Intersectionality as Analytic Sensibility and Movement Studies

• In Event: 325 - Regular Session. Social Movements III

Abstract

In this paper, I suggest that an intersectional analytical sensibility offers a great deal to those doing movement studies. I answer in turn the following sets of questions: 1) what does “intersectionality” mean? What aspects of realty is it meant to capture? 2) where did it come from as a concept – what is its history? 3) what kinds of issues remain unresolved in intersectionality studies? 4) what does intersectionality make possible for movement scholars, and how does it combine with other methods for studying movements? I answer this last question by exploring what an intersectional perspective has helped me to achieve in my own multiple-method work on a forthcoming book The Life and Death of ACT UP/LA: Anti-AIDS Activism in Los Angeles from the 1980s to the 2000s. I conclude that an intersectional sensibility can fruitfully combine with other methods that movement scholars use, and thus add to the strength of our analyses.

Author

• Benita Roth, Binghamton University