Abstract
What we have found within the field of intersectionality, then, is not only a refusal to deal with and engage feminist theories, and especially poststructuralist, postcolonial and other anti-foundationalist ontologies, but a refusal to recognize these feminisms cannot and should not be included in the field of intersectionality. (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013: 245)
The authors of this response constitute a small, informal reading group of academics and doctoral students interested in engaging with intersectionality. Doctoral students were being urged to tackle intersectionality in their theoretical development, while academics recognised that their earlier feminist theoretical roots were rapidly becoming overwritten. A reading group met our need for sharing articles, ideas and critical analysis.
After reading some 10 articles, our group faced an impasse. Those of us with a background in poststructuralist feminism became increasingly mystified about the ontological heart of intersectionality particularly in relation to conceptions of power and subjectivity. There appeared to be a lacuna in the discussion. What kind of subject did intersectionality assume, and how did this subject relate to power?
Our group pondered the fact that much of intersectionality seemed to draw upon a structuralist approach to subjectivity as informed by various systems of oppression relating to race, class, gender and sexuality. However, the literature appeared to slip regularly between this structuralist approach to subjectivity and a more poststructuralist approach to subjectivity whereby the subject is an effect of discourse. The group became curious about this slippage, and returned to reading a number of poststructuralist feminist papers on power, subjectivity and sexual difference to refresh its knowledge base and query the supposed slippage.
It was therefore with some excitement that our group found Carbin and Edenheim’s article entitled ‘The intersectional turn in feminist theory’ (2013). Here was a robust discussion of the relationship between poststructuralist feminism, postcolonial feminism and intersectionality. Our intention in this commentary is not to rehearse the stimulating article by Carbin and Edenheim, but to take the conclusion of their article as a springboard to highlight some reflections of our reading group.
Carbin and Edenheim suggest that intersectionality is a field which has appropriated poststructuralist feminism and which has in turn, appropriated by neoliberalism. We reflected, however, that intersectionality could be reconceptualised as a discourse in the Foucauldian sense and, in this form, could be harnessed for feminist politics particularly in relation to the research, policy and practice response to issues such as family violence (men’s violence against women and adolescent violence in the home).
Difficulty defining intersectionality
Carbin and Edenheim argue that intersectionality has shifted from being a metaphor grounded in structuralist ontology to being an overarching feminist theory which makes explicit an ontology of neither the subject nor power. Intersectionality is no longer defined as a metaphor for the way in which intersecting systems of oppression impact on women’s subjectivities, but is referred to in the literature variously as a methodology, a tool for data analysis, a nodal point in feminist theory, a feminist project or platform, and a framework for social policy development. Indeed, in Carbin and Edenheim’s conclusion alone, intersectionality is referred to variously as a signifier, a metaphor, a theory, a project, a discourse and a field.
The group concurred with Carbin and Edenheim’s observation that intersectionality slipped between structuralist and poststructuralist ontologies and reflected that this slippage seemed to result in a profound definitional confusion in relation to intersectionality. We were keen to firm up a definition of intersectionality which we could use, particularly in relation to various research projects.
Intersectionality as an appropriating field
Carbin and Edenheim’s final assertion that poststructuralist feminism and postcolonial feminism ‘cannot and should not be included in the field of intersectionality’ implies that intersectionality is an entity with boundaries within which other theories and practices can be positioned and which has an appropriating agency shaped by neoliberalism.
Our group acknowledged that Carbin and Edenheim’s reading of intersectionality as a field appropriated by neoliberalism and appropriating of other feminisms, constituted a sophisticated argument. We were particularly interested in their conclusion that intersectionality as neoliberal-informed ‘consensus-creating signifier’ (2013: 245) represents a response to the question of difference.
We understood Carbin and Edenheim to mean that intersectionality functions as a signifier which purports to represent the whole of contemporary feminist theory and practice. By staking a retroactive claim to various strands of feminism, such as poststructural and postcolonial feminisms, intersectionality functions to minimise differences amongst feminist theories and individual women. Intersectionality claims to resolve the postcolonial, Marxist and queer feminist debates about difference. These debates of the 1980s and 1990s highlighted the ways in which black women, working-class women and lesbian women experienced disadvantage in relation to multiple systems of oppression, including race, class and sexuality, as well as to gender.
Our reading group reflected on Carbin and Edenheim’s argument, and, although we found it very stimulating, we wondered whether intersectionality could be thought about in different terms. We began a process of reconceptualising the relationship between intersectionality and poststructuralism.
Intersectionality as discourse
The clue to terms in which our group wanted to think about intersectionality lay in Carbin and Edenheim’s description of intersectionality as a discourse. We returned to Michel Foucault’s definition of discourse as ‘characterised by the delimitation of a field of objects, the definition of a legitimate perspective for the agent of knowledge, and the fixing of norms for the elaboration of concepts and theories’ (1977: 199). Discourse creates an object of knowledge, which determines who can speak and be heard in relation to a particular discourse, and is characterised by certain tropes or ways of speaking about the object of knowledge.
The object of knowledge created by intersectionality is a common feminist voice which claims to simultaneously acknowledge diversity and recognise that gender is not the only dimension critical to identity and oppression. It enables policy makers and social researchers interested in feminism to speak about the way in which various groups of women (as well as men and children) experience difference and disadvantage; it enables governments to listen to knowledge generated by intersectionality-based methodologies. The concepts associated with intersectionality include categories of difference, processes of differentiation and systems of oppression. Intersectionality assumes an engagement with theories of power and subjectivity, but fails to explicitly express its ontological commitment. In this regard, intersectionality contends with other discourses such as those of liberal humanism, poststructuralist feminism and postcolonial feminism.
In this sense, intersectionality is a particular feminist discourse which has emerged from feminist debates about difference at a particular historical moment in western culture. To highlight our definition of intersectionality as discourse we decided to refer to it as intersectional feminism, in the same way that we would refer to radical feminism or poststructural feminism or any other strand of feminism.
For us, this definition of intersectionality as intersectional feminism anchors it firmly in relation to a poststructuralist ontology and thus can still hold a notion of subjectivity to be the experience of self as an effect of power and discourse.
Applying intersectional feminism
Some members of the group were keen to contribute to the application of intersectional feminism to the current research, policy and practice response to men’s violence against women. Our group considered two forms of potential contribution.
The first involved developing a social research methodology which combined intersectional feminism with methods of data collection, data analysis and generation of knowledge. The group reflected that knowledge generated via such a methodology could further feminist debates about power, subjectivity, sexual difference and other forms of difference. It could also construct itself in such a way as to influence governmental distribution of resources. For example, such a methodology could generate knowledge about the various subjective positions and systems of oppression implicated in the perpetration of family violence (men’s violence against women or adolescent violence in the home). This knowledge could then be utilised to inform the prevention agenda.
Another contribution related specifically to domestic violence prevention policy development. One of the members of our group had recently attended a forum reviewing Australia’s national response to family violence. Politicians, policy makers, researchers, and women who had experienced family violence from diverse cultural backgrounds as well as women with disabilities were present. Our colleague was struck by the naming of intersectionality and the way this enabled the women’s experiences of family violence to be valued equally despite vast differences between those experiences.
Conclusion
In summary, our reading group had a stimulating engagement with Carbin and Edenheim’s paper ‘The intersectional turn in feminist theory’. We appreciated the sophistication of Carbin and Edenheim’s argument and were particularly interested in their critical engagement with the ontological foundations of intersectionality. Accordingly, our group agreed with their assertion that intersectionality is steeped in ontological confusion, but we did not accept their thesis that intersectionality is a field in which poststructural feminism had no place. On the contrary, we preferred to conceptualise intersectionality as a discourse in the Foucauldian sense and, thereby, to see it as having value for progressing feminist debates, particularly in relation to research, policy and practice responses useful in advocacy on issues such as family violence. We were keen to see intersectionality thrive as a tool for enabling collective solidarity and for progressing feminist theory and practice.
Our hope is that understanding intersectionality as discourse allows for the range of configurations that the oppression of women can take and, at the same time, the assurance that the feminist movement makes room for the voices of marginalised women (Nixon and Humphreys, 2010). As a discourse, intersectional feminism can be viewed as neither appropriating nor appropriated, but rather as allowing for the representation of a common feminist voice in research, policy and practice responses to family violence and to other issues affecting disadvantaged groups of people.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement of Elizabeth McClindon, Naomi Pfitzner, Winsome Roberts and Lucy Healey who also collaborated with this commentary.