Intersectionality as a tool for social movements: Strategies of inclusion and representation in the Québécois women’s movement

Abstract

As a social movement strategy, intersectionality is used to foster the inclusion and representation of minority groups. In this article, we examine how Québécois women's organizations use intersectionality as a tool to include immigrant and Native women. We argue that intersectionality can entail different practices with potentially conflicting goals. We conclude that social movement scholars would benefit from paying attention to intersectionality and to how it is practiced by activists and organizations. Indeed, a focus on intersectionality sheds light on the tensions inherent in the processes by which organizations construct collective identities, formulate political demands, manage internal conflicts and build alliances.

What is intersectionality and why is it important in oral health research?

“…Intersectionality challenges oral health researchers to adopt an inclusive approach to engage meaningfully with people who are typically marginalized and excluded from oral health research. Adopting an intersectionality framework in oral health research could deepen our understanding of inequalities based not on single factors but on collective identities 71 . Intersectionality poses research questions that seek to understand the complex experiences of people, reflecting their lived realities, thereby overcoming the limitations of the current simplistic single‐variable oral health inequality research 72,73 .…”

Interacting With Providers: An Intersectional Exploration of the Experiences of Carers of Aboriginal Children With a Disability

“…It is argued that as a social movement, the adoption of intersectionality by organizations does not necessarily lead to improvements in the political and social marginalization of minority groups (Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016). In the context of grassroots women's organizations in Quebec employing intersectionality as an inclusion tool for providing services and support to immigrant and Native women, Laperrière and Lépinard (2016) find tension between recognizing the diverse intersecting needs of these women and the need to maintain a common overarching feminist political platform privileging gender as the dominant identity. Similar challenges may be faced by ACCHOs in further developing their strength as organizations well positioned to address the intersecting needs of carers.…”

“…Bond (2005) asserts that the fields of public health and medicine have inevitably been influenced by “the politics of colonialism” and that health care professionals need to abandon claims of being objective and be willing to reflect on how their own “cultural practices” may influence the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Bond, 2005). The adoption of an intersectional approach to service provision by organizations has been reported to encourage the self-reflexivity of providers in reflecting on their own “privileged social position” as experts in relation to their clients (Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016). Dovidio and Fiske (2012) argue that the first step to addressing the impact of implicit bias in health care is for providers to recognize the influence of discrimination on health care disparities.…”

Whose equality? Measuring group representation

“…Scholars have studied the ‘classical’ mechanisms that the mainstream literature identifies as explanatory factors for the political inclusion and exclusion of disadvantaged groups in elected office (Mügge and Erzeel, 2016). Mechanisms that have been scrutinized are the influence of candidate recruitment and selection (Bejarano, 2013; Freidenvall, 2016; Hardy-Fanta, 2013), electoral systems, quotas (Bird, 2016; Davidson-Schmich, 2016), and identity networks (Beckwith, 2000; Evans, 2014; Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016). While early work has predominantly focused on the intersection of gender and ethnicity or race, forthcoming work includes other identities such as religion (Hughes, 2016; Murray, 2016), age (Randall, 2016), generation (Mügge, 2016b), ability, and sexuality (Evans, 2016).…”