Intersectionality and Transnational Feminism between Constructivism, Post-Structuralism and Epistemological Performances

Abstract

What does it mean today to talk about intersectionality or, better, about intersectional approaches within the vast and fragmented field of Feminist Studies? And how can intersectionality help understanding the development of transnational feminism, and viceversa? By offering a brief critical genealogy of the notion of intersectionality, from the systemic to the anti-categorial positions that have characterized the debate on this notion, the essay tries to present a reading of the main questions that stemmed from thinking the working of the many power differentials and identity markers (gender, race, class, ages, disabilities, etc.) that constitute regional, national and transnational subjectivities. In adopting an anti-categorial stance, this work attempts at showing how feminism has changed thanks to different, yet complementary, perspectives on intersectional subject formations and positioning, along with the relational and transnational struggles that have been imagined in order to refine a feminist gaze at every level of social, cultural and political life, be it theoretical, methodological or epistemological.