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Toward a Continuum of Intersectionality Theorizing for Feminist Social Work Scholarship

Gita Mehrotra 1

Abstract In interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, intersectionality has been a primary framework for thinking about multiple identities and the interconnectedness of various systems of oppression in women’s lives. This article suggests that to understand this multiplicity more effectively, feminist social work scholars need to develop and use a continuum of different theorizations of intersectionality, with various epistemological bases, that can be strategically applied, depending on the goals of a particular project or practice context. To articulate the experience of diverse groups of women throughout the world, these paradigms must go beyond the usual triumvirate of U.S.-based race, class, and gender to include migration, colonization, sexuality, ability, and other processes of oppression and identity. Drawing on postcolonial, queer, and transnational feminist perspectives, the article offers queer diasporic scholarship as an example of an interdisciplinary approach for conceptualizing the multiplicity of queer South Asian women’s experiences.

Keywords feminist, intersectionality, queer, social work

In an increasingly global world in which the challenges to our analysis of oppression and privilege grow

geometrically, we must attend with the greatest care to the lenses through which we view the complexity

of the lived experiences of those we would call sister.

Samuels & Ross-Sheriff (2008, p. 9)

In contemporary interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, questions of how to understand issues of

interlocking oppressions, multiple identities, and social inequality in women’s lives are of utmost

importance. Feminist social work scholars are likewise increasingly insisting on attention to this

multiplicity of experience and social positionality. For example, Samuels and Ross-Sheriff (2008)

argued that it is no longer possible to consider gender as an analytic category that is separate from

other systems of oppression or without consideration of context (see also Hulko, 2009; Murphy,

1 School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Gita Mehrotra, School of Social Work, University of Washington, 4101 15th Avenue, NE, Seattle, WA 98105, USA

Email: [email protected]

Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4) 417-430 ª 2010 SAGE Publications Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0886109910384190 http://affilia.sagepub.com

Hunt, Zajicek, Norris, & Hamilton, 2009). Feminists of color, in particular, have continually

asserted that race, class, and gender are interlocking and interdependent oppressions that are simul-

taneously experienced (see, e.g., Hill-Collins, 1990, 2000; hooks, 1984; Razack, 1998). In terms of

formal theorizing, intersectionality has been a primary theoretical lens for engaging with these issues

across disciplines over the past 20 years.

Although intersectionality has been considered one of the most significant contributions to fem-

inist theorizing in the past several decades, there has been ambiguity and inconsistency in how it has

been conceptualized and applied in scholarship (Bowleg, 2008; Chang & Culp, 2002; Davis, 2008;

Jordan-Zachery, 2007; McCall, 2005; Nash 2008). Feminist scholars have found it difficult to illus-

trate intersectionality and have thus relied on various metaphors to describe its complexity. Given

that intersectionality grew out of black feminist perspectives, recent discussions have also ques-

tioned whether it is an integrated theory of identity that includes positions of privilege and power

or if it is only a paradigm for understanding multiply marginalized identities (Hulko, 2009; Nash,

2008). Brown (1997), a poststructuralist feminist, also stated that the use of intersectionality as a lens

signifies the presence of fixed identity categories, which raises questions about intersectionality’s

epistemological assumptions and underlying analyses of social inequality. As an eclectic, evolving

body of scholarship that is committed to social justice and the empowerment of all women in diverse

communities, feminist social work is well positioned to engage with questions regarding intersec-

tionality theorizing and its relevance to social work scholarship and practice. Contemporary feminist

scholars are at a critical juncture in which to explore the ‘‘contradictions, absences, and murkiness’’

of how multiple dimensions in women’s lives are theorized (Nash, 2008, p. 3).

hooks (1994, p. 74) wrote that we theorize from pain and struggle to ‘‘recover and remember our-

selves.’’ One of the biggest challenges of studying intersectionality as a woman of color is the ways

in which the intellectual work and personal experiences converge, including frustrations about not

being able to intellectualize intersectionality adequately as an analytical tool because of the complex

ways in which it is lived in one’s own life (Jordan-Zachery, 2007). As a South Asian queer woman

whose work is centered in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities of

color and South Asian immigrant communities in the United States, I write, in part, to make myself

theoretically legible. Although it is a contested and constructed term, for the purposes of the discus-

sion presented here, I use the term South Asian to refer to an imagined community that consolidates

people who trace their roots to the Indian subcontinent—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,

Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet (Hussein, 2005).

I also explore these ideas because of my investment in liberatory practice with multiply oppressed

communities. In both practice and scholarship, I rely on the concept of intersectionality but also

acknowledge its limitations as a theoretical paradigm. For example, my work with LGBTQ Asian

American communities on issues of domestic violence has demonstrated that meeting the safety

needs of this population requires an understanding of how multiple and transnational identities have

a significant impact on experiences of intimate and familial relationships, dynamics of abuse, and

perceived and actual access to services (Asian Women’s Shelter, 2004; Chung & Lee, 1998). The

difficulty of finding a way to articulate adequately the experiences of fluid and hybrid identities and

multiplicity among women and queer people in these diasporic communities has contributed signif-

icantly to my desire to find more robust ways to articulate and address intersectionality.

Doing so, I suggest, requires not a singular intersectional framework but, rather, a continuum of

different intersectional theories with potentially varying epistemological bases that social work

scholars can draw upon, depending on the goals and needs of a particular community, practice set-

ting, or project. To elaborate this argument, I first present a brief overview of intersectionality as it

has been most often conceptualized by a number of different U.S. feminists. Following the work of

McCall (2005), I propose a continuum of intersectionality theorizing across a range of perspectives

that goes beyond the usual triumvirate of U.S. racial, class, and gender-based oppressions to include

418 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)

sexuality, ability, nation, and other axes of diversity and social identity. Then, drawing from

postcolonial, queer, and transnational feminist theorizing, I present queer diasporic scholarship as

an example of one interdisciplinary way to conceptualize the interconnectedness of queer women’s

multiple identities and oppressions within the context of migration, which has not yet been applied in

feminist social work scholarship. I conclude with a call to scholars to continue to interrogate how we

think about multiplicity in women’s lives to continue to guide empowering feminist scholarship and

practice in the future.

Although this article’s primary contribution is to pose questions regarding feminist social work

theorizing, it is also directly relevant to contemporary social work practice. The Council on Social

Work Education’s (2008) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, for example, state that

understanding issues of oppression and diversity is a core competence required of all social workers.

The dimensions of diversity are understood as the intersectionality of multiple factors including age,

class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status,

political ideology, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Social workers appreciate that, as a conse-

quence of difference, a person’s life experiences may include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and

alienation as well as privilege, power, and acclaim. (p. 5)

If social work is mandating this intersectional perspective on diversity, it is imperative to engage

with theory and scholarship that can support greater understandings of how interconnected systems

of inequality operate on multiple levels to affect marginalized people. Furthermore, because of fem-

inist social work’s specific dedication to gender-based social justice and working holistically with all

women across diverse communities (see, e.g., Dominelli, 2002), being able to theorize multiple,

intersecting oppressions and identities effectively in women’s lives is paramount to expanding con-

temporary feminist scholarship and practice.

It is not the aim of this article to provide a comprehensive review of intersectional theorizing or a

prescriptive solution for how to articulate or apply various intersectional theories per se. Rather, the

aim is to think within and beyond prevailing frameworks of intersectionality to challenge feminist

social work scholars to continue to develop and apply diverse frameworks for theorizing multiplicity

in women’s lives that can deepen scholarship and practice toward social justice. The questions raised

here are thus presented as a way to provoke further thinking about paradigms of intersectionality by

feminist social work scholars.

Overview of Intersectionality

As one of the most significant theoretical contributions of feminist studies, intersectionality has

become the ‘‘gold standard multi-disciplinary approach for analyzing . . . identity and oppression’’ among women (Nash, 2008, p. 2). Although a range of definitions of intersectionality has consis-

tently emerged from feminist thought, intersectionality theorizing is concerned with articulating

women’s simultaneous experiences of gender, race, and class as interdependent identities and

oppressions (Phoenix & Pattynama, 2006). In addition, Dill-Thornton and Zambrana (2009) stated

that intersectional analyses are, and have historically been, characterized by four key theoretical

interventions: (a) placing the lived lives and experiences of people of color and other marginalized

groups at the center of the development of theory, (b) exploring the complexities of individual iden-

tities and group identities while making visible the ways in which diversity within groups is often

ignored and essentialized, (c) demonstrating the ways in which social inequality and oppression

in the interconnected domains of the power structure are manifest, and (d) promoting social justice

and social change through research and practice.

Mehrotra 419

Although intersectional frameworks began to emerge during the U.S.-based civil rights and

women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s, women-of-color feminists more formally

asserted intersectionality theorizing in the 1980s and 1990s as a significant critique of the

essentialism of white feminist identity-based politics (Luft & Ward, 2009; Murphy et al., 2009).

Women-of-color activist–scholars, such as Anzaldúa (1999), Crenshaw (1991), Hill-Collins

(1990), hooks (1984), Hull (1982), and Lorde (1984), challenged white feminism’s construction

of ‘‘woman’’ as a monolithic identity category as they elucidated the inseparability of racial and

gender oppressions and the unique sociopolitical location and standpoint of women of color. The

Combahee River Collective (1981), a group of black lesbian feminists, was one of the first groups

to promote an intersectionality framework when it called for an integrated analysis that incorporates

an understanding of interlocking systems of oppression across race, sexuality, class, and gender.

Congruent with these earlier critiques by feminists of color, Crenshaw (1991) has been credited

with coining the term intersectionality as a way to understand the diversity and multiplicity of the

experiences of women of color in terms of identity, social location, and structural barriers that are

based on multiple forms of oppression. Crenshaw’s work emphasized the way in which identity pol-

itics does not attend to intragroup differences, leading to the marginalization of the experiences of

women of color within both (white) feminist politics and racial justice efforts. Hill-Collins (1990,

2000) has also been influential in developing intersectional theorizing that is grounded in African

American women’s experiences, particularly through a framework of ‘‘interlocking systems of

oppression’’ that demonstrates how interdependent forms of social inequality operate together to

oppress women of color.

How Is Intersectionality Generally Conceptualized?

Intersectionality has become a common buzzword to signify a general understanding that women are

simultaneously positioned within patriarchy and gender identities, as well as within other systems of

oppression, such as race and class (Davis, 2008; Nash, 2008; Phoenix & Pattynama, 2006). How-

ever, while the language of intersectionality is commonly used in feminist projects, the idea of inter-

sectionality has been conceptualized and applied inconsistently, differently, and often ambiguously

in scholarship and practice (Chang & Culp, 2002; Davis, 2008; Jordan-Zachery, 2007; Knudsen,

2006; McCall, 2005; Nash, 2008; Phoenix & Pattynama, 2006). For example, intersectionality has

been considered a theory, a paradigm, a framework, a method, a perspective, or a lens, depending on

the context and/or scholar who is using it (Hulko, 2009). In addition, feminists have debated whether

intersectionality should be centrally concerned with understanding individuals’ multiple identities;

interlocking systemic inequalities at the level of social structure; or multiplicity of social, historical,

and cultural discourses (Davis, 2008; Dill-Thornton & Zambrana, 2009; Prins, 2006; Yuval-Davis,

2006). A review of the literature demonstrated that the most consistent basis for intersectional anal-

yses across disciplines is that all approaches aspire to define race, class, and gender as simultaneously

experienced identities and to critique (feminist) identity politics for its essentializing view of the sub-

ject of ‘‘woman’’ (see, e.g., Brah & Phoenix, 2004; Crenshaw, 1991; Dill-Thornton & Zambrana,

2009; Hill-Collins, 1990, 2000; hooks, 1984; Lorde, 1984; Murphy et al., 2009; Valentine, 2007).

Metaphors of Intersectionality

Feminist scholars have also used a variety of images in attempting to capture the complexity of inter-

sectionality, describing it as a crossroads (Crenshaw, 1991; Minow, 1997, cited in Valentine, 2007),

axes of difference (Yuval-Davis, 2006), a matrix (Hill-Collins, 1990, 2000), and dynamic processes

(Staunaes, 2003). Mathematical metaphors have been particularly common. For instance, intersec-

tionality is frequently viewed as an additive model in which race and class are added to gender, but

420 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)

gender is still viewed as the primary, essential identity (Valentine, 2007). Metaphors of multiplica-

tion, however, suggest that women’s interconnected identities cannot be seen as additive, but, rather,

that race, class, and gender combine and interact to create unique and simultaneous experiences

(Association for Women’s Rights in Development, 2004; Hancock, 2007b; Mullaly, 2002). Geo-

metric metaphors, such as concentric circles, separate axes of power, or vectors of difference, have

also been evoked in the effort to demonstrate dimensions of interconnected identities and oppres-

sions (West & Fenstermaker, 1995).

The metaphors that feminist scholars have used to describe intersectionality also reflect different

epistemological assumptions and understandings of how systems of oppression are related to one

another (Ken, 2007). Addition, multiplication, and geometric images originate from mathe-

matics—a linear, discrete, and traditionally masculinist domain (West & Fenstermaker, 1995).

These mathematical images depict gender, race, and class as separable enough from one another that

they can be understood and analyzed through calculation. In contrast, social constructionists have

argued that systems of oppression, such as race, class, and gender, co-constitute one another in fluid,

complex, and context-bound ways that cannot be captured by such fixed metaphorical images. Prins

(2006, p. 279), for example, stated that in contrast to other models of understanding oppression,

Intersectionality . . . emphasizes that the complexity of processes of individual identification and social

inequality cannot be captured by such arithmetical frameworks. Categories like gender, ethnicity and

class co-construct each other, and they do so in myriad ways, dependent on social, historical and sym-

bolic factors.

Such discussions of how to conceptualize and describe intersectionality clearly demonstrate that

multiplicity in women’s lives resists exact definitions, singular theorizations, or simple metaphors.

Luft and Ward (2009) suggested that instead of enabling clarity about the ways in which identities

and oppressions overlap, shift, and move, metaphors of intersectionality are often limited by our

imaginations and by an orientation toward being able to know or classify experiences definitively.

In addition, Davis (2008) contended that the ambiguity of intersectionality can contribute to its

effectiveness as a feminist theory across disciplinary contexts because its open-endedness allows for

diverse applications and meanings.

Because it is so difficult to capture the complexity of interconnected oppressions and the diverse ways

in which intersectionality is already being illustrated and evoked, the ability to theorize multiplicity in

women’s lives effectively requires intentionally developing and articulating a range of conceptual

‘‘tools’’ to draw upon. Congruent with Davis’s (2008) argument that the ambiguity of intersectionality

can be useful in making it a widely applicable theoretical approach and given the interdisciplinary nature

of feminist social work scholarship, feminist social work scholars can benefit from developing and

applying a range of intersectional theories that can be used strategically and intentionally, depending

on the goals of a particular project or setting. In addition, developing and using deliberate articulations

of various metaphors and definitions can help delineate differences between various intersectional

approaches and the assumptions undergirding their usage. In the section that follows, I draw on the work

of McCall (2005) to provide support for the idea that intersectional theories fall along an ‘‘epistemolo-

gical continuum’’ (McPhail, 2004, p. 17), all of which are useful in elucidating women’s intersectional

lives, identities, and experiences in deeper and more diverse ways.

Toward a Continuum of Intersectionality Theorizing for Feminist Social Work Scholarship

Hill-Collins (1990) explicitly stated that to encompass the complexity of black women’s experience

and the interconnectedness of race, class, and gender oppressions, she rejected grounding her

Mehrotra 421

analysis in a single theoretical tradition. Although her work is conceptually strong, Hill-Collins

specifically pulled ideas from different theories at different times to illustrate her perspective on

multiplicity in black women’s lives. Similarly, social science and social work scholars have argued

for a ‘‘critical pluralism’’ of theoretical perspectives that can be intentionally and rigorously applied,

depending on the goals of a specific inquiry or practice need (Bohman, 1999; Borden, 2010; Orme,

2003). This approach to theoretical pluralism assumes that all paradigms are necessarily limited but

that drawing on multiple frameworks can help deepen understandings of complex social phenomena

and contribute to the development of diverse theories that can be applied to address critical issues

(Borden, 2010; Gioia & Pitre, 1990). Specifically in relation to feminist social work, Orme (2003)

also suggested that taking up multiple analyses can make a greater contribution to knowledge and

practice than attaching oneself to a singular feminist analysis. Consistent with this view, I encourage

feminist scholars to promote dialogue across diverse perspectives on intersectional theorizing to

ensure that social work scholars have a range of paradigms to apply to their work to deepen analysis,

inquiry, and practice with multiply marginalized groups of women.

This is not to dismiss the real philosophical, political, and practical challenges to thinking across

the boundaries of different frameworks that may have conflicting ontological and epistemological

underpinnings nor is it to imply that one should unintentionally or haphazardly combine theories that

may be based on fundamentally conflicting assumptions. Rather, given the necessity of being able to

theorize more effectively the interconnectedness of oppressions in women’s lives across feminist

social work projects, I urge the field to adopt a range of intersectional approaches, with varied epis-

temological foundations that feminist scholars can use, depending on the worldview, goals, and

needs of a particular population or scholarly endeavor. Developing and applying such a continuum

of approaches means that feminist social work scholars with various commitments and epistemolo-

gical and ontological positions can find a way to articulate effectively the interconnection and inter-

action of women’s multiple oppressions and identities in their scholarly work. More intentionally

and strategically using a range of theoretical tools along an ‘‘epistemological continuum’’ can help

the field acknowledge the strengths and limitations of various paradigms without privileging any of

them as most authentic for feminist social work scholarship. In addition, developing a continuum

with different viewpoints on multiplicity can both maintain the possibility of intersectional theoriz-

ing that critically questions essentialized constructions of social groups and pay attention to the

ongoing pervasiveness and salience of structural inequalities. McCall’s (2005) overview of intersec-

tional approaches provides a useful framework for thinking about the differences between various

theorizations of multiplicity in women’s lives.

McCall’s Typology of Intersectional Approaches

In her work on intersectionality and research methodologies, McCall (2005) posited that many of the

differences in how intersectionality frameworks are conceptualized and applied in research are

based on the ways in which social categories are understood. Her overview assumes three primary

types of intersectionality approaches that are used across various disciplines: intercategorical (or

categorical), intracategorical, and anticategorical. Although it is impossible to fit all intersectionality

paradigms neatly into such a typology, McCall’s approach provides a useful structure for consider-

ing how a spectrum of intersectionality theorizing, with diverse epistemologies, can be useful to

diverse feminist social work scholarship.

Intercategorical (or categorical) approaches. Intercategorical (or categorical) approaches operate with an assumption of discrete social categories. In this view, social groupings, such as race, class,

and gender, are understood to be an effect of structural inequalities, and individual identity is

determined and shaped by the social structure. Intercategorical approaches are often characterized

422 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)

by a focus on relationships among multiple social groups within and across analytical categories not

on complexities within single social groups. Thus, these analyses are often presented as multigroup

comparisons.

Intercategorical approaches are most often applied in social work research and other social

sciences, such as sociology and political science. Such frameworks are consistent with the way in

which social work has often relied on categories as a way to understand individuals and social

groups, with an emphasis on recognizing their location within structures of oppression (McPhail,

2004). The primary goal of these theoretical perspectives and their accompanying methodologies

is to demonstrate empirically relationships of inequality among social groups. For example, studies

that articulate health or income disparities among different ethnic groups of women would be con-

sidered intercategorical in their approach. These paradigms are most closely associated with quan-

titative, postpositivist methodologies that are often applied in social work research. McCall (2005)

noted that within the current climate of feminist scholarship, these approaches have frequently been

questioned as to whether they adequately attend to the complexity of multiple oppressions. The

emphasis of intercategorical approaches on understanding the significance and degree of social

inequality between groups is particularly useful, however, given social work’s commitment to social

justice and structural understandings of social inequality.

Intracategorical approaches. Intracategorical approaches can be seen as most connected to early perspectives on intersectionality, since these paradigms challenge the nature of essentialized, homo-

geneous social categorizations of gender, race, class, and the like and simultaneously see the need

for strategic essentializing of identities and communities to work toward particular political goals.

These frameworks have historically been based on black feminist epistemology that assumes the

unique standpoint of black women and/or other oppressed groups (Hill-Collins, 1990; Matsuda,

1991).

Focusing on diversity within social groups, these frameworks illuminate the lived experiences,

multiple identities, and standpoints of people, such as women of color, who are situated at the inter-

sections of numerous oppressions. Fraser (1998) stated that in the study of social difference, there

are opposing perspectives: the deconstructionists and proponents of identity politics. Intracategori-

cal approaches have taken a ‘‘middle ground’’ between these perspectives by interrogating essentia-

lized social categories and acknowledging the political necessity of such identity-based groupings.

Methodologically, these paradigms often use narratives and single-case examples. In social work,

intracategorical approaches have been used most in qualitative social work research that focuses on

marginalized groups. For instance, many current texts on human behavior and the social environ-

ment refer to diversity within ethnic communities (Ronquillo, 2008). In addition, in social work

classrooms, educators may illustrate the impacts of intersecting systems of inequality through the

use of case studies of individuals, groups, or families who are facing multiple oppressions (see,

e.g., Murphy et al., 2009).

Anticategorical approaches. Anticategorical approaches are generally aligned with and/or devel- oped from poststructuralist feminist theories that fundamentally challenge the idea of social cate-

gories (such as race, class, and gender) as units of analysis and problematize the way in which

categories are viewed as real, fixed, homogeneous, and bound by social structure (see, e.g., Butler,

1990; Weedon, 1996). These theoretical insights have provided feminists with new tools for thinking

about difference in women’s lives. Considered to be at the farthest end of McCall’s (2005) conti-

nuum, these approaches propose that social categories are fundamentally suspect because they are

seen as having no basis in reality but are instead constructed by language and discourse. Some scho-

lars see these perspectives as having the greatest promise for holding the vast complexity of social

locations. Anticategorical approaches have often been interdisciplinary across social science and

Mehrotra 423

humanities scholarship and have drawn upon interpretive methodologies, such as genealogy,

deconstruction, and critical ethnography (McCall, 2005).

In this range of intersectional approaches, anticategorical approaches have been used the least in

social work, given disciplinary and professional commitments to practice, lived lives, and material

realities that can be viewed as being in tension with such theoretical frameworks. Feminist social

work has begun to adopt and demonstrate the utility of poststructural approaches (e.g., Fawcett,

Featherstone, Fook, & Rossiter, 2000; Noble, 2004; Sands & Nuncio, 1992; Wendt & Boylan,

2008), although they have continued to be somewhat marginalized and critiqued within the disci-

pline (Latting, 1995; McPhail, 2004). Healy (1999) proposed that considering poststructural views

of identity and social positionalities does not mean that social work must abandon commitments to

addressing structural oppression. As she noted:

[W]e cannot continue to ignore the extent to which single-oppression/categorical articulation of identi-

ties has not allowed us to hold the complexities of experiences or change in local practice contexts. Crit-

ical post-structural theory supports an articulation of the complex and contradictory interchange between

the structural and local whilst resisting seeing one merely as an effect of the other. (p. 131)

I encourage feminist social work scholars to explore further the potential of anticategorical

approaches to intersectionality to add to the range of theoretical tools that can be used within fem-

inist social work scholarship and practice.

In addition to building theory across McCall’s (2005) spectrum of intersectional approaches, fem-

inist social work scholarship that focuses on multiplicity in women’s lives must also attend to the

specificity of oppressions that various communities face. Doing so requires the continuum of inter-

sectional theorizing to broaden its scope beyond U.S.-based racial, class, and gender oppressions to

incorporate other dimensions of inequality that affect women’s identities and experiences.

Who Is Intersectional?

Given the genealogy of intersectionality theorizing, it is not surprising that African American

women have become the ‘‘prototypical intersectional subjects’’ (Nash, 2008, p. 8) or that prevailing

intersectional paradigms emphasize the triumvirate of racial, class, and gender oppressions.

Although the theoretical move to acknowledge these interdependent oppressions has been essential

to naming the inequalities and lived realities of African American women, a number of subjectivities

are continually invisible in this theorizing, including lived experiences of nation, colonialism, sexu-

ality, class, religion, age, and ability.

In her review of intersectional scholarship from 2000 to 2008, Hulko (2009) found that the vast

majority of studies focused on race, class, and gender but few included other identities, such as abil-

ity, age, religion, sexual orientation, and nationality. There has also been some debate about whether

intersectionality theorizing should focus only on multiple marginalized identities (i.e., women of

color) or if all identities can be considered intersectional (Hulko, 2009; Nash, 2008). Although there

have been some attempts to broaden conceptions of intersectionality to encompass more axes of

diversity, to begin to include positions of privilege and power, and to focus on the salience of context

(see, e.g., Brah & Phoenix, 2004; Chang & Culp, 2002; Hulko, 2009; Samuels & Ross-Sheriff,

2008), these approaches are still limited. Future scholarship in feminist social work can further

explore these questions and assess the impact of various approaches to theorizing intersectionality

on research and practice with diverse communities.

To illustrate the potential of being able to articulate innovatively the multiplicity of oppressions

beyond systems of race, class, and gender, in the next section I briefly describe queer diaspora

424 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)

studies, an anticategorical intersectional approach, as an example of a potentially useful approach to

intersectional theorizing for feminist social work scholarship with particular communities.

Queer Diaspora: An Anticategorical Intersectional Approach

Given the global context in which feminist social work scholars are working, the range of intersec-

tional theorizations that are developed and implemented must include the ability to elucidate the

experience of diaspora, nationality, and migration as salient oppressions, identities, and processes

in women’s lives. Here, I present a brief overview of the queer diasporic critique, an interdisciplin-

ary lens that draws from queer theory, transnational feminisms, and postcolonial theory. It is impor-

tant to note that it is not my intent to reify sexuality, gender, or migration status as social categories

that must be added to a comprehensive list of interlocking oppressions. Rather, I use queer diasporic

scholarship as one example of an additional theoretical construct that feminist social work scholars

could add to a range of intersectionality frameworks that can be accessed to understand, study, and

practice more effectively with multiply marginalized immigrant communities.

Queer diaspora studies aim to understand and interrogate gender, sexuality, race, class, and other

processes of oppression in historical and contemporary contexts. This conceptual approach is most

closely aligned with McCall’s (2005) anticategorical approach, since processes of colonialism,

globalization, racism, gender oppression, and other discourses are viewed as interlocking, fluid, and

co-constitutive of identity and experience. Consistent with queer diasporic frameworks, Egeland and

Gressgard (2007, p. 207) wrote:

Approaching complexity requires more than the mere adding up of such categories as race, class, and

gender. It requires an approach presupposing that these categories intersect in mutually constitutive ways

in and through socio-cultural hierarchies and power dimensions that produce complex relations of inclu-

sion, exclusion, domination, and subordination.

Queer diaspora scholars insist on the mutually constitutive nature of colonial histories, migration,

sexuality, gender, race, and class and assert that queer immigrant locations provide a unique site

from which to theorize (Eng, Halberstam, & Muñoz, 2005; Gopinath, 2005; Manalansan, 2003).

This view is parallel to that of earlier intersectional theorists, who elucidated the unique positionality

from which multiply oppressed people can conceptualize the world (Matsuda, 1991; Hill-Collins,

1990, 2000). As is used by these scholars, queer diasporic critique proposes a space for interrogating

the ways in which migrant communities are racialized, gendered, and sexualized, as well as to articu-

late how queer subjectivities are formed and negotiated across transnational experiences (Eng et al.,

2005; Gopinath, 2005). In her ethnographic work with South Asian women, Badruddoja (2008)

analyzed the narratives of two queer-identified participants to illustrate the processes of race, class,

gender, sexuality, and transnational experience that occur through their experience of queerness.

Through their stories, she elucidated the problems that are embedded in fixed social categories as

the women’s positionalities are in flux, and through their identities, they ‘‘selectively accept and

maintain certain definitions while rupturing others’’ (p. 181).

The queer diasporic framework has the potential to make visible and theorize the dynamic inter-

play of discourses of race, gender, sexuality, and other positionalities as they are experienced in

lived lives and to provide new ways of articulating these processes. In his work with Filipino gay

men in New York City, Manalansan (2003, p. 191) demonstrated the ways in which these men are

continually shifting their relationships to home, place, sexuality, race, class, religion, and self:

The Filipino gay immigrant is in fact multiply positioned between bakla and gay traditions, between

notions of Filipinoness and Americanness, between memories of homeland and glaring realities of living

Mehrotra 425

in another country. . . . Thus, the lives of Filipino gay men . . . are always mediated by experiences of

travels, border crossings, and translations of class, race, gender, and sexuality.

Two key components contribute to the strength of a queer disaporic framework as an analytic for

feminist social work scholarship. First, this paradigm is rooted in an understanding of transnational

migration processes as they are linked to historical and contemporary oppression among diasporic

communities. While intersectionality theories often center on a U.S. context, a queer diasporic per-

spective is centered on the movement of people and capital across borders and on how these migra-

tions shift people’s identities, relationships to home and community, and experiences of multiple

oppressions (such as racism, sexism, and homophobia). This approach to intersectionality theorizing

is useful in explicating the transnational, postcolonial hybrid, and shifting experiences of these indi-

viduals and groups.

Second, queer diaspora is an example of an anticategorical intersectional approach (McCall,

2005) because it draws from theoretical traditions, such queer theory and postcolonial studies. This

paradigm is concerned with the ways in which experiences of nation, gender, and race are enforced

by discourses of heterosexuality (Gopinath, 2005). The anticategorical approach is an expansion

from how intersectionality is most often applied in social work in that it moves away from discrete

categories of difference and identity. Luft and Ward (2009) pointed to the potential of ‘‘queer-

inflected intersectionality’’ that articulates the social and historical construction of all social identi-

ties while continuing to engage with the material consequences of inequality. As a theoretical tool

for critically thinking about the multiplicity in women’s lives, this approach can promote an under-

standing of the fluidity, hybridity, and contingency of oppressions and identities in varied historical

and current contexts.

Conclusion

Although U.S.-based feminists have been applying the concept of intersectionality for more than 20

years, it continues to be a challenge to articulate and operationalize this theorizing within contem-

porary feminist social work scholarship and practice in a global context. As I have argued in this

article, a continuum of intersectionality theorizing that goes beyond U.S.-based racial, class, and

gender oppressions is necessary to expand analytical and practical understanding of diverse popula-

tions of women through a broader range of paradigms that can be applied, depending on the goals

and needs of the project or practice context in which they are being applied. Including frameworks

that encompass a range of epistemological approaches to understanding social categories also has

the potential to illuminate the multiplicity in women’s lives and identities in new and complex ways.

Analytics from other theoretical traditions and disciplines, such as the queer-of-color critique (see,

e.g., Ferguson, 2003), postcolonial studies, and transnational feminisms, for example, have the

potential to contribute valuable insights into intersectional frameworks that may be used in feminist

social work.

Beyond the brief discussion presented here, there are many more questions to research so as to

further thinking about intersectionality theorizing for feminist social work scholarship. For example,

some writers have started to look at the relationship between intersectionality frameworks and both

qualitative and quantitative research methods to gain a better understanding of how these theoretical

paradigms can be applied (Bowleg, 2008; Hancock, 2007a; McCall, 2005; Prins, 2006; Shields,

2008; Simien, 2007; Warner, 2008). Chang and Culp (2002) reflected on the need to go beyond

understanding that race, class, gender, and other oppressions are interconnected and to take the next

step of imagining feminist interventions and applications of this theorizing. This next step is critical

to furthering feminist social work inquiry and practice that is truly intersectional.

426 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)

In addition, future work may examine the ways in which intersectionality frameworks are and can

be used in social work education in regard to diversity issues, globalization, feminist practice, and

social justice. As pedagogical tools, narratives from films and literature, along with critical discus-

sions, can open up deeper understandings of intersectionality in lived lives. In addition, integrating

studies into research and clinical course work that reflect intersectional theorizing and methodolo-

gies along an ‘‘epistemological continuum,’’ including postmodern and postpositivist approaches,

can provide broader perspectives on how to understand and analyze the multiplicity in women’s

experiences. Including discussions about how intersectionality plays out at the level of individual

identities, structural inequality, and discursive constructions can also help students to consider the

impacts of interlocking oppressions in more complicated, multifaceted ways.

As is true in all feminist inquiry, an exploration of diverse intersectional theorizing evokes the

constant and delicate balance between holding varied experiences and perspectives through multiple

paradigms and intentionally and strategically taking a strong political stance against social inequal-

ity. Because social justice has always been a core tenet of intersectionality theorizing, building and

drawing on epistemologically diverse intersectional frameworks must remain grounded in a commit-

ment to social change (Dill-Thornton & Zambrana, 2009; Luft & Ward, 2009). It is notable that the

discourse of intersectionality is increasingly being used in broader studies of diversity and multicul-

turalism. However, given the political potential and roots of intersectional theorizing, feminist scho-

lars must further question what the stakes are of these frameworks being applied outside feminist

contexts (Luft & Ward, 2009). I urge feminist social work scholars to continue to engage with the

ambiguity, difficulty, and potential of a range of intersectional theories to attend to the multiplicity

in women’s lives. As Williams (2006, pp. 218-219) wrote: ‘‘Social work finds itself at a moment

when there is no master theory but, instead, the space to entertain and experiment with many.’’

Hill-Collins (personal communication, 2001 as cited in Dill-Thornton & Zambrana, 2009) called for

spaces to debate and clarify meanings of social justice while allowing for a framework that is broad

enough to accommodate different positions within these discussions. I propose a similar approach to

considering a range of approaches to intersectionality theorizing that feminist scholars can ‘‘enter-

tain and experiment with.’’ Continuing to discuss what is meant by intersectionality while holding

the necessity and value of different orientations within these debates can contribute to feminist

scholarship in important ways. This dialogue and ongoing theory building are imperative if our aim

is to continue to ‘‘take the greatest care with the lenses through which we view the complexity of the

lived experiences of those we would call sister’’ (Samuels & Ross-Sheriff, 2008, p. 9).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of

this article.

Funding

During the writing of this paper, the author was funded by the Minority Fellowship Program,

Council on Social Work Education.

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Bio

Gita Mehrotra, MSW, is a doctoral student in the School of Social Work, University of Washington, 4101 15th

Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105; email: [email protected].

430 Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 25(4)