Intersectionality

<p> </p><p>A 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title<br /><br /><em>Intersectionality</em> intervenes in the field of intersectionality studies: the integrative examination of the effects of racial gendered and class power on people’s lives. While “intersectionality” tends to circulate merely as a buzzword Anna Carastathis joins other critical voices in urging a more careful reading. Challenging the narratives of arrival that surround it Carastathis argues that intersectionality is a horizon illuminating ways of thinking that have yet to be realized; consequently calls to “go beyond” intersectionality are premature. A provisional interpretation of intersectionality can disorient habits of essentialism categorical purity and prototypicality and overcome dynamics of segregation and subordination in political movements.<br /><br />Through a close reading of critical race theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s germinal texts published more than twenty-five years ago Carastathis urges analytic clarity contextual rigor and a politicized historicized understanding of this pervasive concept. Intersectionality’s roots in social justice movements and critical intellectual projects—specifically black feminism—must be retraced and synthesized with a decolonial analysis so that its potential to actualize coalitions can be enacted.</p><p><strong>Anna Carastathis </strong>is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology at Panteion University in Athens Greece. She coedited an issue of <em>Refuge</em> journal titled “Intersectional Feminist Interventions in the ‘Refugee Crisis.’” She has published work in <em>Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy</em> <em>Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society</em> <em>Feminist Review</em> <em>Philosophy Compass</em> and <em>Why Race and Gender Still Matter: An Intersectional Approach</em>.</p>