“Critical theory” is an umbrella category that encompasses many different critical social theories including critical race theory, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and queer theory. “Intersectionality” is most commonly associated with critical race theory since the term itself was coined by critical race theorists Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. As Crenshaw envisioned it, intersectionality was lens through which critical race theorists could come to see the way in which racism interacted with sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression. In her book Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, sociologist and feminist Patricia Hill Collins asks whether intersectionality can itself be viewed as a critical social theory.
Collins lists four “Guiding premises” of intersectionality:
“Intersectionality’s Paradigmatic Ideas.. Guiding Premises[:] (1) Race, class, gender, and similar systems of power are interdependent and mutually construct one another. (2) Intersecting power relations produce complex, interdependent social inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and age. (3) The social location of individuals and groups within intersecting power relations shapes their experiences within and perspectives on the social world. (4) Solving social problems within a given local, regional, national, or global context requires intersectional analyses.” (p. 44)
Intersectionality as Resistance
At the outset, Collins makes it clear that intersectionality is concerned with achieving social justice. Like critical social theory in general, intersectionality is a “knowledge project of resistance” (p. 10) that aims to expose the ways in which systems, structure, and ideologies marginalize certain groups of people:
“intersectionality itself can be seen as a knowledge project of resistance, one in which critical analysis underpins its intellectual resistance… critical social theory is a particular form of intellectual resistance.” (p. 10)
“At its heart, intersectionality is a set of ideas that is critical of the established social world” (p. 53)
“viewing intersectionality as a resistant knowledge project highlights the political dimensions of knowledge. Just as critical race theory as a resistant knowledge project aspires to resist racism, intersectionality as a knowledge projects may aspire to resist the social inequalities within intersecting systems of power.” (p. 96)
Intersectionality and Interlocking Oppressions
While Collins names several critical social theories, like critical race theory and postcolonialism, throughout the book, she recognizes that intersectionality is particularly concerned with how various oppressions interact and reinforce one another. Thus, intersectionality does not aim to only dismantle racism, or sexism, or capitalism, but is rather focused on seeing how oppressive systems are mutually reinforcing.
“Gender, race, ethnicity, nation, sexuality, ability, and age… reference important knowledge traditions among subordinated peoples who oppose the social inequalities and social injustices that they experience. Such projects aim to address the deep-seated concerns of people who are subordinated within domestic and global expressions or racism, sexism, capitalism, colonialism, and similar systems of political domination and economic exploitation. Whatever the form of oppression they experience –race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, ethnicity, and nation– subordinated groups have a vested interest in resisting it.” (p. 10)
“racism, sexism, class exploitation, and similar oppressions may mutually construct one another” (p. 46)
“critical theorizing for intersectionality rests on dialogical engagement with and among various knowledge projects. The boundaries among critical race theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory, for example, are blurred, with intellectuals who cross boundaries using ideas from many areas to inform their work.” (p. 119)
Intersectionality and Epistemology
A key component of intersectionality is its epistemology, that is, its understanding of how we know truth. Like a critical social theories, intersectionality is skeptical of claims about “objective truth,” and views them as manifestations of prevailing discourses that prop up the dominant class, whether Whites, men, the rich, heterosexuals, etc. To overturn oppressive systems, these narratives and the “knowledges” that support them must be attacked and subverted.
“epistemic resistance is vital to opposing racism, sexism, class exploitation, and similar social phenomena… epistemologies exercise power in regulating social theories. Epistemology is implicated in power relations; it is not a passive bystander during the social construction of knowledge.” (p. 11)
“Feminist philosophers criticizing the categorical logic of binary thinking, narratives of evolutionary progress, and Western taxonomies of the Great Chain of Being as socially constructed ideas that naturalized and normalized hierarchies. Significantly, their emphasis on standpoint epistemology and power relations provided an important foundations for contemporary analyses of epistemology and of social justice” (p 100)
“Like critical race theory and feminist theory, postcolonial theory assumes a critical posture toward dominant knowledge, in this case, colonial knowledge” (p. 110)
Intersectionality and Lived Experience
One of the main ways that intersectionality subverts dominant narratives is through appeals to lived experience. Because our social location shapes our access to knowledge, the status of marginalized groups gives them unique insight into reality, which must be valorized to dismantle oppressive mainstream narratives.
“Identity politics and standpoint epistemology constitute two important dimensions of epistemic resistance for subordinated groups. Identity politics valorizes the experiences of women, people of color, poor people, LGBTQ people, and similarly subordinated people as a source of epistemic agency. By claiming the authority of experience, standpoint epistemology defend the integrity of individuals and groups in interpreting their own experiences.” (p. 136)
“These resistant knowledge projects [organized by people who experience domination] concerning race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, ethnicity, and nation typically identify resisting oppression, domination, or social injustice as central to their critical engagement.” (p. 146)
“Tools of epistemic resistance used by subordinated people –namely, testimonial authority, identity politics, and standpoint epistemology– all rest on implicit assumptions about the utility of experience for producing knowledge.” (p. 157)
Summary
The term intersectionality was coined by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 but has expanded significantly over the last 30 years. Throughout her book, Collins asks whether intersectionality can now be seen as a critical social theory in its own right. I think a more accurate assessment is that intersectionality is instead the overarching framework that has fused various critical social theories into a single, coherent view of reality. If critical race theory, queer theory, and postcolonialism had ever once been entirely distinct disciplines, they certainly are no longer.
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