Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T19:37:09.897Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
Get access

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander-Floyd, Nikol G. 2012. “Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in a Post-Black Feminist Era.” Feminist Formations 24(1): 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bay, Mia, Griffin, Farah J., Jones, Martha S., and Savage, Barbara D. (eds.). 2015. Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J. 2010. The Pragmatic Turn. Malden, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Bilge, Sirma. 2013. “Intersectionality Undone: Saving Intersectionality from Feminist Intersectionality Studies.” Du Bois Review 10(2): 405–24.Google Scholar
Bowleg, Lisa. 2008. “When Black + Lesbian + Woman (Does Not Equal) Black Lesbian Woman: The Methodological Challenges of Qualitative and Quantititave Intersectionality Research.” Sex Roles 59(5–6): 312325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browne, Irene, and Misra, Joya. 2003. “The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market.” Annual Review of Sociology 29: 487513.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig. 1995. Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Choo, Hae Yeon, and Ferree, Myra Marx. 2010. “Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions, and Institutions in the Study of Inequalities.” Sociological Theory 28(2): 129149.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2010. “The New Politics of Community.” American Sociological Review 75(1): 730.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2015. “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas.” Annual Review of Sociology 41(August): 120.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2019. Intersectionality as Critical Theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill, and Bilge, Sirma. 2016. Intersectionality. London: Polity.Google Scholar
Cooper, Anna Julia. 1892. A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. Xenia, OH: Aldine.Google Scholar
Cooper, Brittney C. 2015. “Intersectionality.” In Disch, Lisa Jane and Hawkesworth, Mary (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford Handbooks Online.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43(6): 12411299.Google Scholar
Davis, Kathy. 2008. “Intersectionality as a Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes a Feminist Theory Successful.” Feminist Theory 9(1): 6785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delanty, Gerard. 2009. The Cosmopolitan Imagination: The Renewal of Critical Social Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dill, Bonnie Thornton. 2009. “Intersections, Identities, and Inequalities in Higher Education.” In Dill, Bonnie Thornton and Zambrana, Ruth (eds.), Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice (pp. 229–52). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Franklin, Sekou M. 2014. After the Rebellion: Black Youth, Social Movement Activism, and the Post-Civil Rights Generation. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Giddings, Paula. 2008. Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. New York: Amistad.Google Scholar
Go, Julian (ed.). 2013. Decentering Social Theory. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2007a. “Intersectionality as a Normative and Empirical Paradigm.” Politics and Gender 3(2): 248–55.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2007b. “When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm.” Perspectives on Politics 5(1): 6379.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy. 1983. “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism.” In Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill B. (eds.), Discovering Reality (pp. 283310). Boston, MA: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1980. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horkheimer, Max. 1982. “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Horkheimer, Max (ed.), Critical Theory: Selected Essays (pp. 188–243). New York: Continuum Publishing.Google Scholar
Joas, Hans. 1993. Pragmatism and Social Theory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kelley, Robin D. G. 2002. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston, MA: Beacon.Google Scholar
Knapp, Gudrun-Alexi. 2005. “Race, Class, Gender: Reclaiming Baggage in Fast Travelling Theories.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 12(3): 249265.Google Scholar
Lykke, Nina. 2011. “Intersectional Analysis: Black Box or Useful Critical Feminist Thinking Technology?” In Lutz, Helma, Herrera Vivar, Maria Teresa, and Supik, Linda (eds.), Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies (pp. 207220). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.Google Scholar
May, Vivian M. 2014. “‘Speaking into the Void’? Intersectionality Critiques and Epistemic Backlash.” Hypatia 29(1): 94112.Google Scholar
May, Vivian M. 2015. Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCall, Leslie. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs 30(3): 17711800.Google Scholar
Medina, Jose. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. Wright. 2000. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Nash, Jennifer C. 2008. “Rethinking Intersectionality.” Feminist Review 89: 115.Google Scholar
Phoenix, Ann, and Pattynama, Pamela. 2006. “Intersectionality.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 13(3): 187192.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (ed.). 2007. Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Simons, Jon (ed.). 2010. From Agamben to Žižek: Contemporary Critical Theorists. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Steinbugler, Amy C., Press, Julie E., and Dias, Janice Johnson. 2006. “Gender, Race and Affirmative Action: Operationalizing Intersectionality in Survey Research.” Gender and Society 20(6): 805825.Google Scholar
Stoetzler, Marcel, and Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2002. “Standpoint Theory, Situated Knowledge and the Situated Imagination.” Feminist Theory 3(3): 315333.Google Scholar
Strydom, Piet. 2011. Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stuhr, John J. 2000. “Introduction: Classical American Philosophy.” In Stuhr, John J. (ed.), Pragmatism and a Classical American Philosophy: Essential Readings and Interpretive Essays (pp. 19). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1998. Durable Inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. “Intersectionality and Feminist Politics.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 13(3): 193210.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×