Intersectionality

Race, Migration & Demography

by Patricia Hill Collins, Sirma Bilge

The concept of intersectionality has become a hot topic in academic and activist circles alike. But what exactly does it mean, and why has it emerged as such a vital lens through which to explore how social inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability and ethnicity shape one another? In this new book Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge provide a much-needed, introduction to the field of intersectional knowledge and praxis. They analyze the emergence, growth and contours of the concept and show how intersectional frameworks speak to topics as diverse as human rights, neoliberalism, identity politics, immigration, hip hop, global social protest, diversity, digital media, Black feminism in Brazil, violence and World Cup soccer. Accessibly written and drawing on a plethora of lively examples to illustrate its arguments, the book highlights intersectionality's potential for understanding inequality and bringing about social justice oriented change. Intersectionality will be an invaluable resource for anyone grappling with the main ideas, debates and new directions in this field.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sociology, Race, Theory, Philosophy, Politics

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Patricia Hill Collins (born May 1, 1948) is currently a Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and the past President of the American Sociological Association Council.

Collins' work primarily concerns issues involving feminism and gender within the African-American community. She first came to national attention for her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, originally published in 1990.

Collins was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1948. The only daughter of a factory worker and a secretary, Collins attended the Philadelphia public schools.

After obtaining her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University in 1969, she continued on to earn a Master of Arts Degree in Teaching from Harvard University in 1970. From 1970 to 1976, she was a teacher and curriculum specialist at St Joseph Community School, among two others, in Boston. She continued on to become the Director of the Africana Center at Tufts University until 1980, after which she completed her doctorate in sociology back at Brandeis in 1984.

While earning her PhD, Collins worked as an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati beginning in 1982. In 1990, Collins published her first book, "Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment". A revised tenth anniversary edition of the book was published in 2000, and subsequently translated into Korean in 2009.
While working at Tufts, she married Roger L. Collins in the year 1977, a professor of education at the University of Cincinnati, with whom she has one daughter, Valerie L. Collins.

In 1990, Collins was the recipient of the prestigious C. Wright Mills Award. She was later awarded the Jessie Bernard Award by the American Sociological Association in 1993. For her book Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism (Routledge, 2005), she was presented the American Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarly Book Award in 2007.

Collins is recognized as a social theorist, drawing from many intellectual traditions; her more than 40 articles and essays have been published in a wide range of fields, including philosophy, history, psychology, and most notably sociology. Moreover, Collins was the recipient of a Sydney Spivack Dissertation Support Award.

The University of Cincinnati named Collins The Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology in 1996, making her the first ever African-American, and only the second woman, to hold this position. She received emeritus status in the Spring of 2005, and became a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. The University of Maryland named Collins a Distinguished University Professor in 2006.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s often a real blow to our academic egos when we realise that we’ve engaged with an area where theory follows a long way after practice, yet in recent years we’ve seen an increasingly widespread use of the term ‘intersectionality’ across academic, activist, policy and related areas, often used in a narrow and simplistic way. More often, the term gets invoked with an academic genealogy that sees the practice ‘invented’ by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1991, when she did what academics so often do and named a social practice with the suggestion of ‘invention’ imposed on her by later writers. This excellent introduction to the concept and the practice of intersectionality falls into none of those traps, locating it in both analysis and praxis, and providing a genealogy that looks back to the late 1960s to the emergence of the critique from the gaps in and around social movement activism.

Collins and Bilge manage a challenging balance throughout the text, presenting intersectionality as the outcome and basis of both analysis and action, recognising the ways that the dialogue between the two is essential for any kind of work to have a meaningful effect and to stay alive and current. More to the point, this emphasis on critical enquiry and praxis allows them to explore the range of workers, thinkers and analysts in domains framed and formed by intersectionality, as well as the many and varied forms it might take.

They achieve this balance in two ways. First, through casting intersectionality as encapsulating six aspects: social inequality, power, relationality, social context, complexity and social justice. In doing so they make clear that others may invoke different approaches but for them the social justice question is essential. This means that they are also interested in and deploy an approach to power that calls on four distinct but inter-related domains of power: the interpersonal, the disciplinary, the cultural and the structural. In addition, and woven through has been a concern with state forms and ideologies – participatory democracy, neo-liberalism and so forth – as mechanisms that shape policy, practice and social interaction.

The second basis of the balance is in the ways the issues are explored and discussed. Aside from conceptual aspects of definitions, inquiry and praxis where there is more extensive abstraction from evidence, all of the subsequent discussions of global dispersion, identity, social protest and education have a heavy emphasis on examples and evidence. Even the initial definition (leading to the six aspects above) is based substantially in three examples – Men’s World Cup Football, discussions of economic inequality (the image of the IMF’s Christine Lagarde citing Marx to an audience of Bill Clinton, Prince Charles and a gaggle of CEOs is delightful) and Afro-Brazilian women’s activism. It is this grounding in examples of activism, academic analysis and cultural practice that brings the exploration of the concept to life and makes it accessible. For instance, the discussion of identity opens with a consideration of hip hop’s many forms, while that of globalisation and social movements includes a discussion of the global anti-sweatshop movement in the wake of the death of at least 1129 clothing workers in a factory collapse at Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2013. Alongside this discussion, they explore the deployment of power in neo-liberal outlooks that reduces the social justice programme of intersectionality to the representational discourse of diversity that resists structural change.

All this means that this is an excellent introductory text accessible and useful for analysts and activists, be they students, their teachers or beyond the academy. Collins and Bilge do not grant any leadership status to academics but recognise the relative independence of inquiry and praxis as well as their dialogic inter-linking leading to mutual significance and development. Throughout the text I found myself reflecting back on activist movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s with repeated clashes and tensions between the simplicities of analyses based in class, gender, race and the like and the complexities of conceptualising the self in those struggles. I recall this as a problem was especially in single issue movements with a broad constituency where there emerged tensions between affinity/solidarity and identity politics and the language each of those traditions relied on. These kinds of cases, and they continue as factors in activist settings, are signs of intersectionality as praxis running ahead of intersectionality as inquiry, where the language and practice of the struggle runs ahead of the language of theory and concept. Collins and Bilge’s deployment of cases and evidence from specific conditions, issues and circumstances allows us as readers to begin to bridge that theory/practice, identity/affinity gap and build a basis for analyses and action that takes account of the complexity of experience in building struggles for social justice.

All of this set of concerns comes together in a text that explores these issues, remains open with a clear sense that these circumstances will change and develop as conditions and struggle develop and crucially building a case that intersectionality as a mode and frame of analysis must resist attempts to solidify it into a single model and must remain continually reflexive.

This then is an essential state of the art text, aware of its own limitations while developing multiple modes and means of access into ways of thinking and doing that will continue on its own path. It comes with the highest of recommendations.

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collins and Bilge present the topic of Intersectionality, which is the interconnectedness of race, class, and gender as it applies to individuals and groups. It is a person's holistic multi-faceted identity. The term is attributed to Kimberle Crenshaw who first coined the term in 1989; however, it was not a new concept at that time. Collins and Bilge utilize several examples of using intersectionality as a tool to explore and understand social inequality through inquiry and praxis. The authors also give voice to those that contest the concept. To put the concept into practicable terms, consider an African-American lesbian woman. Through the lens of intersectionality, they would identify as the collective person rather than as just an African-American, or just as a lesbian, or just as a woman.

The authors also explore feminist movements, such as the Combahee River Collective through the lens of intersectionality and its effects on modern movements like Hip Hop and our digital world.

This is a good, comprehensive book that can be dry and dense at times and engaging at other moments. Worth reading and discussing.

[Kat V · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good so far but hate the use of “differently abled” people. Disabled is not a bad word. This isn’t bad but I have a sociology degree and I’m not learning much here. The second edition is surprisingly recent (2020). 3.2 stars

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social movements historically are single issue oriented, and unless movements connect together somehow, important voices will be lost, suppressed or denied. The feminist movement helped white women and the Black Power movement helped Black men, but if you were both female and Black, you were two times out of luck. And if you were the super cool Audrey Lorde, Black, female and lesbian, you were now either triple ignored or a triple threat – What movement would speak for powerful realized women who happened to also be Black or gay, or both? Intersectionality takes off in the 1990’s after Kimberle Crenshaw coins the term in 1989. Justice and level playing fields always look better at first glance; in sports, people don’t realize most countries can’t afford to create and sustain a great sports team. But luckily the book says, “intersectionality embraces complexity” so here it is talking about FIFA for a few pages. Intersectionality offers “a framework for explaining how social divisions of race, gender, age, and citizenship status, among others, positions people differently in the world, especially in relation to global social inequality.” Zillah Eisenstein says Capital is intersectional as well. Social Inequality, Power, Relationality (rejecting binary either/or thinking), Social Context, Complexity, and Social Justice are all covered as core ideas of intersectional frameworks. Dill (2009) artfully says, “intersectionality is the intellectual core of diversity work.” It’s important to say that intersectionality can work for both sides and can also be used to “criticize democratic inclusion” or “justify social inequality” as when white supremacist literature lumps all groups to be hated together as the real reason for the decline of the American redneck (the Ozarkasaurus).

“Intersectional frameworks” must be used to grapple with the “interlocking forms of oppression”. “The ideas in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights invoke understandings of intersectionality that promote social justice initiatives.” For intersectionality shaping anti-violence initiatives, look at One Billion Rising for Justice. Black girls in school are 6x more likely to be suspended than white girls and Black boys in school are 3x more likely than white boys. If you are gay and of color, you are said to exist in a “dangerous intersection” of racism and sexism. Violence is the common thread that “connects racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and nationalism.” One studies how these separate systems interconnect and be mutually-supporting. Yunus started the Grameen Bank because he had seen in villages how loansharking kept the poor people poor. It was not about eliminating poverty but was about mutual aid – organized poor people funding each other. “They go to the rich, I go to the poor, they go to the men, I go to the women, they go to the city center: I go to the remote villages.”

Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) was written well before the Crenshaw, yet it “can also be read as a core text for intersectionality”. Frances Beal (1969) critiques patriarchy in the Black Power movement and racism with the women’s liberation movement while also attacking capitalism. Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” is “a benchmark for intersectional sensitivities. There is no reason to center feminism on white women, Native women were resisting settlers before then, therefore contributions to intersectionality and feminism must come from all sources as white women are de-centered (Andrea Smith 2009). The UN Racism Conference in Durban was huge for taking intersectionality’s message worldwide.

My question when starting this book was whether Intersectionality can cover the whole Enchilada that MLK talked about (Racism, Capitalism and Militarism) or that plus Patriarchy, or does it is supposed to stay in a narrow role as “a feminist theory of identity”? The authors address this exact issue saying it is still a big question whether gender always must be present for it to be called intersectionality? Or does racism? I’ve noticed one cool internet group who won’t allow men join, which is named WOLF (Women’s Liberation Front), doesn’t use the term intersectionality but instead uses “overlapping systems of sadistic power”. Meanwhile, the Combahee-River-Collective exists “to combat interlocking systems of oppression. “My thought is this, intersections are by nature small areas while overlapping or interlocking systems of power are by nature larger areas, so why not focus as WOLF has, on attacking the overlapping systems of power or the CRC’s focus on “interlocking systems of oppression”? In carpentry, intersections are smaller than both overlaps and interlocking elements. Cyber-feminists reject intersectionality because it threatens white privilege. During the 2008 election there was a deep question for black women: do you vote for Black Obama who won’t do anything to stop racism, or white Hillary who won’t do anything to stop patriarchy? So much to choose from. Saying “Gay is the new Black” buys into the post-race myth by implying racism is gone. In 2012, as part of the governments ongoing Atomization by Design Program, it became a federal crime to protest “near government buildings, political conventions, and global summits unless you are in a “free speech zone” enjoying the pleasures of both chain link fencing and the aroma of week old urine on the hot asphalt. This book shows how people’s lives are not shaped “by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class but by many axes that work together and influence each other.”

To read this book, you will want to be able to use both Praxis and Heuristic in a sentence – otherwise to get by, first read Friere, or assume praxis means reflection plus action, or pretend praxis just means “practice” and read away. Second, this is an academic book with lots of dry words being repeated: Intersectionality gets constantly repeated of course but the use of “praxis” can be over the top – on page 192 for example, the authors shoehorn the word “praxis” onto the page no less than eleven times. All in all, a very useful academic book on a subject all Progressives and Radicals must understand in order to use intersectionality successfully as a tool.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ganhei este livro de presente de aniversário do Nicolas e estava interessado na leitura dele porque queria usar as teorias de interseccionalidades em um artigo. Mas na verdade este livro não é exatamente um livro teórico. É um livro muito bom sobre interseccionalidades, sim, mas não para quem busca conceitos, aplicações e discussões de teorias. Ele é um livro para entender as interseccionalidades na prática, de que forma elas são aplicadas ao redor do mundo e de diferentes formas. Patricia Hill Collins e Silma Birge trazem exemplos do futebol, das mulheres negras brasileiras, de diferentes aplicações da interseccionalidade situando ela como iniciada por Kimberlé Crenshaw. Para nós, brasileiros, o legal é que muitos dos exemplos utilizados vem do nosso próprio país, então a conversa segue mais fluida do que com aqueles livros feministas que só levam em conta a existência do Norte Global do mundo. Mas, infelizmente, a teoria que eu queria eu não encontrei...

[i. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this alongside Hancock's Intersectionality: An Intellectual History. In Intersectionality, Hill Collins and Bilge attempt to outline intersectionality, its intellectual history, its uses, its critiques, and its utility as an analytic frame and form of critical praxis. In doing so, Hill Collins and Bilge offer critical examinations of intersectionality as it has been commonly constructed, critiques of intersectionality, and asks the question: how does intersectionality move forward, as it has become so widespread and widely-critiqued for supposed weaknesses?

Much like Hancock, Hill Collins and Bilge seek to outline a history of intersectionality and intersectionality-like thought. The two texts have much overlap, but both also offer much unique, fundamental contributions to the study of intersectionality and intersectionality-like thought. Hill Collins and Bilge, much more than Hancock, take an internationalist/transnationalist lens in examining intersectionality as an analytical frame and praxis. Case studies and comparisons are very important in this monograph in offering an understanding of what intersectionality is, what its critiques are, how it has been used, and how it has been developed; for example, the introduction itself begins with two case studies, the FIFA World Cup and Afro-Brazillian women's organizing. This transnational, comparative, and multidisciplinary frame is important in recognizing Hill Collins and Bilge's conception of intersectionality as a modality of thought and praxis, one that can be taken up differentially by different intellectual histories and disciplines.

The critiques of intersectionality that Hill Collins and Bilge deftly outline and counter-argue are also reflective of a transnational, multidisciplinary, comparative approach to intersectionality. While the main critique that Hancock examines is Puar's critique that intersectionality focuses too much on blac women, the critiques that Hill Collins and Bilge take up are from Marxists and postmodernists, on one hand -- who claim that intersectionality and the focus on identity centralize identity over collectivity, despite intersectionality-like thought's deep history in anti-capitalist praxis and analysis -- and on the other, white women cyberfeminists -- who argue a form of "reverse-marginalization" because intersectionality is "elitist." The approach of multiplicity and multidisciplinarity that Hill Collins and Bilge takes creates a take on intersectionality and its uses, histories, and malcontents, that is fundamental to understanding intersectionality in all its complexities.

Much like with Hancock, I still am left with questions after reading Hill Collins and Bilge's work, questions around coalition, visibility, and the importance of recognizing positionality. Again, these are questions whose answers may lie in a closer reading of the text, and questions that I do not yet have answers to. Regardless, I believe this text is central to my own intellectual development as a scholar who uses intersectional-like thought as a central analytic in my work, owes much to intersectionality, but is also critical of aspects of intersectionality as it has been utilized.

[Thaís Brito · Rating 5 out of 5]

li para a dissertação do mestrado, mas sobre todas as leituras sobre interseccionalidade é disparada a melhor! muito clara, muito crítica sobre o conceito e inspirou a trazer um lado mais prático para a construção da dissertação

[Anthony Salazar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great introductory resource for intersectionality, though not a great scholarly resource.

[Maddie Hays · Rating 3 out of 5]

history paper moment

[Juulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for uni but definitely want to pick up similar books in my free time. it’s this kind of work that makes me want to get a degree in gender studies instead of just minoring in it.

[Jolie Chaelen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I need to read to this 6 more times to fully grasp all of the information that was presented. Otherwise, I feel that this was a great foundation to understanding intersectionality and expanding one’s mindfulness on the subject and society as a whole.

[Steven Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intersectionality, by Collins and Bilge

Just finished this introduction to the study and the doing of intersectionality, ie, the way things are interwoven, overlapping, interrelated.

As someone who thinks about religion, I immediately thought of the embeddedness of religion. Using the analogy of “religion” being the bricked footpath upon which we walk (that would make a good poem!), the diverse bricks are like the diversity within religions and the people who practice them.

Intersectionality highlights just how complex is the bricked pattern embedded in our cultural world’s footpaths, the routes we travel every day, even if we don’t always notice the plurality and diversity of bricks. Not all the bricks fit neatly into one category. Sure, some are red and some are brown, but also some are chipped and some are not, some are stamped while others are not, some are whole bricks and some are half bricks, some are smooth and some are rough, some have a glossy sheen and others are flat, and all these parameters may overlap within any one brick.

Similarly, a person may be Christian or Muslim or Hindu or atheist, may be liberal or conservative (or anywhere in between), may be male or female (or other), White or Black or Brown or other, native or immigrant or in between. And in addition to being anywhere on any of those spectra, each spectum’s axis may overlap or intersect with others.

Not being a book about religion, per se, however, “Intersectionality” uses other examples of how a single lens is not useful to view the path of bricks. For example, the book uses the example of social movements such as the antiracism movement, feminism, and workers unions. Here is an excerpt:

“Ordinary people can draw upon intersectionality as an analytic tool when they recognize that they need better frameworks to grapple with the complex discriminations that they face. In the 1960s and 1970s, African-American women activists confronted the puzzle of how their needs simply fell through the cracks of anti-racist social movements, feminism, and unions organizing for workers' rights. Each of these social movements elevated one category of analysis and action above others, for example, race within the civil rights movement, or gender within feminism or class within the union movement. Because African-American women were simultaneously black and female and workers, these single-focus lenses on social inequality left little space to address the complex social problems that they face. Black women's specific issues remained subordinated within each movement because no social movement by itself would, nor could, address the entirety of discriminations they faced. Black women's use of intersectionality as an analytic tool emerged in response to these challenges.” (page 2)

Black, feminist, union workers (and those thinking about them) are not of course the only ones to use intersectionality as a tool to understand the complex interrelatedness of multiple identities. Other groups include colleges:

“Most US colleges and universities, for example, face the challenge of building more inclusive and fair campus communities. The social divisions of class, race, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, sexuality, and ability are especially evident within higher education. Colleges and universities now include more college students who formerly had no way to pay for college (class), or students who historically faced discriminatory barriers to enrollment (race, gender, ethnicity or citizenship status, religion), or students who experience distinctive barriers and discrimination (sexuality and ability) on college campuses. Colleges and universities find themselves confronted with students who want fairness, yet who bring very different experiences and needs to campus. Initially, colleges recruited and served groups one at a time, offering, for example, special programs for African Americans, Latinos, women, gays and lesbians, veterans, returning students, and persons with disabilities. As the list grew, it became clearer that this one-at-a-time approach not only was slow, but that most students fit into more than one category. First-generation college students could include Latinos, women, poor whites, returning veterans, grandparents, and transgender individuals. In this context, intersectionality can be a useful analytic tool for thinking about and developing strategies to achieve campus equity.” (page 1)

And there are many, many other examples.

Categories like race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and age are not discrete and mutually exclusive identities, but rather build on each other and work together. Intersectionality is a useful analytical tool to better understand these social complexities that are all too often oversimplified into artificial binaries.

They also discuss the way intersectionality is related to cultural violence. One of many such examples they give is that of immigrants, whose “depictions can range from … ‘bogus refugees, queue-jumpers’ to the downright hostile belief that ‘they are criminals.’ This depiction posits asylum seekers as a security threat, a representation *that makes their detention acceptable*” (156, my emphasis). According to Galtung, this is precisely what cultural violence does, it makes the subsequent structural violence, such as zero-tolerance detention policies and facilities within the “punishment industry” (148), seem acceptable, and this leads to direct violence, such as the separation of children from families, the El Paso shooting, etc.

On a positive note, Muhammad Yunus is one of the best examples they give of direct, structural, and cultural peace. Yunus was a Nobel-prize-winning economist whose work with the poor and whose scholarship advances a new way of conceptualizing and remedying poverty, with potential implications for intersectionality. Yunus is known for creating the idea of microcredit, giving tiny loans to poor people, as a way of helping them.

By thinking outside of the box, by discarding preconceived assumptions about simple binary divisions, and about oversimplicfications about the behavior of poor people, he was able to effect:

- Direct peace (the financial/vital advancement of the poor in rural Bangladesh), which resulted from
- Structural peace (his microcredit system), which resulted from
- Cultural peace (Yunus’s disruption of the prevailing notions and assumptions about the behaviors of the poor) (55-60).

He took what Martha Nussbaum would call a “capabilities” approach, what Collins and Bilge call giving not only “the right [but also the] access” to peace, be it voting (29), education (180), or loans (55-60), for which he was appropriately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really thoughtful, thorough book. Intersectionality is a concept that many like to evoke, but Bilge and Collins take the time to explore its origins, its uses, and its issues. This book is dense, but still readable. The authors always provide helpful relevant examples of social situations in which an intersectional perpsective can provide new insight or better action. Still, sometimes the writing seems needlessly abstract. Intersectionality is a fairly simple, elegant concept. It refers to the irreducible multiplicity of individual and group identity. No one is ever just a man or woman, white or black. We are all a massive tangle of intersectional identities that are relevant or irrelevant depending on the circumstance and context. Generally, I think this book just needed a more aggressive copy editor. The book isn't particularly verbose (and I don't have much trouble with the particular verbosity of the academic feminist idiom), it just doesn't express itself as succinctly as it could at times.

This book taught me a lot and in particular, it reminded me that theorizing about society is no use without actually doing something. Intersectionality is a theory, but it also is driven by praxis. Many people have activly tried to make the legal system more accomodating for those it excludes by relying on singular concepts of identity. The book offers in depth explorations of the many ways intersectional actors are trying to change the world. Many of these battles have a steep climb to become successful, but there is hope. This text has given me a lot to think about, and I highly recommend it.

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Survey of recent academic perspectives on intersectionality. I found certain sections very useful, such as the discussion of the 'pipeline' analogy in widening access to STEM education. Mostly it was useful for moving past a superficial understanding of the concept and understanding where that concept fits in sociology and social policy more generally. Unexpectedly there was quite a lot on FIFA and football, but it's meant to be the most popular sport there is so I can't complain I guess. Also useful was the discussion of white feminism - after seeing some of the comments people have made attacking 'intersectionality' as a concept you can see how one might group their vitriolic and pro-ignorance comments with those of some Daily Mail commenters or similar. Attack the jargon because it's jargon! We are in fact the ones being oppressed because we refuse to learn about a new concept! And so on.

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(Guide to my rating system)
5☆ - A classic. Influential on a 50-year scale and/or something which I have very strong personal feelings for.
4☆ - A great book. Influential on a 10-year scale and/or something which I really enjoyed reading.
3☆ - A good book. Influential on a 1-year scale and/or something which I liked reading.
2☆ - A not-so-good book. Possibly not worth the time to read and/or something which I disliked reading.
1☆ - A near-useless book. Probably not worth the time to read and/or something which I really disliked reading.
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[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collins' book on intersectionality looks at it both as a theoretical construct and also as a means of critical analyses. At the same Collins places the history of intersectionality in a larger historiographical context.

"Seeing the social problems caused by colonialism, racism, sexism, and nationalism as interconnected provided a new vantage on the possibilities for social change. Many people came to hope for something better, imagining new possibilities for their own lives and those of others. Intersectionality draws from and carries this legacy." 1

"Critical social theory sits in a sweet spot between critical analysis and social action, with theories that can cultivate the strongest links between the two proving to be the most resilient and useful. Developing intersectionality as critical social theory involves two challenges. On the one hand, the time is right to look within the parameters of intersectionality with an eye toward clarifying its critical theoretical possibilities. On the other hand, time may be running out for advancing intersectionality as a critical social theory in the academy. If intersectionality does not clarify its own critical theoretical project, others will do so for it." 3

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not the book I wanted, though some of it was interesting. The intended audience is unclear to me. Perhaps that audience is made up primarily of academics (likely early in their careers) who work in intersectionality as an academic domain, who need to be reminded of the social activist dimensions. Intersectionality is presented largely as a way of thinking and understanding systems and is situated as the diametric opposite of neoliberalism.

The authors are very much enamored of the term “praxis.” Be prepared to encounter it several times on certain pages.

“Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways. When it comes to social inequality, people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other. Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves. “

[cypher · Rating 2 out of 5]

somehow, a book which did not say that much, just mainly promoting the field (maybe for funding, maybe for awareness).
now, i also think the name "intersectionality" is not really suitable, it's more suitable for a science about how all things affect things, beyond race and gender (and whatever the definition today actually means because it means still more than race and gender)...what this intersectionality is today should be only a branch of it.
ok, regarding this book, specifically, even if i consider what intersectionality is today, the examples in this book were very limited, to, pretty much just white vs black (race) and feminine vs masculine (gender)...not really sufficient, just some every obvious, already well researched, extensively discussed angles...this field of study should produce more than that. it does not feel like anything actually new from this special field, specifically, which is getting hyped here.
i hope extending research would not have it stay stuck in the things we already know (more about race, more races, more about gender, more genders)...others (fields) are doing, and have been doing, race and gender a lot already. i'd be curious for something actually new from intersectionality, in particular, beyond race and gender issues.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is unfair of me to rate this book, since I fundamentally disagree with its approach and key claims. It does not try to convince the unpersuaded, it finds a way to make hip hop boring, and it lies about the world. On the latter point, I cannot trust authors who think the academy is increasingly conservative, when reliable estimates point to almost no conservative faculty at all in the humanities and social sciences in the United States. With a few exceptions (e.g., the Chicago Statement) the trends in the academy point to more liberal, progressive, and even revolutionary directions. Also, the prose is leaden and repetitive, which I suppose is unavoidable when you are prohibited by your ideology from leaving anyone out. Ironically, even the longest such list in this book excludes some group.

All that said, if intersectionality were my thing, I would like this book. It is at least clearly written, and that is saying something these days.

[beth martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5really engaging and i appreciate the credit given to social movements who were employing intersectional ideas before having the language of intersectionality we use today. there were definitely some points where i wish they had gone into more depth about particular concepts or ideas, and occasionally they presented questions that they never fully answered but you can also put things together yourself. reading alongside other supplemental readings for class enhanced it.

also i have personal beef over the fact that there's a whole chapter on social movements and ACT UP was not even mentioned. A CHOICE but okay.

[Tiffany Starling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is really good to begin to understand the concept of intersectionality. All the examples, specially about FIFA, are very interesting and helpful. The reflexion about white feminism is also really giving some tracks. Unfortunately, my english is not as perfect as I would like, so I will probably need to read it again later, or re-read some parts in french if I have the opportunity.
Anyway, I recommand it.

[Hector · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely for an academic audience, but an interesting read. Intersectionality is such a complex topic and this treatment fully captures that complexity with great examples of structural barriers to progress. I particularly appreciated the section on intersectionality and critical education—so much to unpack here and and opportunity to reflect on the barriers we continue to face in the world of PK-12 and higher ed.

[Sara Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro muito bom sobre o tema, com exemplos fantásticos da sua aplicação em contexto práticos e atuais. E, o mais interessante pra mim foi, realmente, a atualidade que o livro aborda, ao citar, principalmente, o neoliberalismo e a intensificação do populismo de direita no mundo e seu capítulo final, funcionando como um resumo. O que é extremamente importante, principalmente por esse ser um livro de leitura complexa e lenta!

[Tiana J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a thoughtful exploration of intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry and praxis. Anyone interested in intersectionality for work, organizing, or for school can get value from this text. It has specific chapters on education and identity that I found to be particularly interesting. While anyone could read this book and find value, I would add that it can be quite dense at times. It is highly informative and well researched.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent, and a great read for anyone practicing any kind of science, teaching, or just interested in being a better feminist. Although framed with academic concepts, it reads easily and quickly. Collins and Bilge provide both domestic and international contexts for their examples, offering a look at the way feminism works around the world.

[Manuel Alamo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una introducción bien redactada y sumamente amplia sobre interseccionalidad, dirigida a quienes nunca han trabajado o acercado al concepto en su práctica académica o Praxis diaria. Un muy buen acercamiento al concepto, su historia y sus distintas aproximaciones actuales.
A veces es algo repetitivo pero una buena lectura.

[Aida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book reviewing and building on the concept of intersectionality and its utility as an analytic. From a course reading perspective, I would suggest chapters 5 - 7 are more accessible and helpful to students, and would be solid standalone readings. However, the whole book obviously produces helpful and valuable material and could be a good graduate seminar text.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who doesn't have much professional experience, this book helped explain that level of social ecology. This book helped further explain to me that intersectionality saved my life because even in the parodies/caricatures given by "comedians", it inspired hope. The later chapters also explained the role of inclusion departments from the perspectives of inclusion departments.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read much of Patricia Hill Collins work during my doctoral studies so I was very happy to read this book. I also really appreciated how she used the Brazil World Cup and FIFA to demonstrate the concepts of intersectionality. So well done.

[Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intersectionality by Patrice Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge
This is a really wonderful book to provide knowledge about understanding the history and framing of intersectionality. I would highly recommend it.

[Leticia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collins é extremamente pedagógica, com vários exemplos da realidade concreta para explicar o modo de análise a partir da intersecionalidade. A autora apresenta a complexidade deste exercício, que exige o reconhecimento da totalidade da realidade social.