The Importance Of Intersectionality

INTERSECTIONALITY IN PRACTICE

According to Valentine (2007), feminist geography studies tend to look at intersectional types of issues which limit their analyses to the relationship between particular identities such as class or gender rather than addressing the full implications of the above theorisation of intersectionality (Valentine 2007, 14). The reason behind narrowing the scope of empirical work is due to the complexity of intersectionality itself. Valentine further argued that researching on intersectionality has the tendency to collapse back to focusing on the non-privilege groups rather than how privileged identities are done and undone. Moreover, when research on intersectionality are done in practicality, and due to certain limitation,

With the use of an intersectionality approach, researchers in human feminist geography can locate the points of intersection, the dynamic processes, and its complexity in what constitutes and interacts rather than focusing on categories that are confined within certain identity. Moreover, Valentine (2007) and Crenshaw (1991) has also stressed the importance of how the concept intersectionality needs to be improved so that it can encompass the diverse social and cultural understanding of each axis. Moreover, when conducting research on intersectionality, one cannot assume that one single axis or variable in social categories is more significant in understanding individual’s experiences. Alternatively, it should be understood that intersectionality conceptualises the multifaceted layers of social identities as interacting with and co-constituting one another to create unique social identities that vary according to time and place (Hankivsky 2014,

This is so because intersectionality theory has highlighted the need to consider other multiple axes of social categories such as age, gender, ability, class, and so on when doing feminist studies as these social categories can serve in producing the lived experiences of an individual. Moreover, intersectionality in feminist geography calls for a reengagement with questions of structural inequalities and power (Valentine 2007, 19). Considering that intersectionality is not primarily about identities, Crenshaw (1991) stresses that intersectionality is about how structures make certain identities, the consequence of the vehicle for vulnerability. Therefore, it is crucial for human feminist geographers to be able to see the context of the discrimination as in what kind of discrimination is at play, what are the policies, the institutional structures that play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some others and not