Global perspectives on intersectionality

Over the past several years, I have delivered a variety of publications and talks reflecting on the evolution, foundations and integration of intersectionality to help achieve positive transformational change and outcomes for communities and groups that are the least seen, least heard, and least empowered to participate in the changes that impact us the most. As such I have had the privilege of enabling more sophisticated discussions about how institutions, particularly, higher education can truly achieve their equality, inclusion and social justice aspirations. Whilst I am pleased to see institutions beginning to use the language of intersectionality, I’m engaging in disparate conversations about intersectionality across the world.

In this post, I share what I have learnt from engaging people on the topic of intersectionality across borders. I share reflections on the types of conversations I have had with various colleagues from USA, Canada, Republic of Ireland, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, India and Australia to name some. When connecting and collaborating with institutions across I’ve outlined some of the key lines of interest that I have curated from my professional conversations with colleagues across the world. These are the starting line, action line and impact line.

The starting line

Every context is starting at a different line in which they are familiar and immersed with the history and theory of intersectionality. Given intersectionality stems from Black women scholar activists in the USA (Crenshaw, Davis, hooks etc.) in the late 1980s, it has taken some time for it to pervade into various knowledge streams and institutional approaches to achieving equality and inclusion ambitions. In fact, one systematic review published in 2021, found 707 articles about intersectionality from 1989 – 2021 (Bauer et al. 2021). When broadening the search, I identified the following total search results when conducting a title search for the word intersectionality in Google Scholar, the number of search results has increased in numbers significantly since Kimberle Crenshaw published the pioneering paper ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’. Since late 1980s/early 90s, the number of publications has grown from 36 to over 24,000 in number of articles returned when searching for intersectionality in published titles

Whilst a higher quality search is required to further interrogate sources of data, it evidences the argument that the knowledge of intersectionality has taken time to reach practice and mainstream thinking. When I think about the conversations I have been having across cultures and borders, this is very much reflected in people’s knowledge of intersectionality into their institutional structures, policies, and cultures where there is an interest but little specialist guidance in understanding and application of intersectionality.

It is important when convening conversations about intersectionality across different countries and cultures, to not assume prior knowledge about what intersectionality is, where it comes from and how it can be used in practice. Intersectionality is reflective of national structures and politics and so this should be considered when contextualising intersectionality into different contexts.

Further knowledge and insight on intersectionality can be found here:

• Intersectionality, unfiltered (YouTube)
• The urgency of intersectionality

The action line

When I have delivered talks across different countries and contexts, I’m usually asked for ‘specific examples’ or ‘how to put intersectionality into action’. I’ve been privileged to be in rooms with people, communities and institutions that have explicit appetite to learn more about intersectionality and think about how to integrate it into their everyday practice and cultures. With the increase of more research, case studies, programmes and policies utilising intersectionality, there is more knowledge to be shared to support this line of inquiry.

Example of some current practice are noted below:

• Intersectionality in Practice
• ‘Doing’ or ‘using’ intersectionality? Opportunities and challenges in incorporating intersectionality into knowledge translation theory and practice
• UN Women Intersectionality Resource Guide and Toolkit

The impact line

Across most of my talks there was a particular interest in better understanding how to evaluate, monitor and measure impact using intersectionality as a framework and theory for change. A clearer view of how to measure intersectionality through process and impact evaluation and measurement was often asked about. In particular, there was further interest in knowing how to work with the most marginalised communities to co-create change and transformation that would have a wider positive effect on society. In putting intersectionality into practice, there is a need to measure how it is being integrated and the impact. Using sophisticated implementation outcomes, evaluation methods and scale-up strategies can ensure any intersectional initiative maximises it’s chance of success.

Some emerging literature on measuring impact with intersectionality can be found here:

• Using multilevel models to address intersectionality in program evaluation
• Transformative evaluation through the lens of intersectionality theory
• Seeing and Overcoming the Complexities of Intersectionality
• Anticipating social differentiation and unintended consequences in scaling initiatives using GenderUp, a method to support responsible scaling
• Benefits and Challenges of Addressing Cultural Intersectionality for Program Development and Evaluation
• Critical reflections on the concept and impact of “scaling up” in Global Mental Health