Intersectionality and Social Inequality

Linking personal and social histories with collective identity narratives

by Nicola Curtin

Curtin, N., & Stewart, A. J. (2011). Linking personal and social histories with collective identity narratives.  In S.Wiley, G. Philogène, & T. A. Revenson (Eds.), Social categories in everyday experience (pp. 83-102). Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

African American Women: Experiences of Oppression and Resistance Working Entry-Level Positions in Spokane, Washington

by Deseure DeBerry

undergraduate thesis paper

This paper addresses and examines negative experiences of African American women working entry-level positions while... more This paper addresses and examines negative experiences of African American women working entry-level positions while residing in Spokane, Washington.  Concepts of intersectionality, double/multiple jeopardy and consciousness, Black women and negative stereotypes, and inquiries into Black feminist thought and standpoint theory are used as foundations for research and analysis.  Research in this area also includes discussions of oppression and resistance to the aforementioned concepts.
Results address negative experiences stemming from perceptions of racism, sexism, both, or neither.  Perspectives that speak more to awareness of racism as opposed to sexism in the participants’ experiences are discussed.  Empowerment and/or resistance in response to these experiences varied among the participants, but themes of assertiveness, education and values contributing to their sense of resistance were common.
Future research that questions the utilization and effectiveness of workplace policies aimed at rectifying employee’s discriminatory experiences is suggested based on the results and analysis the experiences produced.

Storm and the X-Men as Racial Projects

by Deseure DeBerry

Used for MS Applied Project at ASU. Short version of abstract: An applied project that applies Sumi Cho's (2009) concept of 'post-racialism' to the X-Men as a group and why 'post-racialism' is problematic through the representations of Storm in four graphic novels.
link to prezi: http://prezi.com/ryb-smee0qy1/present/?auth_key=eq9qi5v&follow=wbwbkkve2x7v

From the introduction of an international cast in 1975 onward, the X-Men have been a transformative and diverse... more From the introduction of an international cast in 1975 onward, the X-Men have been a transformative and diverse society of mutants. This group of unique superheroes front a human/mutant struggle that brought the readers to imagine a new oppression affecting white mutants alongside mutants of different races, ethnicities and national origins. Acceptance in to humanity and mutant rights were championed by Charles Xavier and, through the X-Men lead by Cyclops, mutants have been saving humanity in the midst of their struggle against hatred.

Storm has been through these struggles as an X-Man and mutant, but what about her identity as a black woman and struggles had by black women in white and male dominated spaces? This project is aimed at answering inquiries about Storm’s representation in struggles for liberation, and the possibility that the X-Men are an example of a post-racial society, with Storm being a willing participant. This has implications of black women’s issues and oppressions being largely ignored, and of the continued un-freedoms of racial minorities in the US, as mutant liberation and acceptance have trumped that of other race-based intersectional social justice issues.

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

Framing Megan Williams: Discourses of Race, Class, and Gender in TV News Coverage of Racialized Rape

by Sarah J. Jackson

This study examines mainstream television news coverage of the kidnapping and rape of Megan Williams in late 2007 and... more This study examines mainstream television news coverage of the kidnapping and rape of Megan Williams in late 2007 and coverage of Williams' recantation in 2009. The publicity of this case provides a unique opportunity to scrutinize the under-examined topics of news coverage of white-on-black rape and white female perpetration. Feminist and critical media studies perspectives are called upon to provide an understanding of hegemonic discourses of gendered violence in media discourse. The intersection of race and class with such discourse is examined. Content and discourse analysis methods allow a critical examination of coverage of the Williams' story on four of the most watched television news sources in America. Results reveal disturbing trends in the framing of white-on-black perpetration. Additionally, stark differences in ideological constructions of rape and race are found among the news outlets examined, suggesting that some news sources do more to reproduce raced and gendered discourses of privilege than others.

The Intersectional Determinants of Systematic Global Health Inequality: The Effects of International Policy

by Laura Robinson

Paper for intro Social Health class - 2011

Every Woman Matters

by Charmaine C. Williams

A community reporr from a participatory community-based pronect with the Women's Health in Women's Hands community health centre in Toronto, Canada. the study presents exoeriences of Black Women and Women of Colour accessing primary health care with attention to intersecting vectors of racism, sexism, heterosexism and homophobia, poverty, homelessness and Hiv phobia and stigma.

Race (and gender and class) and child custody: Theorizing intersections in two Canadian court cases

by Charmaine C. Williams

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.

"Tension in Intersectional Agency. A theoretical discussion of the interior conflict of white, feminist activists' intersectional location"

by Dieuwertje Dyi Huijg

- winning essay of the FWSA 2010/11 competition (Feminist & Women Studies Association)

In this article I question the wholeness of the agency of white, feminist activists. Drawing on intersectional theory,... more In this article I question the wholeness of the agency of white, feminist activists. Drawing on intersectional theory, I problematise the multiplicative character of their location in order to be able to understand how intersectional agency operates. This location reveals three layers of intersectionality; the junction of axes of social signification (gender and race); the junction of manifestations on these axes (female and white); and the junction of, subsequent, positions in power relations (disadvantaged and advantaged). I argue that this is specifically important and complex when we explore how whiteness can operate intersectionally. This results in three observations. First, this intersectional junction is conflictive in its interior; race as advantage and gender as disadvantage can operate as opposite structuring forces in power relations. Second, feminist activism is characterised by gendered action and aims at social transformation in the realm of gender. Whiteness, on the other hand, is often marked by racial passivity and omission via which it can invest in the maintenance of the racial status quo and non-change; this contradicts feminist objectives. Third, contra the conflation of agency with action, I agree that not every action is agentic. If not every action is agentic, then not all agency generates action. In turn, this means that agency can also result in omission; ‘something’ which is not action, i.e. an absence or void of action or, what I call, inaction. We can say that inaction is a familiar manifestation of hegemonic processes as whiteness. In turn, we can see that gender and race as structuring forces, subsequently, shape agency contradictorily, which can generate action and inaction simultaneously. The differentiation of layers in intersectional theory suggests that the agency of white, feminist activists is mobilised within a conceptual opposition in power relations that, consequently, questions the ‘wholeness’ of intersectional agency.

Keywords: Intersectional theory, Agency, White women

The Tea Party: The discourse of class, race, & gender/sexuality

by Benjamin Schrader

Intersectionality Queer Studies and Hybridity: Methodological Frameworks for Social Research

by Aristea Fotopoulou

Journal of International Women's Studies, Vol 13, #2, March 2012

http://www.bridgew.edu/soas/jiws/Vol13_no2/

This article seeks to draw links between intersectionality and queer studies as epistemological strands by examining... more This article seeks to draw links between intersectionality and queer studies as epistemological strands by examining their common methodological tasks and by tracing some similar difficulties of translating theory into research methods. Intersectionality is the systematic study of the ways in which differences such as race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other sociopolitical and cultural identities interrelate. Queer theory, when applied as a distinct methodological approach to the study of gender and sexuality, has sought to denaturalise categories of analysis and make normativity visible. By examining existing research projects framed as 'queer' alongside ones that use intersectionality, I consider the importance of positionality in research accounts. I revisit Judith Halberstam's (1998) 'Female Masculinity' and Gloria Anzaldua's (1987) 'Borderlands' and discuss the tension between the act of naming and the critical strategical adoption of categorical thinking. Finally, I suggest hybridity as one possible complementary methodological approach to those of intersectionality and queer studies. Hybridity can facilitate an understanding of shifting textual and material borders and can operate as a creative and political mode of destabilising not only complex social locations, but also research frameworks.
Keywords: intersectionality, hybridity, queer studies

Who is Asian?: Representing a Panethnic Continent in Community Activism

by Alan Wong

Wong, Alan. “Who is Asian?: Representing a Panethnic Continent in Community Activism” in Sexualities in Education: A Reader. Eds. Erica R. Meiners and Therese Quinn. New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 376-383. Print.

(First paragraph)

Between 2004 and 2009, I served as the coordinator of Gay and Lesbian Asians of Montreal... more (First paragraph)

Between 2004 and 2009, I served as the coordinator of Gay and Lesbian Asians of Montreal (GLAM), a not-for-profit, volunteer-run community organization that functions as both a social and political support group for local lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) Asians. During my tenure with GLAM, I attempted to broaden its membership in order to attract and be more inclusive of those who I felt were underrepresented in the group. In so doing, one major question surfaced: How could GLAM present itself as a unified Asian voice while still taking into account the diversity of ethnicities that comprised its membership? In other words, what strategies could GLAM employ to accommodate and bridge the various interests of a group of people defined by their continental affiliation without compromising their individual subjectivities? As I pondered this, I realized that coordinating GLAM required thinking outside the proverbial box if we were to grow and
become more than just another monolithic social clique in Montreal’s LGBTQ scene.

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

A Health Advocacy Approach to Social Justice

by Toi Scott

Capstone/Thesis. Co-authored with Josh I. Lapps.

AnotherOnefortheFire

by Michael Bongiorno

The invisibility of race: intersectional reflections on the liminal space of alterity.

by Nicola Rollock

Published in Race, Ethnicity & Education 2012

It has been argued that racialised Others occupy a liminal space of alterity; a position at the edges of society from... more It has been argued that racialised Others occupy a liminal space of alterity; a position at the edges of society from which their identities and experiences are constructed. Rather than being regarded as a place of disadvantage and degradation, it has been posited that those excluded from the centre can experience a ‘perspective advantage’ as their experiences and analyses become informed by a panoramic dialectic offering a wider lens than the white majority located in the privileged spaces of the centre are able to deploy. In this article, I invite the reader to glimpse the world from this liminal positioning as I reflect critically on how the intersections between social class, race and gender variously advantage or disadvantage, depending on the context, the ways in which Black middle classes are able to engage with the education system. While I make reference to findings from a recent school-focused ESRC project ‘The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes’ the article takes a wider perspective of the education system, also incorporating an autobiographical analysis of the academy as a site of tension, negotiation and challenge for the few Black middle classes therein. I make use of the Critical Race Theory tool of chronicling (counter-narrative) to help demonstrate the complex, multifaceted and often contradictory ways in which ambitions for race equality often represent lofty organisational ideals within which genuine understanding

Ethnicity, gender and mental health:social worker perspectives

by Ravinder Barn

Barn, R. (2008) Ethnicity, Gender and Mental Health: Social Worker Perspectives, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 54(1), 69-82.

Background: This paper draws on a two-year Department of Health research study on social worker conceptualisations of... more Background: This paper draws on a two-year Department of Health research study on social worker conceptualisations of ethnicity, gender and mental health. The findings and discussion are placed within the `culturalist' and an `integrative' perspective on the mental health needs of Asian women. It is argued that the culturalist perspective has led to an overemphasis of individual and group differences in theoretical and practice debates, and by design or default has resulted in an under-emphasis of the interconnections between `race', ethnicity, gender and social class, as well as an underemphasis on the adequacy and appropriateness of existing service provision. The importance of the latter is highlighted in its integrative nature in pointing to the interconnections between race, ethnicity, gender and social class.

Aims: To study professional perspectives to enhance understanding of the interconnections of ethnicity, gender, social class and mental health, to promote improved policy, provision and practice.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews with social work professionals to obtain their perceptions of Bangladeshi women's mental illness, well-being, sources of stress and service provision.

Results: In understanding the mental health situation of Bangladeshi women, a thematic analysis identified a multiplicity of factors including poverty, poor and overcrowded housing, racism, language, culture, religion, and gender and patriarchy. Low use of social services by Bangladeshi women, combined with fear and mistrust and lack of familiarity, raised important concerns about unmet need.

Conclusions: Social worker perceptions demonstrate an understanding that suggests that the experience of ethnicity is gendered and that gender relations are ethnically distinct and impacted by social class. The paper highlights the importance of understanding patriarchy and gender relations, as well as the wider context of race and ethnicity and the interconnections between ethnicity, gender and social class.