Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper adopts the concept of intersectionality, which is often used to explain interconnections between categories of difference, such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, to complicate the category of nation. The aim of this paper is two-fold: first, the paper uses intersectionality as an analytic tool to trace how specific forms of nation are positioned not just as different, but as subaltern; and second, the paper decenters the underlying assumptions associated with modernist conceptions of nation by challenging the conventional formulation of the intersection between nation and identity. The concept of intersectionality provides the theoretical framework to complicate the category of nation because (1) intersectionality argues for the new conceptualizations of categories and their role in politics, “rather than seeking an abolition of categories themselves;” and (2) intersectionality also sensitizes one to the hegemonic moves that legitimize the concept of a self-referencing, unified subject of modernity by emphasizing “that different dimensions of social life cannot be separated out into discrete and pure strands.” The paper draws specifically on Avtar Brah’s and Ann Phoenix’s Ain’t I a Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality, which defines the concept of intersectionality as “signifying the complex, irreducible, varied, and variable effects which ensue when multiple axis of differentiation – economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential – intersect in historically specific contexts.” Brah and Phoenix do not limit the multiple axis of differentiation specifically to categories, such as, gender, race, class, and sexuality, thus leaving room for an analysis of other categories of differentiation, including the category of nation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper adopts the concept of intersectionality, which is often used to explain interconnections between categories of difference, such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, to complicate the category of nation. The aim of this paper is two-fold: first, the paper uses intersectionality as an analytic tool to trace how specific forms of nation are positioned not just as different, but as subaltern; and second, the paper decenters the underlying assumptions associated with modernist conceptions of nation by challenging the conventional formulation of the intersection between nation and identity. The concept of intersectionality provides the theoretical framework to complicate the category of nation because (1) intersectionality argues for the new conceptualizations of categories and their role in politics, “rather than seeking an abolition of categories themselves;” and (2) intersectionality also sensitizes one to the hegemonic moves that legitimize the concept of a self-referencing, unified subject of modernity by emphasizing “that different dimensions of social life cannot be separated out into discrete and pure strands.” The paper draws specifically on Avtar Brah’s and Ann Phoenix’s Ain’t I a Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality, which defines the concept of intersectionality as “signifying the complex, irreducible, varied, and variable effects which ensue when multiple axis of differentiation – economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential – intersect in historically specific contexts.” Brah and Phoenix do not limit the multiple axis of differentiation specifically to categories, such as, gender, race, class, and sexuality, thus leaving room for an analysis of other categories of differentiation, including the category of nation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: From concerns about public attitudes to questions about
party politics, interest groups, social movements, and public policy,
debates about the relative impact of class-based and economic concerns
on the one hand and of identities such as race, ethnicity, religion,
gender, or sexual orientation on the other hand abound in US politics
and political science. Common questions include: Is race or class a
more influential determinant of individual-level attitudes and voting
behaviour? Is it true, as writers such as Berry, Gitlin, and Edsall,
argue, that issues labeled variously “postmaterialst,” “cultural,”
“social” or “identity” currently receive more attention than issues
considered to be primarily redistributive or economic? What accounts
for the economic, political and social inequalities that persist in the
US, and specifically, what are the best political strategies for
combating them? For example, will groups such as white men support race
and gender targeted programs, or are universal programs the best hope
for building electoral and movement coalitions and for addressing
disparities in income, education, and health?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Many feminists accept as given the need for “intersectionality” in feminist theory: the idea that intellectually plausible and politically effective theories about gender require feminists to simultaneously attend to the different vectors of identity and power presented by race, sexuality and class. Feminist analysis of the history of canonical political thought, however, tends to treat “women” as an undifferentiated category. I take up this problem by considering Locke’s writings about gender in terms of his writings about class. Even the few feminists who have adopted C.B. Macpherson’s theory of “possessive individualism,” altogether ignore Macpherson’s central argument about class, developing a “parallel” argument rather than an “intersecting” one. By contrast, by drawing on Locke’s “Essay on the Poor Law,” as well as Of the Conduct of the Understanding and Some Thoughts Concerning Education, I provide a different reading of his more familiar arguments in the Two Treatises that challenges some of the standard feminist interpretations of Locke offered by Pateman, Clark, Butler, and even myself.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Gerhard Lenski is widely acknowledged as one of the giants of modern stratification theory (see Barnett 2004 for an overview of Lenski’s place in modern sociological theory), but more often than not, he is also seen as irrelevant to current feminist theories of inequality, particularly as reflected in the relative lack of citations to his work on gender inequality and race, gender, class (RGC) intersectionality. This dual reputation of historical importance and contemporary irrelevance rests on two separate streams of Lenski’s scholarship: (1) Lenski's theory of “status crystallization” and “status inconsistency,”which explains status ranking in multidimensional stratification systems on individual political and other behavior; and (2) Lenski’s comprehensive evolutionary theory of stratification presented in Power and Privilege (1966; 1984), Human Societies (1970-2006), and Ecological-Evolutionary Theory (2005), which present his macro level theory and research on variation in societal level distribution systems with patterns of inequality correlated with the generation of surplus. However, neither Lenski’s mico or macro level theories and research beginning in the 1950s and 1960s has been explicitly viewed by feminist scholars or integrative race, gender, class scholars of the 1980s and 1990s as an embodiment of “multidimensionality” or “intersectionality” in explanations of inequality. Only recently have a few scholars suggested that Lenski’s theories lay a foundation for powerful models of inequality based on the intersections of race-class-gender and other statuses generating variation in power and privilege that developed in the 1990s and are prevalent today (Barnett 2004a, Tickamyer 2004). In this paper, we: (a) analyze Lenski's contributions to the study of social stratification and social inequalities at both macro and micro levels; (b) consider Lenski’s major ideas for understanding gender inequality and their relevance to feminist sociological analysis; and ( c) trace Lenski’s work in the 1950s and 1960s, especially his work on “status inconsistency” and status crystallization,” as a significant precursor of the race, gender, class “intersectionality” theories and research in the 1980s and 1990s that view systems of domination and subordination as determined by the intersections of race, class, gender (RGC) and other relevant socially constructed identities and locations (Andersen 1993; Baca Zinn and Dill 1994; Barnett 1993, 1995; Brewer 1993; Chow 1987; Collins 1986, 2000; Dill 1979, 1983; Gilkes 1980, 1988 ; Glenn 1999; Higginbotham 1988, Henderson and Tickamyer 2006; King 1988) and the development of RGC as an officially recognized subfield in sociology, thus the continuing relevance of Lenski’s work from 1954 to present times.