Theorising intersectionality

This section uses feminist literature to examine some current debates about

intersectionality. I draw on various scholars work such as Patricia Hill Collins (2009); Baukje Prins (2006); Nira Yuval-Davis (2006); Leslie McCall (2005); and Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) to examine what it means to practice interestionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to inequality. My discussion will first aim to clarify the differences in how scholars who have explicitly worked with the concept o f

intersectionality have employed it, and then consider how. I can apply this tool to inform my understanding o f black women’s Prison Service employees’ power relationships and interpersonal interaction.

It is worth noting that there are significant differences in how intersectionality is treated in the UK and the US. Prins defines the US intersectionality approach, referring

specifically to Crenshaw’s (1989) work as ‘systemic’, stating that ‘the meanings o f social identities are determined by racism, classism, sexism, etc., which are taken to be static and rigid systems o f domination’ (Prins, 2006, p. 281). Prins asserts that European feminist scholars take a constructionist interpretation o f intersectionality, by asserting that ‘British scholars focus on the dynamic and relational aspects o f social identity’ (2006, p. 279). This perspective relates to system-centred approaches. ‘System-centred’

infers that intersectionality shapes the entire social system and thus goes beyond looking at specific inequalities in institutions; rather, the analysis focuses on processes that are fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex.

Svstemic/structuralist approach to intersectionality

According to Crenshaw, the location of black women at the intersection of race and gender makes their experience structurally and ‘qualitatively different than that of white women’ (1991, p. 1245).

The famous phrase ‘ All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave’, depicted in the title o f an important reader by Gloria Hull et al. (1982)

encapsulates the exclusion many black women encountered in discourses about gender . and race. According to Beverley Bryan et al. (1985) black women were prominent in civil

rights movements and challenging black struggles across the world, yet their

contributions were overshadowed by black men. Bryan et al. (1985) also assert that black women’s involvement in organising feminist activism was overshadowed by white women.

This exclusion forms the basis for African-American and UK scholars’ concerted effort to challenge the unwarranted universalising o f white, middle-class women’s experience as being the ‘only’ experience (hooks, 1981), and instead introduce a new form of theorising which focusses on how lived experience of oppression cannot be separated into

2002; Brewer, 1993; Grewal et al., 1988).

An intersectionality framework provided black women with a ‘voice’ and an analytical tool to examine and theorise the way in which race and gender intersect to both construct sound location and inform experience. Hill Collins’ (1990) work illustrates, for instance, that a black woman’s experience is a result o f the intersection o f gender and race, thus these different elements form and inform each other. This is the essence o f Crenshaw’s work.

From this perspective, I do not view race and gender as multiple identities because they are not layered on top o f one another or parallel to each other; rather, they are

intersectional, formed of different elements at the same time. They are an alloy of social elements that make for a particular subject and related embodied experience. This way o f thinking turns the lens on processes occurring within race-gender subgroups and shifts their experience from the margins to the focal point (Hill Collins, 1990). From this perspective race is viewed as gendered and gender as raced.

Constructionist approach to intersectionality

European feminist scholars have challenged US feminist scholars by claiming that black

) . .

women have been used as ‘quintessential intersectional subjects’ (Nash, 2008, p. 1), as a result o f the focus being specifically on race and gender and that this has resulted in the essentialisation of one social group’s lived experience. Some European feminist scholars

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have applied intersectionality to show that social categories and their relationship with each other are problematised under the assumption that they continually and mutually constitute each other (Lutz et al., 2011; Yuval-Davis, 2006). This approach is therefore concerned with understanding the dynamic forces (Yuval-Davis, 2006; Staunaes, 2003) that affect the daily reality o f individuals.

According to Dorthe Staunaes, intersectionality is a dynamic process as categories are seen as the effect o f behaviour and are constantly constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed in the ongoing flow of interaction and institutional practice (Staunaes, 2003). The focus o f analysis therefore, is on the dynamics of identity formation in light of complex inequalities (Prins, 2006). In simple terms, this implies that one form of

oppression can be shaped by, and can shape, other forms of oppression, but it is ongoing, unstable and a contingent process.

I will now refer to scholars who have applied a constructionist approach to

intersectionality to provide an example of this perspective. Nira Yuval-Davis applies . intersectionality to investigate ‘axes’ of difference (Yuval-Davis, 2006), which involved her applying intersectionality to analyse social stratification as a whole, believing that social differences are mutually constitutive, that is, that gender, race/ethnicity and class are overlapping characteristics that modify social divisions within society, in contrast to viewing social divisions as an additive, arguing that there are many facets o f social difference and axes o f power that need to be analysed (Yuval-Davis, 2011).

In sum, what unifies the different strands of intersectionality is the idea that only by treating social categories as relational can illuminating and fruitful knowledge be produced (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Although scholars such as Prins (2006) have criticised systemic approaches to intersectionality, in arguing that it provides limited representation o f the complexities faced by individuals as a result o f the way in which categories are approached as implicitly part o f a structure of domination and marginalisation, I think that a systemic analysis o f intersectionality, the way that gender, race hierarchies and inequalities are woven into the organisational fabric of the British Prison Service, can tell us something about the complex system of domination which occurs within this

organisational space. A person is not simply oppressed or privileged but can be simultaneously privileged and oppressed by different aspects o f their identities. Thus, black women Prison Service employees are privileged by the fact that they are employees and at the same time oppressed by the fact that they are black and woman. For the

purpose of my study I am particularly interested in giving a voice to participants to understand how they perceive their peculiar occupational position, which may be dramatically different to white men/women and black men. This is an expression o f intersectionality; that is, I take into consideration the intersection o f race and gender as significant elements o f this group’s lived experience.

In the next section, I will analyse the idea of double consciousness by showing how it occurs as a result of the constant negotiations involved in the lived experience o f intersectionality. My discussion will expand the application o f intersectionality by

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relating it to the theory o f double consciousness to increase our understanding and theorise around power and subjectivity.