Organizing Intersectionality: Bounded Emotionality and Organization of Possibility and Change

• In Event: This is What Democracy Looks Like? Intersectional Critiques/Critiques of Intersectionality at the Women’s March

Abstract

While critics have addressed the successes and failures of organizers’ focus on intersectionality at The Women’s March on Washington, few emphasize individual experiences of intersectionality as an organizing principle. Using Mumby and Putnam’s (1992) “Bounded Emotionality” as a feminist critique of organizational rationalities, we reframe supposed “failures” of the March’s intersectional potential as a reflection of masculine organizational norms, and locate the potential of “organized intersectionality” in the experience of tensions, connections, and commitment to social change. The analysis is grounded in six autoethnographic accounts (from diverse gender, sexuality, and racial identifications,) and 30 interviews conducted at the march.

Presenters

• Jennifer Mease, James Madison University

• Eliana Huffman, Gender and Work Research Collective

• Olivia Stephens, James Madison University