By Zdena Middernacht and Laurène Bounaud
2. Laurène Bounaud (biography)
What is intersectionality? What are the structural elements that limit its application? How can intersectionality be applied as a useful lens, especially in strategy development?
A recap of intersectionality
Intersectionality offers a framework to understand how particular identities, (eg., black and female) are tied to particular inequalities (eg., violence against women) in different historical times and locations.
The material conditions which produce economic, social and political inequality in peoples’ lives are structured by the converging and simultaneous ways in which the ever-changing logics by which society is organised, interact (Mirza 2013). These logics include race, class and gender, as well as other social divisions such as sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, culture, and religion.
As such, different dimensions of social life cannot be separated out into discrete and pure strands. This makes intersectionality not only a concept or a research approach, but a justice project as well, and can offer guidance as a moral principle.
Structural elements that limit the application of intersectionality
There is a risk that institutionalisation of intersectionality can lead to depoliticisation, such that intersectionality becomes watered down to the mere inclusion of marginalised groups into the mainstream, giving them ‘a seat at the table.’ But this means losing the political goal of dismantling the systems that produce marginalisation in the first place, in other words, deconstructing the symbolic ‘table.’
Another challenge is that organisations have often developed expertise on specific social justice issues and focus on gender or environment or health or education or racism; etc. Therefore, taking an intersectionality approach can feel like risking dilution of the narrative; spreading too thin; losing the expert voice; etc. This can result in hesitance to take a full intersectional approach. In turn, this can result in inadequate approaches, such as simply mentioning intersectionality as an analytical lens without actually applying it or an ‘additive approach’ in which the main issue remains prominent.
Gaps in social justice organisational strategies – theory and practice
We are interested in understanding the intersecting elements of structures and processes and the social positions they result in. In other words, understanding how, for example the structures and processes of racism, interact with patriarchy, interact with migration and how this interaction plays a role in the social positions of individuals and groups.
At a practical level, this means looking at how race issues are connected to gender issues, are connected to immigration issues, etc. The understanding of this sectoral intersectionality helps in the analysis of social issues as being related and requiring strategic collaboration, partnership brokering and intersectoral collaboration in order to make headway towards addressing social issues in a genuine and sustainable way and eventually achieving social justice.
Our work is in civil society organisations. From a research perspective, our analysis can provide insights for researchers who work with civil society organisations, as well as the practices of research organisations themselves, as they are also mostly civil society organisations.
A useful approach to integrating intersectionality into organisational strategy and culture
In a strategy-making process, the downgrading of intersectionality in the strategy is usually a result of having framed priorities first and a worry that subsequently applying intersectionality blurs all the other priorities and takes over the strategy.
This can be avoided by taking a different approach to strategy making when the goal is to fully take an intersectional approach from the start. Aspects of social justice, whether we acknowledge it or not, cannot be treated as separate or additive strands – they are in reality intersectional.
A process to make intersectionality political, integral, rooted in analysis and operationalised in strategies would:
This approach to strategy making goes a long way in ensuring that organisations develop strategies that are meaningful and more reflective of the context in which they operate and the multiple-interconnected issues in that context.
What has your experience been with applying intersectionality? How have you overcome the challenges? Do you have experience with the kind of process we have outlined above? Are there elements that you would add or change?
Reference:
Mirza, H. S. (2013). ‘A second skin’: Embodied intersectionality, transnationalism and narratives of identity and belonging among Muslim women in Britain. Women’s Studies International Forum, 36: 5-15.
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative AI please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Zdena Middernacht PhD is a senior research consultant at Organisation Development Support, a socially conscious cooperative consultancy based in Brussels, Belgium. She is a thematic expert in intersectionality, transnationalism and development, and a technical expert in evaluations, strategy development and organisational development.
Biography: Laurène Bounaud, (Master Journalism; Master Political Science) is a senior consultant at Organisation Development Support, a socially conscious cooperative consultancy and is based in Paris, France. Her focus is on developing non profit organisations on a human, organisational, advocacy and strategic level, aligning the organisation vision and practical actions with its core values.
Zdena and the ODS team do such important work in turning moral principles into actionable insights, and this piece is another refreshing example. Thank you!
I’ve struggled with pushback around both dilution and losing expert voice previously. For example, when working in an organisation focused on criminal justice, I attempted to address overt homophobia in the prison environment we worked in.
While I had support from some colleagues, others were concerned that it would derail our mission, or thought it was inappropriate for us to get involved in an issue we weren’t experts in. There were many heated and emotional discussions, which caused rifts and were not productive.
Based on that experience, and building on Hakim’s comment, I would add something about creating a space for colleagues to learn about and discuss intersectionality and its application. It could also be included as part of new staff onboarding.
Thankyou for your kind comment SSS. I agree, I think creating space for colleagues to learn about and discuss interesectionality is so important. Such discussions could also include exploring potential partners who might be strongly focusing on the other intersecting elements. As organisations it’s true that most of us have limited capacity, but I don’t think that this should confine us to becoming ‘single issue organisations’. Of course we cannot lead on everything, but we can identify where we are best placed to lead, what the intersecting elements are and who we can partner with (who is already focusing on the relevant intersecting elements) and how we can collaborate with them.
Many thanks for this insightful piece. I love the build up starting with the mission and vision and translating it all the way through in operational behavior. One thing I would suggest to also focus on is to make sure that all the systems (as in the way employees, middle managers and C-level managers do their work) make it easy and necessary to always apply intersectionality. Meaning that the desired behavior as an individual, group and organisation is always made easy.
Thanks Hakim for this suggestion. One of the hindrances to applying intersectionality is definitely mystification and sometimes the rigidity of pre-existing systems. So I totally agree that ensuring that it’s easy and always necessary is so important.