Impossible Intersectionality? French Feminists and the Struggle for Inclusion

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The history of the origins of the concept of intersectionality is deeply embedded in the U.S. context. The intertwined histories of the American women's movements and American race relations as well as the conjunction of several theoretical strands, such as the philosophical critique of the modern subject, poststructuralism, the critique from feminists of color, and critical legal studies, have marked the genesis and the operationalization of the concept of intersectionality in American feminist studies (Ackerly and McDermott 2011, Dhamoon 2011). This legacy has given the concept of intersectionality particular analytical contents, preferred objects of inquiry, and methodologies as well as specific political aims (McCall 2005). Kimberlé Crenshaw's initial formulation of intersectionality exemplifies this U.S. genealogy since it represents a joint analytical and political effort, embedded in critical legal studies and black feminist theory, to identify and promote the political identity of African-American women or, as she writes, to “demarginalize” their political interests and to critique single axis approaches to inequality and discrimination (Crenshaw 1991). By doing so, the concept of intersectionality not only makes visible the categories and groups that were marginalized in theory and political practice, but also articulates a new set of political interests and, to a certain extent, contributes to construct and to represent intersectional identities.