Intersectionaliteiten in actie: articulaties van een reizend concept in de activistische praktijk

Abstract

Intersectionality, arguably the most well-known theoretical and political sensibility to emerge out of US black feminism, has proven a particularly mobile concept, informing and shaping feminist scholarship both in the US and beyond. While academics have traced its various trajectories and its reception in non-US settings, little attention has been paid to how intersectionality is articulated in different nationally situated activist communities. In this exploratory study of the intersectionality concept in Dutch climate activism and Dutch queer activism, we trace how Dutch activists articulate the meaning and relevance of intersectionality to their own practice. Our data demonstrate that intersectionality is problematized differently in these two settings: among climate activists, it functions as a horizon to aspire to and as a risky ‘add-on’ to existing practice, while within queer activism, intersectionality is understood as an already existing reality that requires careful calibration and practices of ‘calling in’. It is also associated with particular risks: in climate activism, its status as a horizon to aspire to raises questions about the community’s understanding of climate activism itself, while the queer activists, ‘always having been intersectional’, struggle with the question: when are we intersectional enough? In examining these different articulations of intersectionality, we develop an understanding of intersectionality as a travelling and situated concept beyond the US academy and practice, and comment especially on its Janus-faced character as a both politicizing and depoliticising tool in activists’ practice.