Abstract
Intersectionality is a commonly used perspective in issues regarding social inequality and injustice in several fields, and has also been introduced in disability studies. In legal systems, social inequality and rule of law are closely connected. The court is an arena that is known both to produce and reproduce social inequality. The purpose of this article is to raise and discuss the question of how intersectionality may serve as a productive theoretical approach in research on disability and rule of law. We discuss in what ways intersectionality as a perspective may contribute to rule of law for disabled people in Western legal systems. Our intention is to investigate the potential of intersectionality as a sensitizing perspective within a process-oriented model for analytical sensibility. Intersectionality as a perspective in relation to disability and rule of law is explored with categorization and gender in focus.
Highlights
Intersectionality is a commonly used perspective in issues regarding social inequality and injustice in several fields, and has been introduced in disability studies
Simonsen of the present article is to look into how intersectionality may serve as a productive theoretical approach in research on disability and rule of law and how it could contribute to rule of law for disabled people
To explore how intersectionality may serve as a theoretical perspective, we look at the connection between disability and criminals/crime as a case to be explored, and focus on categorization and gender
Summary
Both as a concept and as a perspective, intersectionality may be traced to feminist theories from the 1970s when anti-racist critique of feminism was developed (Crenshaw 1989). Taking into account the array of discourses that exists in various national and cultural contexts, intersectionality as a perspective emerges as an approach to understanding how discourses on disability and discourses of crime are intersected in legal systems, which is worth pursuing in order to enhance justice/rule of law for disabled people. As a theoretical perspective for analysis, intersectionality insists on a social-historical contextualization of social and scientific categories and identity formations (Choo and Ferree 2010; Ontario Human Rights Commission 2001; Staunæs 2010) This implies discussing dynamics and forces that create categories, such as disability and gender. As the case of the convicted Fritz Moen demonstrates, these notions of deafness only served to underpin his deviant personality, rather than to secure the rule of law
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