The Dual Subject of Intersectionality
Between 'Lived Experience' and 'Categories of Oppresion'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v38i2.150666Nøgleord:
Intersectionality, Social Reproduction Theory, Marxist-Feminism, Black Feminism, Continental Philosophy, SubjectivityResumé
This article argues that there is a dual subject at stake in contemporary invocations of intersectionality: on the one hand, a subject of ‘lived experience’, a subject that ‘can be taken at its word’, on the other hand a subject that is an effect of the intersection of various axes of oppression, that is a subject that is constituted through abstractions. In dialogue with a series of Marxist critiques of intersectionality, the article investigates how and why intersectionality has given rise to a ’subject of lived experience’ in order to point to some of the weaknesses of this conception of subjectivity. Thereupon, I shall introduce a distinction between two concepts of intersectionality: intersectionality as a response to a problem and intersectionality as a theory of social identity in order to argue that many of the shortcomings of contemporary intersectionality theory seem to stem from the fact that they extend what was originally a response to a contextually specific problem and a metaphor to illustrate it into a general theory of social identity. This distinction, I argue, allows us to appreciate the initial critical gesture of intersectionality while remaining critical of some implications of intersectionality as a theory and methodology.
Referencer
Althusser, L. (2012). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation). In Mapping Ideology. Verso. (Original work: 1970)
B. Anderson, K., Durkin, K., & A. Brown, H. (Eds.). (2020). Raya Dunayevskaya’s intersectional Marxism:
Race, Class, Gender, and the Dialectics of Liberation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bhattacharya, T. (2017). Introduction: Mapping Social Reproduction Theory. In Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (pp. 1–21). Pluto Press.
Brenner, J. (2000). Women and the Politics of Class. Monthly Review Press.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
Carastathis, A. (2016). Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. University of Nebraska Press.
Cho, S. (2013). Post-Intersectionality. Du Bois Review, 10(2), 385–810.
Combahee River Collective. (2017). A Black Feminist Statement. In How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (pp. 15–29). (Original work: 1977)
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/141.241.26.232
Deleuze, G., & Foucault, M. (1977). Intellectuals and Power. In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Cornell University Press. (Original work: 1972)
E. Gimenez, M. (2018). Marx, Women, and Capitalist Social Reproduction: Marxist Feminist Essays. Brill.
Endnotes. (2013). The Logic of Gender: On the Separation of Spheres and the Process of Abjection. Endnotes.
Ferguson, S. (2016). Intersectionality and Social-Reproduction Feminisms: Toward an Integrative Ontology. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 24.2, 38–60. https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206X-12341471
Ferguson, S. (2020). Women and Work: Feminism, Labour and Social Reproduction. Pluto Press.
Hancock, A.-M. (2016). Intersectionality: An Intellectual History. Oxford University Press.
Hill Collins, P. (2015). Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142
Hill Collins, P., & Bilge, S. (2022). Intersectionality (Second Edition). Polity Press.
J. Bohrer, A. (2019). Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism. [Transcript].
King, D. (1988). Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology. Signs, 14.
Kornbluh, A. (2023). Immediacy or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism. Verso Books.
Lugones, M. (1994). Purity, Impurity and Separation. Signs, 19(2), 458–479.
M. Beal, F. (2008). Double Jeopardy: To be Black and Female. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 8(2), 166–176. (Original work: 1969)
M. May, V. (2015). Pursuing Intersectionality: Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. Routledge.
Marx, K. (2005). Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. Penguin Books. (Original work: 1857-58)
McNally, D. (2017). Intersections and Dialectics: Critical Reconstructions in Social Reproduction Theory. In Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. Pluto Press.
Mitchell, E. (2014, September). I am a Woman and a Human: A Marxist Feminist Critique of Intersectionality Theory. https://libcom.org/article/i-am-woman-and-human-marxist-feminist-critique-intersectionality-theory-eve-mitchell
Nash, J. (2019). Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality. Duke University Press.
Puar, J. (2012). ‘I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess’: Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage
Theory”. philoSOPHIA, 2(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2012.a486621
Rancière, J. (2011). Althusser’s Lesson (E. Battista, Trans.). Continuum International Publishing Group (Original work: 1969)
Shi, C. C. (2018). Defining my own Oppression: Neoliberalism and the Demands of Victimhood. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 26(2), 271–295. https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206x-00001638
Spivak, G. C. (2010). Can the Subaltern Speak? In Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea. Columbia University Press.Spivak, G. C. (1990). The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (S. Harasym, Ed.). Routledge. (Original work: 1988)
Srinivasan, A. (2021a). The Right to Sex. Bloomsbury.
Srinivasan, A. (2021b, September 22). A Woman and a Philosopher: An Interview with Amia Srinivasan [Interview]. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/09/22/a-woman-and-a-philosopher-an-interview-with-amia-srinivasan/
The Dig. (n.d.). The Right to Sex with Amia Srinivasan [Broadcast]. Retrieved 9 December 2022, from https://thedigradio.com/podcast/the-right-to-sex-with-amia-srinivasan/
Tomlinson, B. (2013). To Tell the Truth and Not Get Trapped: Desire, DIstance, and Intersectionality at the Scene of Argument. Signs, 38(4), 999–1000.
Toupin, L. (2018). Wages for Housework: A History of an International Feminist Movement 1972-1977. Pluto Press.
Vishmidt, M. (2020). Bodies in space: On the ends of vulnerability. Radical Philosophy, 208, 33–46.
Weeks, K. (1998). Constituting Feminist Subjects. Verso Books.Althusser, L. (2012). Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation). In Mapping Ideology. Verso. (Original work: 1970)
Downloads
Publiceret
Citation/Eksport
Nummer
Sektion
Licens
Copyright (c) 2026 Katrine Høghøj
Dette værk er under følgende licens Creative Commons Navngivelse –Ikke-kommerciel (by-nc).
Udgivelser i Kvinder, Køn og Forskning er beskyttet under Creative Commons License: CC Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
