Reflections on the Intersectionality Wars

BOOKS

BY MORGAN C. MATTHEWS

Jennifer C. Nash, Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality. Duke University Press, 2019. 182 pp. notes. bibl. index. pap., $23.95, ISBN 978-1478000594.

ntersectionality is widely regarded sity administrators use the term rhe- I as women’s studies’ most import- torically in mission statements and ant theoretical contribution.1 As strategic plans to signal an ethic of disciplines like women’s studies lay “diversity and inclusion.” The idea of claim to intersectionality — a product intersectionality, in short, has been of black women’s labor — academic stretched beyond the realms of the battles have escalated into wars. The social movement activism and critical stakes of these conflicts have been intellectual traditions from which it described as the “occultic commod- originated. 2 ification” of intersectionality as it What has come of this process of in- travels from the margins to the main- stitutionalization? According to Nash, stream. What is the fate of critics on the appropriation of intersectionality the frontlines of the intersectionality in the academy has produced feelings wars? And what lies ahead in inter- of defensiveness. In Chapter 1 (“A sectionality’s future? In Black Fem- Love Letter from a Critic”), Nash un- inism Reimagined, Jennifer C. Nash packs how intersectionality’s critics draws on a combination of discourse are constructed by its protectors as analysis, affect theory, and personal monolithic malcontents. As a result, reflection to address these complex intersectionality is cast as vulnera- questions. ble, and the work of defending it as Writing as one of intersectionality’s virtuous. The ammunition of black “critics,” Nash argues that under- feminist defensiveness is the practice standing the history of intersection- of textual fidelity, or what Nash calls ality’s academic institutionalization “intersectional originalism” (p. 61). is key to comprehending these emo- In Chapter 2 (“The Politics of Read- tion-ridden battles. Nash makes two ing”), Nash shows how originalism is critical observations about intersec- a methodological and political tool for tionality’s “institutional life” (p. 11) protecting black feminists’ propri- in universities. First, black feminist etary claim on intersectionality. theory (the countless contributions Black feminist defensiveness is an of which have often been reduced to intelligible affective response to the intersectionality alone) is deployed as concept’s institutionalization. Yet, a disciplinarian of white feminism in Nash contends, “[Defensiveness] women’s studies. Second, in reform- is a dangerous form of agency, one ing women’s studies, it has become that traps black feminism, and black a program-building initiative for feminists, rather than liberating us” legitimizing marginalized programs (p. 27). Intersectional turf wars have and departments. Intersectionality made black women intersectional- increasingly stands for added value in ity’s sole actor to the exclusion of contemporary universities. Univer-

V. 40, NOS. 2–3, SPRING–SUMMER 2019 5 BOOKS non-black women of color. Inter- Nash envisions a deterritorialized The book, like intersectionality sectionality’s warriors have reread intersectionality that is inclusive of itelf, has multiple uses. For a broad its foundational texts to have one people beyond black women. Achiev- audience, including undergraduate true meaning rather than multiple ing an expansive intersectionality classes, Nash’s analysis of intersec- meanings. This protective stance requires laying down arms in the tionality’s multiple intellectual and has conscripted black feminists into intersectionality wars and surren- institutional histories in the intro- intersectionality wars that ultimately dering the proprietary claim of black ductory chapter provides a concise hold back the transformative poten- women on this knowledge project. In overview of intersectional debates. tial of black feminism. turn, Nash argues, letting go opens Scholars and practitioners of inter- up “new intimacies between bodies The current political moment, which sectionality will find Nash’s nuanced of thought, and material bodies, that is riddled with racism, homophobia, reflections on the institutional basis are so often kept separate in women’s and populist xenophobia, begs for the for the intersectionality wars to be studies” (p. 110). attention and labor of critical schol- insightful and thought-provoking. ars. So what would an intersection- Black Feminism Reimagined con- Finally, as a theory-(re)building Black Feminism Reimagined ality disentangled from the wars that tributes to ongoing debates about the work, preoccupy its protectors look like? meaning of intersectionality and its makes a strong case for a more inclusive intersectionality. ability to travel across disciplines.3

Notes

1. Leslie McCall, “The Complexity of Intersectionality,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, v. 30, no. 3 (Spring 2005), pp. 1771–1800.

2. Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd, “Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in a Post-Black Feminist Era,” Feminist Formations, v. 24, no. 1 (Spring 2012), pp. 1–25.

3. See, for example, Anna Carastathis, Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

[Morgan C. Matthews is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.]

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