Introduction

Abstract

Intersectionality has long been a cornerstone of feminist discussion and scholarship around the world (McClintock 1995; Rao 2012). But the concept itself—intersectionality—continues to demand additional explication, interrogation, and development. In 2005, Politics & Gender published a Critical Perspectives on intersectionality that generated a great deal of interest and debate. A recent mini symposium in Political Research Quarterly coedited by Evelyn Simien and Ange-Marie Hancock (2011) further extended this discussion, providing contributions from across subfields in political science to enrich the theoretical arguments and empirical explorations of topics that intersect and combine issues of sexual orientation, race, gender, class, and national origin across the world. This Critical Perspectives seeks to build on these foundations by contributing additional empirical and theoretical attention to the ways in which intersectional analysis can render certain experiences of oppression invisible or seemingly out of the bounds of politics.