Intersectionality and Feminist Politics

Citation:

Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. "Intersectionality and Feminist Politics." European Journal of Women's Studies 13 (3): 193-209. doi: 10.1177/1350506806065752

Author: Nira Yuval-Davis

Abstract:

This article explores various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions. It compares the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism. It examines issues such as the relative helpfulness of additive or mutually constitutive models of intersectional social divisions; the different analytical levels at which social divisions need to be studied, their ontological base and their relations to each other. The final section of the article attempts critically to assess a specific intersectional methodological approach for engaging in aid and human rights work in the South.

Keywords: identity politics, intersectionality, social divisions, social positionings

Topics: Class, Ethnicity, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, International Law, International Human Rights, Race, Rights, Human Rights

Year: 2006