Catalytic Slippages: Removing the Borders From Intersectionality in Qualitative Methodology

• In Event: “Between Shadow and Substance”: Examining What It Means to Move Toward Collective Freedom Through Methodologies

Abstract

Objective. This paper interrogates the intersecting social categories of race, gender, and social class as they function across different spatiotemporal contexts from a Transnational Black Feminist perspective. To do so, this paper draws on qualitative data collected in an ongoing research project on the experiences of Black immigrant and transnational women educators. The goal is to illuminate the complexity of social categories and resulting identities, and the need for deep contextualization in intersectional qualitative methodology.

Theoretical Framework. Intersectional approaches to qualitative research (Esposito & Evans Winters, 2021; Rodriguez, 2018) highlight the need to attend to complex interplay of power structures, as well as the social relations and categories they produce in qualitative research. Considering intersectionality theory and its roots in U.S. legal studies (Crenshaw, 1995), critics and scholars of intersectionality theory have pointed to the complexity of operationalizing the analytical frame in research. For example, analyses of the intersections of class, gender, race, and other social categories often times treat these categories as taken for granted units of analysis, rather than as complicated, contextualized social constructs, (e.g. see McCall, 2005).

Data and Methodology. This paper centers data from three Black immigrant women educators, who have been participating in an ongoing study on the experiences of Black women educators since January 2023. The data for this study stems from individual interviews and sister circles (Howard-West, 2020) that focus on Black Transnational Feminist (Author, 2022) themes, such as immigration stories, daughtering/mothering/granddaughtering, and intersectional approaches to knowledge production across borders. This study is part of a larger effort to illustrate the complexity of knowledge produced by Black immigrant women educators as they bring to the table rich cultural repertoires and experiences, but also experience marginalization, isolation, and the need to remake community in their respective settings.

Substantiated Conclusions. Research shows the importance of considering racialization among Black immigrants is an ongoing, fluid process (Ibrahim, 2017; Author, 2017). Rubin et al. (2014) argue that self-definition should be included as a measure to describe social class alongside other measures. The preliminary findings of this research project show that self-definitions of social class status are inextricably linked with gendered, raced, and migration experiences, varying greatly by the context in which they are described (e.g., parental education, access to resources compared to others). While participants in this study displayed nuanced and deep understandings of their racialized experiences, discussions of social class vis-a-vis racialization were often less pronounced, or described as a category they had not previously thought about. Also, while social class may operate similarly across different societies, the nuances are oftentimes lost and do not translate across cultural repertoires.

Scholarly Significance. Intersectionality in qualitative inquiry illuminates the nuances of lived experiences within contemporary societies. However, this work requires careful examination of both the power structures and social categories to be deconstructed for it to be mobilized for the purposes of liberation through building intimacies (Nash, 2018) and understanding.

Author

• Tanja Burkhard, Georgia State University