, employing critical race and queer theories as framing devices.

Keywords: Post-colonialism; Multiculturalism; Feminist/Gender; Newspapers; Rhetoric

Intersectional disgust? Animals and (eco) feminism

by Richard Twine

Ecofeminism and the'new'sociologies A collaboration against dualism

by Richard Twine

Bodies 'locked up': intersections of disability and race in australian immigration

by Karen Soldatic

Rediscovering the Potential of Feminist Theories of Intersectionality

by Nisha Nath

The Obama Administration's Federal Educational Policy, Intersectionality, Citizenship, and Flourishing

by Stefan Brueck

Interseccionalidad: ¿una nueva herramienta para la Arqueología?

by Sandra Lozano Rubio

Intersectionality is a concept developed within feminist theory as a tool to analyse the intersection of different... more Intersectionality is a concept developed within feminist theory as a tool to analyse the intersection of different axis of identity. Gender archaeology has shown an interest in similar analyses which aim at understanding what happens when gender is combined with other categories such as status or sexuality. In this paper I revise the concept of intersectionality and reflect on its applicability in archaeology showing some recent examples.

• Weigand, Heidi, Webb, Shannon R., Mills, Albert J., and Helms Mills, Jean (2011) `The Junctures of Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Nationality and the Making of Pan American Airways, 1929-1989,’ Proceedings of the EGOS conference, Gotenburg, July.

by Albert J. Mills

Sisterhood on the basis of what? An essay on Chandra Mohanty's Third World feminism

by Sigrid Bjerre Andersen

In her book „Feminism Without Borders‟ (2003), Chandra T. Mohanty re-defines feminism so as to cohere with the needs... more In her book „Feminism Without Borders‟ (2003), Chandra T. Mohanty re-defines feminism so as to cohere with the needs and demands of what she calls „Third World Women‟. In this paper, I discuss Mohanty‟s project of global feminism, and seek to understand, whether her own premises for feminism are valid, in the light of her own critique.

An emic approach to intersectional study of diversity at work: A Bourdieuan framing

by Mustafa Ozbilgin

Tatli, A. and Ozbilgin MF (forthcoming) An emic approach to intersectional study of diversity at work: A Bourdieuan framing, International Journal of Management Reviews.

In this paper, we present an emic approach, which is sensitive to the emergence of new categories of difference across... more In this paper, we present an emic approach, which is sensitive to the emergence of new categories of difference across time and place, in intersectional study of workforce diversity. The paper first provides a comprehensive review of the literature on diversity at work in the business and management field, identifying that this literature is predominantly etic in nature as it focuses on pre-established, rather than emergent, categories of difference. Next, we offer an emic approach to researching diversity at work. In offering an emic approach, the key distinction the paper makes is the direction of the investigation. Unlike the dominant etic approach, which adopts pre-established (ex ante) diversity categories, the emic perspective that we propose identifies emergent and situated categories of diversity ex post, as embedded in a specific time and place. In order to operationalize the emic approach, we suggest the use of the Bourdieuan theory of capitals, and present a five-step research guide.

Drink Sluts, Brats and Immigrants as Others: An analysis of Swedish media discourse on gender, alcohol and rape

by Alexandra Bogren

Co-authored with Josefin Bernhardsson. Published in Feminist Media Studies, iFirst, May 2011.

Drawing on an analysis of the media debate on two Swedish rape cases involving alcohol, the present article argues... more Drawing on an analysis of the media debate on two Swedish rape cases involving alcohol, the present article argues that social norms and power structures are made visible both when debaters ascribe explanatory power to alcohol and when they do not. Using feminist intersectional theory, we argue that when debaters employ the concepts of “foreign culture” and “jet-set drinking culture,” respectively, to explain the rapes, they simultaneously (re)produce stereotypical discourses on gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity/nationality. The troublesome positions of the Immigrant, the Drink Slut and the Brat symbolize how these discourses intersect in the specific cases. To understand why alcohol is central in explaining rape in a fashionable area, but not in a socially disadvantaged area, we suggest that the official image of Sweden as a gender-equal, sexually liberal and multicultural society with small class differences blocks discussion of existing inequalities within the country. When rape happens in a place constructed as a “Swedish middle- and upper-class area,” alcohol and intoxication are used to symbolize the “uncivilized,” unpleasant and malicious among Swedish men. When rape happens in “socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods” populated by “immigrants,” the unpleasant instead resides in the “foreign culture.”