projec without the support of hee 7 ‘Valeie Collins, Lauren Pruitt, and the inspiration provided bby her amazing grandson Haison who was born in 2013. atcicia dedicates this. book to Harrison and hs generation. 1 What is Intersectionality? In the early eweny-first century, the txm “intersectional has best es, American a5 well as those within sociology, i other traditional disciplines, brooks, and sch them, “What is intersetionality?” we times contradictory. answers Most, however, would probably accept the following general ‘description2 What is rtersectionalty? jonaliy a8 an analytic tool ro ‘others around them face. Most . iizembip, ‘evident within higher include more college college campuses. ‘conlronted with Consider an unexpected colonial india in the work4 What is Intewectionalty? | f I | serclinecStadiy cache Simona hl rk pe Power plays: the FIFA World Cup sso ops boardog schon She alo eared for thowe affected oy | Brazil's international reputation a5 a and plague ard died in 1897 afer contacting plague foun hows nomic disadvantage’ or encompassed intersecting categories of she didn't just pick one. sugars inucestonliy bs, foro lity as an analyie “what makes an estimated a figure of U' billion in puble works ‘pending for the event. The lan presenced tthe public6 What is Intersetionaliy? tence. Beeause many 7 sporting events or play sports themsves, sports What i inersectonaliy? 7 seem distan fom inversectionalty’sconceca with social ine ual The interpersonal domain of power tions are about people’ lives, how ‘another, and who is advantaged or 1st any of a constl istered play ‘age 18, fot football players, referes, and official.8 What is intrsectionality? 6 playing fd. ow well hey pla ‘of anguish fom the losing 2014 Brazil team may have made the nevs, But few people questioned the outcome ofthe game. Fairplay ruled, What is ntersecdonaliy? 9 tory agents, and how they sre often left abandoned, alone, me refer to the treatment10 What is Incersecionality? racially derogatory language. In one bananas ara Nigerian football player. problem ~ racial example, atthe 20 8 eee-tine winner of FIFAS world playes ofthe yeat vie, lared a rule of fair play by headburting Italy’ Marco Mater sual in che chest. Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, sid the was goaded by Mateazz' racist and sexist slurs against sister. Materazzi was Kept in play. while jected from what was to be his last ever Wold ipecyone can win On thence, do some people win and other people lose? More importantly, why do some people consistently win and thers coment lose? FIFA football bas texdyeanade answers, Wi the zed vam! Boal on top of the hill and the blue team’s goa inthe ‘The red team has a clear advantage: when they tt sravity propels the ball toward their opponcatt ‘matter how gifted, cher team players need not work as to score. In contrast, the blue eam hat an uphil battle to Score a goal. The bide team members may need to be expe ially gifted to coacinue playing the yame- They may have talent and self-discipline bat they have the bad luck of playing on ated paying field Football fans would be outrag were tad im thie way. Yer dis What is ntersectonaliy? 11 class, gendes, and race do ~ we all chink we are playing on @ level playing fed wien we ae not. The culrural domain of fore fe manalace messages th plying ls ae level cha al fai, and that any resuking ave been fairly accomplished. ly can compete in the World Cup as long as they play by the rules and their teams are good enough, This isthe myth of equal opportunity to compete. When national teams compete, nations themselves compete. Yer becaure rich natioas have far mocecesources tan pi teams. ind nationalism. Compet: ing mass-media spectacles reiterate the belief that unequal outcomes of winners and loce of sporting events, beauty pageants, reality television, ad the like provide a useful incerpretive tontext for viewing the ‘marketplace relations of capitalism as being similarly organ- laed, These mass media spectacles and assoiated events also resent important scripts of gendes race, and nation that ‘work together and influence one another, The bravery of male athletes on national reams makes them akin to war heroes batefields, while the beaury, grace, and virwe of nati ‘beauty pageancs are thought to represent the beaut, 3 sand virtue ofthe nation. Mass-media spectacles may to be mere entertainment, yer they serve politcal ends, of power Fair play on a level th of fotbell yr bow mack of the organization of FIFA football ‘The structural domain of power here refers to how12 What i interectonalty? FIFA’: main sponsors, ‘The bil lso exempted companies working for FIFA kom ‘taxes and fecal charges, banned the sale of any goods in official comyesition spaces, this immediate curoundings and their principal access routes, and penalized bars who tid #9 Schedule showings of the matches or pomote certain brands, Finally the bil dened any rac on the image of FIFA or its sponsors a a federal ecime, issued indicemente ‘and others involved in FFA, bring scion al 2010 World Cup to {former FIFA executive What is Interectonal sporssmarketing business based in Argentina; and a 5 for awarding the games, she indents {Tel nae poole Ky BM foes ances Ee IFAS endorsements, At the heart of the corroptin were charges of "pay to pay” rather than fae pay. Social inequality: a new globel crisis? more than 6,000 partic Fighteeath jpants from all over the14 What i intersectionaliy? Bank of England governor the executive chairman of Google, the co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, and the CEOs of ‘UBS, GlaxoSmithKline, Dow Chemical, and Honeywell Most atendees were handpicked by wealthy philanthropist Lady de Rothschild, reports the Telegraph's Brooks Pollack uly 24 Aiscuss one ofthe “fashionable issues of 2014 ~ from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014? The ‘combined wealth ofthe words richest 85 people equals the What is inersectionalty? 15 5 compl explanations for global ezonemic inequality. foposts 2 more sophisticated map of social16 What is nersectionoty? inequality that goes beyond clss-only accounts, Both the eos ‘When cv sights aciviss ses abou they are od they ‘eed to think abou clase ae wel. Whea 1 that contemporary conf and sustain growing soc lass exploitation, racism, sexism, and ote aystems of power fosters a rethinking of the categories used to understand ‘economic inequaliry. Inerseesional frameworks reves! how race, geades, sexuality, age, ably, ard ciczenship relate ‘in complex’ and intersecting ways to produce economic inequality, ‘hit, using intersectionalityas an analytic rool highlights the signi ial insticaions ia shaping and solving social problems. Many factors contribute fo this widening but one teem paramount thers i the interes grounded ina belie that democrati institutions Sh only with a a What Interectionality? 17 consinuted treats pubic good hat were sn rom ec stat services. For example, in the United States, environmental sty and food security have long been the purview ofthe federal government in the ions should produce grater profitability for ‘which should lead to more jobs. Finally,18 What is Interecionaiy? What i intersecionaiy? 19 snd allies travelled so Brasilia, the national capital, They tactved atthe iconic National Museum of the Republic Several blocks avay ffom the refurbished bat now empty (Cap stadium, to atend the seventh meeting of Lai the Airo-Latin and Afro-Caribbean women’ fatal ages festival fe bi do (Cohen 2010; Harvey 2005), sive lis of main se Secretary of Calure the Office of Racial Equality, the Funarce Palmares Cultural Foundation and Petrobr refse to sit passively wi aching |atinidades: the black women's movement in 8razil ‘ovo weeks after the raucous fans departed from Bras 2014 World Cup spectacle, more than a thousand womea of ‘inelectuals attended. Absican descent, their fends, family member, colleague, Some sessions examined community-organizing initiatives inacts were, well represented. Conceigio Evaiso, Al ‘Baiian autho: and professor of Bean iteature,atended the festival. Her novel Poncid Vicen Afro-Brazilian woman's journey from and ‘were neither offiily recognized al discrimination nor offal reme- days of intensive workshops, talks, and sival par 'eipants spilled ouside the museum int its expansi sof music concerts, Landa ttegeres, ‘Brazil officially had neither race noe black people, Within this22 whet is ntersectionaty? colors as well a « complex and historically shifting series of terms 0 describe them. Claims of Bris racial democracy international eputation at 4 cy is closely tied to the sexual objecuifiction of women of mixed racial ances- ‘uy as the essence of Brazlianness” (Caldwell 2007; 58). For Afro-Bnulian women, those of mixed ancestry or with ‘more Exropean physical features ae typically considered to bbe more attractive. Moreover, women of visible African society ~ there was no need to advocate forthe integrity ofthe categories themselves, Yer ‘the framing of the women's movement, even around such firm subject 25 “woman,” was inflected through other What is intersectionality? 23 the frse black woman to serve in the Brazilian Congress 1986and the Senate in 1994, Feminism raised issues of gender and sualiry, bat did so in'ways that did not engage sues ‘of ansi-black racism that were so important to Afvo-Beaziian Unlike white Brazilian women, black Brazilians of ll sexes land penders had to create the eslecive politcal identity of black” in order to build an ant of how the sues faced by Back people cook gene specie forme, Lad found litle’ ecognition ofthe ‘bck women im Bra atthe24 Whats intesectionay? ac, class polis asked them to see both gender and race as secondary. Blace women face similar pressures 10 nate ther special concer under the banner of class " movements were important, and many black ‘women continued to participate in them. Yet because no fone social movement ligned in popular culeure, They were targers of violence again women, ed the means to care for black men in the black Movement, or ‘white women in the feminist movement, or socialists in What is intersectonality? 25 randing and analyzing the in human experience, diferent ues of inter mocimatorcamngeee epee peice opted lan feminist soci ‘ways throughout the book, foduce them here, derlop them throughou this text, and rerun wo them in apter 8.25 What is ntersecionalty? the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism emphasizes diferent ror Using lytic tool encourages ts t0 move inequality through race-oaly or class= Instead, intersectionality encourages understand ings of social inequality based on iterations among various cntegories ‘in other ‘worcs, people's lives and identities are generally shaped by ‘many factors in diverse and mutually infencing ways, More- oves race, cass, gender, sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, What i tersectionaly? 27 ‘ation, and religion, among mutually constructing of in ‘Within inersectional frameve constitute interlocking, ing. systems of power isn pire radom or racism and feat ain appear over and over again in ‘rewards and punishments ity shi ties, for example, the diff 1nd gender, to examining thee interconnec shift im perspective opens up intellectual andinvolve Beal, of is tional knowledge and ets in the product ‘action, even in the absence of the term "contextualize" comes from this imperue to bout social inequality, relationality, and power rela social context Using interecionaliry aan analyic hhow ditesent people can be in the same text yet hold different interpretations of Of different perspeciy What i intersecionalty? 29 licates things and can be a sousce30. What sintersectionaly? have already been achieved, For them, there is 20 global crisis of legitimacy: ‘lobal social inequsiy is the outcome of fair competion, 2 Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry and Praxis ar, too uch intersectional scholarship stars with the assumption that intersectionaliy isa finished framework that iybe applied toa given research projector political _progeam. Yet, a the cases of the FIFA World Cup, te ISA/ ‘World Conference on Incusive Capitalism, and Latinidades suggest, che se of intersectionality can take many forms. Generalizing about intesectionality based on ‘Our goal inthis bode isto democrat the rich and growing literature of inteseedonaliry ~ not to sesame that only Alican- American students will be interested in black history, orthatLGBTQ youth will be the only ones interested in queet studies or that interectionality is for any one segment of the thes, the task i co use interseetonality a8 a exanine a range of topics such as those into the following chapters, we explore various ersectionality, expecially the use of laersee: layin the academy ‘ibe good f for scholarship and teaching that wer already underway. Inthe 1990s, the term “intersetionality™ caune ‘nwo’ use both inside and outside traditional disciplines as ‘well as inside and outside th inguizy was inherently ex bodies of knowledge, cheoies, ractces, especially in relation to socal inequality. While