Intersectionality: A challenge for cultural studies in the 2020s

Abstract

In this article I argue that the intersectional paradigm is a necessary tool to approach culture in the new decade, drawing mainly on the scholarship of Black feminism. I also argue that cultural studies can benefit from drawing attention to production – be it in popular culture or in academia – that comes from the margins, that is, from individuals who face interlocked oppressions and who experience life from the standpoint of an outsider-within, a familiar stranger with an oppositional gaze. Different perspectives tend to bring decentralized, broader knowledge and inventive possibilities for academic research and societal change.

Culture is transnational

“…First, while recognizing uneven geopolitical and postcolonial power structures, we should avoid the temptation of essentializing American or Western cultures. Remember, no culture is pure (Hall in Paul, 2005) and culture is always intersectional, as two other contributions to this series make clear (Guimarães Corrêa, 2020; Johnson and Joseph, 2020). The Rest is already within the West for many reasons, including colonial legacies, cultural appropriations, and migrant cultures.…”

“…Of course, this list is not intended to be exhaustive and it reflects my personal and academic interests. As shown by other contributors to this series, the list could be extended by calls for more activist and less white cultural studies (Johnson and Joseph, 2020) that is anchored in empirical research of actually existing cultures and lived experience (Guimarães Corrêa, 2020; Woo, 2020) and has a futurist outlook (Powers, 2020) on such pressing – and, indeed, transnational – contemporary challenges as climate change (Ang, 2020), democracy deficit, culture wars, and the datafication of the social fabric (Couldry, 2020). Without the pressures to speak absolute truths (Ang, 1996), cultural studies occupies a privileged position to answer all the multiple calls so to arrive at a better understanding of cultural complexity.…”

Four concepts to think from the South

“…In the first text, “Intersectionality: A challenge for cultural studies in the 2020s”, I defended intersectionality as a comprehensive and dynamic concept, useful for understanding, interpreting, and explaining social, economic, communicational, media, and cultural phenomena (Guimarães Corrêa, 2020). Patricia Hill Collins (2019) defines intersectionality as a critical social theory and, as such, an intellectual, political and ethical tool for knowledge, transformation and social justice.…”

Black Masculinities and Jewish Identity: Ethiopian-Israeli Men in Contemporary Art

“…Intersectionality involves the study of the Religions 2022, 13, 1207 2 of 19 ways that social categories are mutually shaped and interrelated through social forces and cultural configurations to produce shifting relations of oppression. However, as I argue below, intersectional analysis does not only explain exclusion and oppression but also stands to offer new insights into the positive and enabling aspects of identity and agency (Guimaraes Correa 2020). As the concept of intersectionality does not always offer a clear and fix set of tools for research (Rice et al 2019), I organize the discussion in this article through the primary axis of gender (masculinity), and add a variety of additional social categories, by discussing different artworks by artists such as Tesfay Tegegne (class), Gidon Windmagy Agaza (religion), Almo Ishta (age), and also an example of an artwork by an anonymous artist (sexuality).…”