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7 - Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Patricia Hill Collins
Edited by
Peter Kivisto
Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
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Summary

This chapter explores, in two sections, the connection between intersectionality and critical social theory.The first provides an overview of intersectionality’s emerging canon, paying careful attention to its understandings of and approaches to social inequality. The second section positions intersectionality in a landscape of traditional and critical social theory that is alternatively contentious and complimentary.

Capitalism, critical theory, inequality, intersectionality, nationalism, racism, sexism

Patricia Hill Collins is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland.An expert on race, gender, and class, her major works include Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Routledge, 1990) and Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (Routledge, 2004), and Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (Duke University Press, 2019).She served as the 100th President of the American Sociological Association.

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The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 120 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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