Blackness at the Intersection

by Kimberlé Crenshaw (Editor), Devon W. Carbado (Editor), Kehinde Andrews (Editor)

In the 1980s, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term ‘intersectionality’. Since then, the concept has spread across national and disciplinary boundaries, and has had a transformative impact on the way in which we understand identity and the experience of discrimination. But outside the US, the application of intersectional theory has largely been disconnected from any analysis of ‘Blackness’, despite intersectionality’s origins in critical race theory (CRT). Precisely how intersectionality is shaping articulations of and political advocacy around Blackness therefore remains to be examined.

Curated by Crenshaw as well as several of the leading scholars of CRT, this collection bridges that gap, and is the first to apply both these concepts to contexts outside the US. Focusing on Blackness in Britain, the contributors examine how scholars and activists are employing intersectionality to foreground Black British experiences. By focusing intersectionality in this way, the collection seeks to recover intersectionality’s foundations within CRT, and to link intersectionality to Black diasporic experiences. Its essays encompass key issues such as gender and Black womanhood, issues of representation within contemporary British culture, and the position of Black Britons within institutions such as the family, education and health. The book also looks to the role intersectionality can play in shaping future political activism, and in forging links beyond ‘Blackness’ to other social movements.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 2023

About the author

Kimberlé Crenshaw (also writes as Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw) is a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School. A leading authority on civil rights, black feminist legal theory, and racism and the law, she is a co-editor of Critical Race Theory (The New Press). Crenshaw is a contributor to Ms. Magazine, The Nation, and the Huffington Post. She lives in Los Angeles.