Intersectionality as a Regulative Ideal

Abstract

What is the intersectional thesis a thesis about? Some understand it as a claim about the metaphysics of oppression, social kinds, or experience; about the limits of antidiscrimination law or identity politics; or about the importance of fuzzy sets and multifactor analysis in social science. We argue, however, that intersectionality, interpreted as a thesis in any particular theoretical domain, faces regress problems. We propose that headway on these and other questions can be made when intersectionality is modeled as a regulative ideal, i.e., a guiding methodological and practical principle, and not as a general theory or hypothesis. Qua ideal, intersectionality requires activists and inquirers to treat existing classification schemes as if they are indefinitely mutually informing, with the specific aim of revealing and resisting inequality and injustice. Qua regulative, intersectionality points to a rich and expanding set of heuristics for guiding social-scientific research and the construction of multifaceted political coalitions. A ppeals to intersectionality serve to remind us that social categories like race and gender cannot be adequately understood independently from each other. But what, exactly, is the intersectional thesis a thesis about? Answers to this question are remarkably diverse. Intersectionality is variously understood as a claim about the nature of social kinds, oppression, or experience (Cole 2009;

Biolinguistics and biological systems: a complex systems analysis of language

“…Attempting a minimalist isolation of these components would lose sight of a genuine scientific target and reduce the possibility of redress in this particular case, it is argued. Of course, nothing hinges on the veracity intersectionality and it remains methodologically controversial (see Gasdaglis and Madva 2020). Systems biology and 4E approaches to cognition make similar cases for a loss of target at the individual level, as we shall see.…”

Intersectional Feminist Theory as a Non-Ideal Theory: Asian American Women Navigating Identity and Power

“…Another line of critique is that intersectionality incurs an infinite regress, as Ehrenreich defines it, "the tendency of all identity groups to split into eversmaller subgroups " (2002: 267). The association of intersectionality with infinite regress has become so influential that it has been examined by many intersectional scholars (Carastathis 2016: 131-34;Collins & Bilge 2016: 127-28;Gasdaglis & Madva 2020: 1300-1306. This strand of criticism interprets intersectionality as impeding generalizations about group interests (of, for example, women) or even about subgroup interests (of, for example, women of color, Black women), as there is "a potentially endless list of hybrid positions or cross-cutting groupings that can be yielded (such as [B]lack working class, lesbian, young, poor, rural, disabled and so on)" (Anthias 2013: 5-6).…”

“…It is more correct to say that, as much of the recent intersectionality literature points out (see, e.g., Anthias 2013: 5;Collins 2015: 10;K. Davis 2008: 70-72;Gasdaglis & Madva 2020: 1290McCall 2005McCall : 1779Nash 2008: 2-3;Ruíz 2018: 336-37), the neologism gave a name to a fundamental, pre-existing concern within feminist scholarship: Black feminists (e.g., Combahee River Collective 1977;A. Y. Davis 1981;Hull, Bell-Scott, & Smith 1982;hooks 1984;Lorde 1984;King 1988) and other critical race/decolonial feminists (e.g., Lugones & Spelman 1983;Spelman 1988;Mohanty 1988) had emphasized that the concept of "woman" was used in dominant Western feminist discourses in a way that falsely generalized the perspective of middle-class, heterosexual, Western women, while relegating women of color, working-class women, queers, and Two-Thirds World women as the "Other" (Heyes 2000: 54).…”

What it’s like to be a _____: why it’s (often) unethical to use VR as an empathy nudging tool

“…Scholars working within the tradition of political intersectionality given form by Crenshaw thus argue that [i]t is not just that [black women] have quantitatively greater hurdles to overcome than white women or black men, but that the nature of their oppression re ects a distinctive, complex, and perhaps irreducible combination of sexism, racism, and other structures of oppression, such as classism and heterosexism. (Gasdaglis & Madva 2020) Intersectionality, understood in this way, is built to resist a purely additive formulation of oppression or of oppressive systems. Someone whose identity lies at the intersections of being "Black" and a "woman" experiences forms of oppression that cannot be understood merely by combining the forms of oppression associated with a person's race and gender on their own.…”