INTERSECTIONALITY, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Intersectionality, referring to intersections of gender/sex and other social and cultural power differentials, categorizations and identity markers such as ethnicity, race, class, nationality, geopolitical positioning, religion, sexuality, age, dis/ability, species etc, is a central concept in contemporary gender studies. Intersectional analysis has been heralded as ´the most important contribution that women´s studies has made so far´ (McCall 2005: 1771), but feminist debates on intersectionality have also been informed by different theoretical and political stances and have sometimes been conflictual. This theme, arching across several research strands at the three GEXcel universities of Karlstad, Linköping and Örebro, is designed against the background of the rich and diverse feminist traditions for theorizing of intersectionality, but it is also informed by the tensions between these traditions. It takes as a point of departure that intersectionality and issues of differences have been studied by many different kinds of feminist, gender and equality theorists, but that these studies often have been carried out in separate and often disagreeing communities of feminist scholars, and that the concept of intersectionality is contested. Against this background, this GEXcel research field will systematically bring key theoretical and methodological strands of feminist analysis of intersectionality and difference into transversal dialogue and set up arenas for cross-fertilization and for development of new and more comprehensive and transgressive analytical approaches and theoretical understandings of intersectional gender/sex, its embeddedness in processes of socio-cultural change and its embodiment in transcorporeal, posthuman and postnatural assemblages.