Raum 1.801 (Renate-von-Metzler Saal)
Feminist scholars have increasingly expressed their worries about the depoliticization of intersectionality since it has travelled from its point of origin in US Black feminist theory to the shores of Europe. They have argued that the subject for which the theory was intended has been displaced, that Black feminists have been excluded from the discussion, and that white European feminists have usurped all the credit for intersectionality as theory. Intersectionality has been transformed into a product of the neoliberal academy rather than the helpmeet for social justice it was meant to be. In my lecture, I explore three of the bones of contention in these debates about intersectionality and its travels. I argue that they rest on notions of ownership that, while understandable, are untenable and, ultimately, counterproductive. A case will be made for taking a less proprietary stance toward critical theories and instead treating the travels of intersectionality as an occasion for dialogue rather than a contest over ownership.
... is senior research fellow in the Sociology Department at the VU University in the Netherlands. She is the author of Reshaping the Female Body (1995), Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences (2003), The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves: How Feminism Travels Across Borders (2007) and Dancing Tango: Passionate Encounters in a Globalizing World (2015).
