Week 3 Reading 2

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1
What Is lntersectionality?
In the early twenty-first century, the term "intersectional-

icy" has been widely taken up by scholars, policy advocates,
practitioners, and activists in many places and locations.
College students and faculty in interdisciplinary fields such
as women's studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, American
studies, and media studies, as well as those within sociology,
political science, and history and other traditional disciplines,
encounter intersectionality in courses, books, and scholarly
articles. Human rights activists and government officials have
also made intersectionality part of ongoing global public
policy discussions. Grassroots organizers look to varying
dimensions of intersectionality to inform their work on
reproductive justice, antiviolence initiatives, workers' rights,
and similar social issues. Bloggers use digital and social media
to influence public opinion. Teachers, social workers, high-
school students, parents, university support staff, and school
personnel have taken up the ideas of intersectionality with
an eye toward transforming schools of all sorts. Across these
different venues, people increasingly claim and use the term
"intersectionality" for their diverse intellectual and political
projects.
If we were to ask them, "What is intersectionality?" we
would get varied and sometimes contradictory answers.
Most, however, would probably accept the following general
description:
2 What Is lntersectionality?
IntersectJonality investigates how intersecting power relations

influence social relations across diverse societies as well as indi-
vidual experiences in everyday life. As an analytic tool, intersec·
tionality views categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, class,
nation, ability, ethnicity, and age- among others- as interrelated
and mutually shaping one another. lntersectionality IS a way of
understanding and explaining complexity in the world, m people,
and in human experiences.
This working definition describes intersectionality's core

insight: namely, that in a given society at a given time, power
relations of race, class, and gender, for example, are not dis-
crete and mutually exclusive entities, but rather build on each
other and work together; and that, while often invisible, these
intersecting power relations affect all aspects of the social
world.
We begin this book by recognizing the tremendous heter-
ogeneity that currently characterizes how people understand
and use intersectionality. Despite debates about the meaning
of this term, or even whether it is the right term to use at all,
intersectionality is the term that has stuck.It is the term that is
increasingly used by stakeholders who put their understand-
ings of intersectionality to a variety of uses. Despite these
differences, this broad description points toward a general
consensus about how people understand intersectionality.
Using lntersectionality as an Analytic Tool
People generally use intersectionality as an analytic tool to

solve problems that they or others around them face. Most
colleges and universities in North America, for example, face
the challenge of building more inclusive and fair campus com-
munities. The social divisions created by power relations of
class, race, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, sexuality, and ability
are especially evident within higher education. Colleges and
universities now include more college students who formerly
had no way to pay for college (class), or students who his-
torically faced discriminatory barriers to enrolment (race,
gender, ethnicity, indigeneity, citizenship status), or students
What Is lntersectiona/ity? 3
lS who experience distinctive forms of discrimination (sexual-

i- ·cy abilicy religion) on college campuses. Colleges and uni-
-- ~e;sities fi~d themselves confronted with students who want
s, fairness, yet who bring very ~ifferent experie.nces and needs
d ro campus. Initially, colleges m the US recrutted and served
,f
groups one at a time, offering, for example, special pro-
:,
grams for African Americans! Latinx groups, women, g~ys
and lesbians, veterans, returnmg students, and persons w1th
disabilities. As the list grew, it became clearer not only that
this one-group-at-a-time approach was slow, but that most
students fit into more than one category. First-generation
college students could include Latinos, women, poor whites,
returning veterans, grandparents, and transgender women
and men. In this context, intersectionality can be a useful
analytic tool for thinking about and developing strategies to
achieve campus equity.
Ordinary people can draw upon intersectionality as
an analytic rool when they recognize that they need better
frameworks to grapple with social problems. In the 1960s
and 1970s, African American women activists confronted
the puzzle of how their needs concerning jobs, education,
employment, and healthcare simply fell through the cracks of
anriracist social movements, feminism, and unions organizing
for workers' rights. Each of these social movements elevated
one category of analysis and action above others; for example,
race within the civil rights movement, or gender within fem-
inism, or class within the union movement. Because African
American women were simultaneously black and female and
workers, these single-focus lenses on social inequality left
little space to address the complex social problems that they
face. Black women's specific issues remained subordinated
within each movement because no social movement by itself
would, or could, address the entirety of discriminations they
faced. Black women's use of intersectionality as an analytic
tool emerged in response to these challenges.
Intersectionality as an analytic tool is neither confined to
nations of North America and Europe nor a new phenome-
non. People in the Global South have used intersectionality
as an analytic tool, often without naming it as such. Consider
an unexpected example from nineteenth-century colonial
India in the work of Dalit social reformist Savitribai Phule
4 What Is lntersectionafity?
(1831-97), regarded as an important first-generation modern
Indian feminist. In an online article titled "Six Reasons Every
Indian Feminist Must Remember Savitribai Phule," published
in January 2015, Deepika Sarma suggests:
Here's why you should know more about her. She got intersection-
al icy. Savitribai along with her husband Jyorirao was a staunch
advocate of anti-caste ideology and women's rights. The Phules'
vision of social equality included fighting against the subjugation
of women, and they also stood for Adivasis and Muslims. She
organized a barbers' strike against shaving the heads of Hindu
widows, fought for widow remarriage and in 1853, started a
shelter for pregnant widows. Other welfare programmes she was
involved with alongside Jyotirao include opening schools for
workers and rural people, and providing famine relief through
52 food centers that also operated as boarding schools. She also
cared for those affected by famine and plague, and died in 1897
after contracting plague from her patients.
Phule confronted several axes of social division, namely

caste, gender, religion, and economic disadvantage or class.
Her political activism encompassed intersecting categories of
social division- she didn't just pick one.
These examples suggest that people use intersectionality as
an analytic tool in many different ways to address a range of
issues and social problems. One common use of intersection-
ality is as a heuristic, a problem-solving or analytic tool, much
in the way that students on college campuses developed a
shared interest in diversity, or African American women used
it to address their status within social movement politics, or
Savitribai Phule advanced women's rights. Even though those
who use intersectional frameworks all seem to be situated
under the same big umbrella, using intersectionality as an
analytic tool means that it can assume many different forms
because it can accommodate a range of social problems.
In this book, we examine multiple aspects of intersection-
ality but, for now, we want to show three uses of intersection-
ality as an analytical tool. In line with Cho et al.'s argument
that "what makes an analysis intersectional is not its use of
the term 'intersectionality,' nor its being situated in a famil-
iar genealogy, nor its drawing on lists of standard citations,"
our focus is on "what intersectionality does rather than what
What Is lntersectionality? 5
intersectionality is" (2013: 795). Our cases of how intersect-

ing power rela~i?ns characterize. in~ernati~nal foot?all, the
growing recognmon of global soctal mequaltty as an mtersec-
tional phenomenon, and the emergence of the black Brazilian
women's movement in response to specific challenges of
racism, sexism, and poverty illustrate different uses of inter-
sectionality as an analytic tool. Specifically, they suggest how
intersectional analyses of sports illuminate the organization
of institutional power, how intersectionality has been used to
diagnose social problems, and how intersectional responses
to social injustices enhance activism. These cases both intro-
duce important core ideas of intersectional frameworks and
demonstrate different uses of intersectionality as an analytic
tool.
Power plays: the FIFA World Cup
Across the globe, there is no way of knowing exactly how

many people play football. Yet surveys by the International
Federation of Association Football (FlFA) provide a good
guess: an estimated 270 million people are involved in foot-
ball as professional soccer players, recreational players, reg-
istered players both over and under age 18, futsal and beach
football players, referees, and officials. This is a vast pool of
both professional and amateur athletes and a massive audi-
ence that encompasses all categories of race, class, gender,
age, ethnicity, nation, and ability. When one adds the children
and youth who play football but who are not involved in
any kind of organized activity detectable by FIFA, the number
swells considerably.
lntersectionality's emphasis on social inequality seems
far removed from the global popularity of this one sport.
Yet using intersectionality as an analytic tool to examine
the FIFA World Cup sheds light on how intersecting power
relations of race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality organ-
ize this particular sport, as well as sports more broadly. Rich
nations of the Global North and poor nations of the Global
South offer different opportunity structures to their youth to
attend school, find jobs, and play sports, opportunity struc-
tures that privilege European and North American nations,
and that disadvantage countries in the Caribbean, continen-
tal Africa, the Middle East, and selected Latin American and
Asian nations. These national differences align with racial
differences, with black and brown youth from poor countries,
or within neighborhoods within rich ones, lacking access to
training and opportunities to play. Girls and boys may want
to play football, but rarely get to be on the same teams or
compete against one another. As a sport that highlights phys-
ical ability, football brings a lens to the phrase "able-bodied"
that underpins analysis of ability. At its foundation, football
is big business, providing financial benefit to its backers as
well as to a small percentage of elite athletes. Differences of
wealth, national citizenship, race, gender, and ability shape
patterns of opportunity and disadvantage within the sport.
Moreover, these categories are not mutually exclusive. Rather,
the patterns of their intersection determine which individuals
get to play football, the level of support they receive, and the
kinds of experiences they have if and when they play. Using
intersectionality as an analytic tool illuminates how these and
other categories of power relations interconnect.
Because it is a global phenomenon, the FIFA World Cup is
a particularly suitable case to unpack in order to show how
intersecting power relations underpin social inequalities of
race, gender, class, age, ability, sexuality, and nation. Power
relations rely on durable, albeit changing, organizational
practices that, in this case, shape the contours of FIFA World
Cup soccer regardless of when and where the games occur and
who actually competes. Four distinctive yet interconnected
domains of power describe these organizational practices
- namely, the structural, cultural, disciplinary, and interper-
sonal. These domains of power are durable across time and
place. FIFA's organizational practices have changed since its
inception and have taken different forms in Europe, North
America, continental Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle
East, and the Caribbean. Yet FIFA is also characterized by
tremendous change brought on by new people, changing
standards, and a growing global audience. Using intersection-
ality to analyze the FIFA World Cup sheds light on specific
intersections of power relations within the organization; for
example, how gender and national identity intersect within
FIFA writ large, as well as the specific forms that intersecting
power relations ta~e wit~in disti?ctive d~mains .of. power.

Here we briefly discuss mtersectmg relations w1thm each
domain of power within FIFA, thereby laying a foundation
for analyzing intersecting power relations.
The structural domain of power refers to the fundamental
srrucrures of social institutions such as job markets, housing,
education, and health. Intersections of class (capitalism)
and nation (government policy) are key to the organization
of sports. In this case, ever since its inception in 1930, the
World Cup tournament has grown in scope and popularity
to become a highly profitable global business. Headquartered
in Switzerland, FIFA enjoys legal protection as an interna-
tional nongovernmental organization (NGO) that allows it
to manage its finances with minimal government oversight.
Managed by an executive committee of businessmen, FIFA
wields considerable influence with global corporations and
national governments who host the World Cup. For example,
for the 2014 games in Brazil, FIFA succeeded in having the
Brazilian parliament adopt a General World Cup Law that
imposed bank holidays on host cities on the days of the
Brazilian team's matches, cut the number of places in the sta-
diums, and increased prices for ordinary spectators. The law
also allowed beer to be taken into the stadiums, a change that
benefited Anheuser-Busch, one of FIFA's main sponsors. In
addition, the bill exempted companies working for FIFA from
Brazilian taxation, banned the sale of any goods in official
competition spaces, immediate surroundings, and principal
access routes, and penalized bars that tried to schedule show-
ings of the matches or promote certain brands. Finally, the bill
defined any attack on the image of FIFA or its sponsors as a
federal crime.
Hosted by different nations that compete for the privilege
years in advance, FIFA events typically showcase the distinc-
tive national concerns of its host countries. Brazil's experi-
ences illustrate how national concerns shape global football.
Fielding one of the most successful national teams in the
history of the World Cup, Brazil has been one of a handful of
countries whose teams have played in virtually every World
Cup tournament. In 2014, the potential payoff for Brazil
was substantial. Hosting the World Cup signaled its arrival
as a major economic player on the global stage, minimizing
its troubled history with a military dictatorship (1964-85}.
A victorious Brazilian football team promised to enhance
Brazil's international stature and foster economic policies that
would help its domestic population. Yet the challenges associ~
ated with hosting the matches began well before the athletes
arrived on the playing fields. Brazil estimated having to spend
billions of US dollars in preparation for the event. The initial
plan presented to the public emphasized that the majority
of the spending on infrastructure would highlight general
transportation, security, and communications. Less than 25
percent of total spending would go toward the 12 new or
refurbished stadiums. Yet, as the games grew nearer, cost
overruns increased stadium expenses by at least 75 percent,
with public resources reallocated from general infrastructure
projects.
In several Brazilian cities, the FIFA cost overruns sparked
public demonstrations against the increase in public trans~
portation fares and political corruption. On June 20, 2013,
1.5 million people demonstrated in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest
metropolitan area, protesting the exorbitant cost of stadiums,
the displacement of urban residents, and the embezzlement of
public funds (Castells 2015: 232}. As the countdown to the
kickoff began, Brazilians took to the streets in more than 100
cities, with slogans expressing objections to the World Cup,
such as "FIFA go home!" and "We want hospitals up to FIFA's
standards!" "The World Cup steals money from healthcare,
education and the poor. The homeless are being forced from
the streets. This is not for Brazil, it's for the tourists," reported
a Guardian article (Watts 2014}. This social unrest provided
the backdrop for the games in which, despite making the
semifinals, Brazil suffered a historic loss to Germany.
Because FIFA is unregulated, it should come as no surprise
that for years it has been accused of corruption. Disputes over
where to hold the event, the competition of nations and their
financial backers, have characterized the World Cup since
its inception. Corporate sponsors, wealthy backers, and the
global media outlets appear to be the primary beneficiaries of
the World Cup's global success. There appears to be little if
any financial benefit to countries that actually host the World
Cup - South Africa recouped approximately 10 percent of
its outlay on stadiums and infrastructure for the 2010 World
Cup and many of the 12 stadiums that Brazil constructed for

the 2o14 event were investigated for graft. Yet nations may
have reasons beyond financial gain for hosting the games.
Qatar was granted the right to host the 2022 World Cup,
suggesting that the fis~al an~ polit~cal controversies that char-
1
acterize FIFA's operation w1ll pers1st.
An intersectional analysis of capitalism and nationalism
sheds light on structural power relations that enabled FIFA
as a global business to influence the public policies of nation-
states that host the games. But other categories of analysis in
addition to class and nation are also hardwired into FIFA's
structural power relations. Take, for example, gender inequal-
ities. Sports generally, and professional sports in particular,
routinely provide more opportunities for men than for women.
Thus far, we've focused on FIFA's male athletes, primarily
because the first FIFA World Cup held in 1930 was restricted
to men. Yet since 1991, when the first women's games were
held in China, FIFA has also administered women's World
Cup soccer. When the US hosted the landmark 1999 World
Cup, only a few countries were considered contenders. Since
then, women's World Cup soccer has grown in popularity,
reaching unprecedented global audiences by the 2019 event
in France. Despite this growing interest, financial benefits that
accrue to elite female football players pale by comparison
with those offered their male counterparts. These gendered
structures within football - for example, the men's FIFA
World Cup launched in 1930 and the women's FIFA World
Cup launched 60 years later in 1991 - foster accumulated
advantages and disadvantages based on gender within FIFA's
structural domain of power.
The cultural domain of power emphasizes the increasing
significance of ideas and culture in the organization of power
relations. The FIFA World Cup is an excellent example of
how the power of ideas, representations, and images in a
global marketplace normalize cultural attitudes and expec-
tations concerning social inequalities. Significantly, the World
Cup is the most widely watched sporting event in the world,
exceedmg even the Olympic Games. For example, FIFA's
audit of the 2018 World Cup in Russia reports that a com-
bined 1.12 billion viewers worldwide watched the final. Over
the course of the games, a combined 3.572 billion viewers
10 What Is Jntersectionality?
- more than half of the global population aged 4 and over
- tuned in to watch some aspect of the games at horne on
TV, in public viewing areas of bars and restaurants, and on
digital platforms. From the perspective of FIFA's organizers
and financiers, the possibilities of reaching this massive global
consumer market of sports fans are limitless.
Given the growth of mass media and digital media, it is
important to ask what cultural messages concerning race,
gender, class, sexuality, and similar categories are being
broadcast to this vast global audience. In this case, promot-
ing and televising football offers a view of fair play that in
turn explains social inequality. Broadcast across the globe,
the World Cup projects important ideas about competition
and fair play. Sports contests send an influential message: not
everyone can win. On the surface, this makes sense, but why
is it that some individuals and groups of people consistently
win whereas others consistently lose? FIFA has ready-made
answers. Winners have talent, discipline, and luck, while
losers suffer from lack of talent, inferior self-discipline, and/
or bad luck. This view suggests that fair competition produces
just results. Armed with this worldview concerning winners
and losers, it's a small step toward using this frame to explain
social inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well
as their intersections.
What conditions are needed for this frame to remain plau-
sible? This is where the idea of a level or flat playing field,
one advanced by professional football and sports in general,
becomes crucial. Imagine a tilted football field installed on a
gently sloping hillside with the red team's goal at top of the hill
and the blue team's goal in the valley. The red team's players
have a clear advantage: when they try to score, the structure
of the playing field helps them. No matter how gifted they
are, because they are helped by the invisible force of gravity,
their players need not work as hard as those from the blue
team to score. In contrast, the blue team's players have an
ongoing uphill battle to score a goal. They may have talent
and self-discipline, but they have the bad luck of playing on
a tilted playing field. To win, blue team members may need
to be especially gifted. Football fans would be outraged if the
actual playing field were tilted in this way. Yet this is what
social divisions of class, gender, and race that are hard-wired
What Is lntersectiona/ity? 11
into the structural domain of power do - we all think we are

playing on a level playing field when we are not.
The cultural domain of power helps manufacture and dis-
seminate this narrative of fair play that claims that we all have
equal ac~ess to oppo~tu~i~ies across social institutions, th~t
competitions among md1Vlduals or groups (teams) are fa1r,
and that resulting patterns of winners and losers have been
fairly accomplished. This myth of fair play not only legiti-
mates the outcomes of the competitive and repetitive nature
of major global sporting competitions such as the World Cup
and the Olympics, it also reinforces cultural narratives about
capitalism and nationalism. Mass media spectacles of all sorts
reiterate the belief that unequal outcomes of winners and
losers are normal outcomes of capitalist marketplace compe-
tition. Sporting events, beauty pageants, reality television, and
similar popular competitions broadcast on a regular basis the
idea that the marketplace relations of capitalism are socially
just as long as there is fair play. By showcasing competitions
between nations, cities, regions, and individuals, mass media
reinforces this all-important cultural myth. As long as they
play by the rules and their teams are good enough, 195 or
so nation-states can theoretically compete in the FIFA World
Cup. Yet because rich nations have far more resources than
poor ones, a handful of nation-states can field men's and
women's teams, and even fewer can host the World Cup.
When national teams compete, nations themselves compete,
with the outcome of such competitions explained by cultural
myths.
These mass media spectacles and associated events also
present important scripts of gender, race, sexuality, and nation
that work together and influence one another. The bravery
of male athletes on national teams makes them akin to war
heroes on battlefields, while the beauty, grace, and virtue of
national beauty pageants are thought to represent the beauty,
grace, and virtue of the nation. Women athletes walk a fine
line between these two views of masculinity and femininity
that draw meaning from binary understandings of gender.
Why is this myth of fair play so durable? Because many
people enjoy sporting events or play sports themselves, sports
often serve as the template for equality and fair play. Football
is a global sport that theoretically can be played almost
anywhere by almost anyone. Children and youth who play
football typically love the sport. Football does not require
expensive lessons, or a carefully manicured playing field, or
even shoes. Recreational football requires no special equip·
ment or training, only some kind of ball and enough players
to field two teams. Compared with tennis, American football,
ice skating, or skiing, football seemingly creates far fewer
barriers between individuals with athletic talent and access to
opportunities to play the game.
The fanfare granted to the World Cup is a small tip of
the iceberg of how football draws upon categories of class,
gender, and race, among others, to shape cultural norms of
fairness and social justice. From elite athletes to poor kids,
football players want to compete on a fair playing field.
It doesn't matter how you got to the field: all that matters
once you are on it is what you can do. The sports metaphor
of a level playing field speaks to the desire for fairness and
equality among individuals. Whether winners or losers, this
team sport rewards individual talent, yet also highlights the
collective team nature of achievement. When played well and
unimpeded by suspect officiating, football rewards individual
talent. In a world that is characterized by so much unfair·
ness, competitive sports such as football become important
venues for seeing how things should be. The backgrounds of
the players should not matter when they hit the playing field.
What matters is how well they play. Mass media spectacles
may appear to be mere entertainment, yet they are essential to
the smooth working of the cultural domain of power.
The disciplinary domain of power refers to how rules and
regulations are fairly or unfairly applied to people based on
race, sexuality, class, gender, age, ability, and nation, and
similar categories. Basically, as individuals and groups, we are
"disciplined" to fit into and/or challenge the existing starus
quo, often not by overt pressure, but by ongoing disciplinary
practices. Within football, disciplinary power operates when
some youth are forbidden to play, others are discouraged
from playing, whereas others receive top-notch coaching in
first-class facilities to cultivate their talent. Many are simply
told that they are the wrong gender or lack the ability to play
at all. In essence, intersecting power relations use categories of
gender or race, for example, to create pipelines to success or
marginalization, and then encourage, train, or coerce people

to stay on their prescribed paths.
Within athletics, intersections of race and nation are
important dimensions of disciplinary power. For example,
South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup highlights the
obstacles that African boys face in playing professional foot-
ball. Lacking opportunities for training, development, and
even basic equipment, African youth look toward European
clubs. European football clubs offer salaries on a par with
those offered within US professional football, basketball, and
baseball to play for teams in the UK, France, Italy, and Spain.
The surge in the number of Africans playing at big European
clubs reflects the dreams of young African football players to
have successful professional careers. Yet the lure of European
football also makes youth vulnerable to exploitation by
unscrupulous recruiters. Filmmaker Mariana van Zeller's
2010 documentary Football's Lost Boys details how thou-
sands of young players were lured away from their home-
lands, with their families giving up their savings to predatory
agents, and how they were often left abandoned, broke, and
alone, a process that resembles human trafficking.
The increasing racial/ethnic diversity of elite European
teams that recruit African players, other players of color from
poorer countries, and racialized immigrant minorities may
help national teams to win. But this racial/ethnic/national
diversity of elite football teams also highlights the problem
of racism in European football. The visible diversity among
team players upends longstanding assumptions about race,
ethnicity, and national identity. When France's national team
defeated the Brazilian team to win the 1998 World Cup, some
fans saw the team as non-representative of France because
most of the players were not white. Moreover, although white
European fans may love their teams, many feel free to engage
in racist behavior, such as calling African players monkeys,
chanting racial slurs, and carrying signs with racially deroga-
tory language.2
FIFA's gendered rules also reflect disciplinary power in
ways that produce significantly different experiences for
male and female athletes. An intersectional analysis suggests
that the convergence of class and gender translates into pay
inequities and differential opportunities after a professional
soccer career. Beyond the initial division between male and
female athletes, different rules that set FIFA policy reflect gen-
dered assumptions about women and sports. Recognizing the
disparity of support for men's and women's soccer, on March
8, 2019, International Women's Day, the US players filed a
federal gender discrimination lawsuit against the United
States Soccer Federation (USSF), the national governing body
for the sport. In response, in a legal filing, the USSF denied
unlawful conduct, attributing gendered pay differentials to
"differences in the aggregate revenue generated by the differ-
ent teams and/or any other factor other than sex." In other
words, from the perspective of USSF, any gendered economic
inequality reflects marketplace structures and cultural norms
that lie outside FIFA's purview, not gender discrimination
within FIFA itself.
The fight for equal pay within US soccer generated con-
siderable attention, especially since the US women's team
had consistently outperformed the men's team, on the field,
in media interest, and in revenue. The US men's team failed
to qualify for the 2018 games, whereas the women's team
won the World Cup in 2015 and 2019. Viewership for the
women's team also outpaced that for the men's team. In 2015,
some 25 million people watched the US women's team win
the World Cup final - at that time, a record US audience
for any soccer game, with their 2019 victory breaking that
record. But while important, gender-only frameworks miss
intersectional dimensions of how both the rules as well as the
tools for fighting social injustice discriminate. In 2019, the US
women's team was paid less than the men and had the legal
rights and means to file a lawsuit. In contrast, the Reggae Girlz
of jamaica, the first national soccer team from the Caribbean
to qualify for the World Cup, had difficulty raising the funds
to attend the games. They fared better than the Super Falcons,
the Nigerian national team, which, even though they were
nine-time winners of the Africa Cup, were not paid at all.
Chronically underfunded, the Super Falcons protested at the
house of Nigeria's president and eventually received increased
financial support to attend the games.
These gender differences between men's and women's
soccer intersect with differences of race and class within
both the men's and the women's game. The rules of soccer
:1 . turn shape team rankings that discipline players through
1n . Ra.n k.mgs amo~g t h~ w~men 's. teams
differential expectattons.
correlate with race and natton and, by •mphcat10n, With the
different levels of support provided to women athletes in
rich and poor countries. Despite being one of the wealthi-
est countries in continental Africa, South Africa sent its first
women's team to the 2019 World Cup, joining Nigeria and
Cameroon as one of only three African teams that qualified.
All three were ranked at the bottom of the list of teams that
qualified and lost in the first round to better-funded teams.
lntersections of race and gender characterize both men's and
women's football, with important financial implications for
all players.
The interpersonal domain of power refers to how individ-
uals experience the convergence of structural, cultural, and
disciplinary power. Such power shapes intersecting identities
of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and age that in tum
organize social interactions. Intersectionality recognizes that
perceived group membership can make people vulnerable
to various forms of bias, yet because we are simultaneously
members of many groups, our complex identities can shape
the specific ways that we experience that bias. For example,
men and women often experience racism differently, just as
women of different races can experience sexism differently,
and so on. Intersectionality highlights these aspects of indi-
vidual experience that we may not notice.
For the FIFA World Cup, intersecting identities are hypervis-
ible on a global stage. New information and communications
technologies (ICTs) have increased the visibility and scope
of individual identities, in the case of FIFA offering sports
competitions that are designed to entertain and educate, but
that also provide a window into people's lives. Like everyone
else, FIFA's athletes must craft their identities within intersect-
ing power relations. Moreover, the visibility granted athletes'
bodies within sporting competitions means that the embodied
nature of intersecting identities is on constant display. Much
is at stake in cultivating the right image and brand. The ways
in which athletes handle their identities can result in lucrative
endorsements, contracts as sportscasters, and opportunities
to broker their excellence and visibility in coaching and ancil-
lary opportunities. Given the global scope and mass media
intensity of the FIFA World Cup tournament, individual
players have to decide not only how they will play the game,
but how their individual image both on and off the pitch will
be received by fans. As the aforementioned name-calling and
racist commentary within European football suggests, fans
can be fickle, rooting for the home team that has players of
color, yet hurling racial epithets at players on the opposing
team. The commodification of identity is big business.
Because gender is a foundational social division in every-
day life, managing identities of masculinity and femininity
takes on larger-than-life significance in this global public area.
Regardless of sport, women have faced an uphill battle to
play sports at all, to do so on an elite level, and to receive
equitable compensation for doing so. Moreover, because
women's sports ostensibly disrupt longstanding norms of
femininity, the treatment of women athletes in sports where
they have managed to establish well-paying careers as is the
case of women's tennis - or a living wage as is the case of
women's basketball- offers a lesson to the female athletes in
World Cup football. Women's sports have been fraught with
consistent efforts to manage women's dress and appearance.
The treatment of women athletes who appear to violate
norms of femininity offers a window into the broader issue
of how elite athletes deal with hegemonic masculinity and
femininity in professional sports. As more women play pro-
fessional sports, they increasingly contest the rules of het-
eronormativity. For example, tennis stars Venus and Serena
Williams have been legendary in challenging the dress code
of women's tennis and both have been accused of being
overly masculine because they ostensibly play like men. At
the inception of the Women's National Basketball Association
(WNBA), the league's overwhelmingly black female players
were encouraged to model traditional femininity to counter
accusations of lesbianism. Athletes attended to their hair and
makeup and brought children and male partners to games
to signal their sexual orientation. As the league has matured,
players are increasingly embracing an androgynous fashion
style that is more in tune with contemporary notions of
gender fluidity.
As individuals, FIFA athletes may have comparable talent,
aspire to the same things, or hold similar values. Yet norms
of heteronormativity are ~lo~e~y aligne~ :-vith these ?isciJ?li-

nar-y practices that s?~P~ mdiVI~ual dect.stons ab?ut tden!tty,
masculinity, and femmmtty. Playmg an ehte sport ts one thmg.
Being accept~d b~ .the fans that ~und that sport is another.
Intersecting Jdentmes and expenences reflect power plays
across the structural, cultural, disciplinary, and interpersonal
domains of power, identities that play out in everyday social
interactions as well as public images. Overall, professional
football is not just a game, but rather offers a rich site for
using intersectionality as an analytical tool.
Economic inequality: a new global crisis?
When it comes to highlighting global economic inequality

as an important social problem, 2014 was a pivotal year.
Drawing more than 6,000 participants from all over the
world, the Eighteenth International Sociological Association
(ISA) World Congress of Sociology convened in Yokohama,
Japan. In his presidential address, Michael Burawoy (2005),
a distinguished Marxist scholar, argued that inequality was
the most pressing issue of our time. Burawoy suggested that
growing global inequality had spurred new thinking not only
in sociology, but also in economics and related social sciences.
Burawoy had long been a proponent of public sociology, the
perspective holding that sociological tools should be brought
to bear on important social issues. Interestingly, he stressed
the significance of the 2013 election of Pope Francis. As the
first pope from the Global South, Pope Francis expressed a
strong commitment to tackling the questions of social ine-
quality, poverty, and environmental justice, even qualifying
economic inequality as "the root of social evil." It is not every
day that a Marxist scholar quotes the Pope before an interna-
tional gathering of social scientists.
That same year, more than 220 business leaders and inves-
tors from 27 countries assembled in London at the May
2014 Conference on Inclusive Capitalism. As Nafeez Ahmed
reported in a May 28, 2014 Guardian article, the attendees
gathered to discuss "the need for a more socially responsible
form of capitalism that benefits everyone, nor just a wealthy
minority." Representing the most powerful financial and
business elites, who controlled approximately US$30 trillion
worth of liquid assets, or one-third of the global total, this
group was concerned about, as the CEO of Unilever put it,
"the capitalist threat to capitalism." The stellar guest list for
the conference included Prince Charles, Bill Clinton, the gov-
ernor of the Bank of England, and several heads of global
corporations. Interestingly, in her keynote speech, Christine
Lagarde, then head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
invoked the same reference to Pope Francis's depiction of
increasing inequality as "the root of social evil." Referencing
Marx's insight that capitalism "carried the seeds of its own
destruction," Lagarde argued, something needs to be done.
Here again, it is not every day that the head of the IMF quotes
both the Pope and Marx before the global financial elite.
Since the 1990s, economic inequality in income and wealth
has grown exponentially, both within individual nation-states
and across an overwhelming majority of countries, affecting
70 percent of the world's population. And this economic ine-
quality contributes to social inequality more broadly. Nearly
half of the world's wealth, some US$110 trillion, is owned by
only 1 percent of the world's population; between them, this
tiny group owns more than the other 99 percent put together
(Oxfam 2015).3 These trends suggest that by 2014 the state
of global inequality was serious enough that people who
were typically on opposite sides of many issues took notice.
Lagarde and Burawoy were both concerned about the impact
of a changing global economy. Under Lagarde's leadership,
the IMF offered a mainstream view of the causes and solu-
tions to the social inequality brought on by a changing global
economy. Like Burawoy, many sociologists have long offered
a critical assessment of this mainstream view, pointing instead
to structural power relations. By 2014, growing global social
inequality was so significant that both mainstream and crit-
ical groups identified global social inequality generally, and
economic social inequality in particular, as a global social
problem.
Examining the specific histories of nation-states fosters
different angles of vision on global economic inequalities. For
instance, if we look at what happens between countries, we
see that global income inequality has been in decline since the
mid-1970s, which is related to the economic growth in fast-
n d veloping countries such as India and China. However, if we

s l:ok at what ha.ppens w_ithin countries, w.e see t~at absolute
t, 1
·ncome inequality has mcreased dramatically m the same
r eriod (UNU 2016). Moreover, even though income inequal-
·. pry has increased since the mid-1970s/early 1980s in nearly all
II ~ounrries, there are important regional variations. According
e ro the World Inequality Report (WIR) 2018, income inequality
I, has increased exponentially in North America, China, India,
f and Russia, and moderately in Europe, while it has remained
g relatively stable, at extremely high levels, in the Middle East,
l sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil. From a broad historical per-
spective, the report notes, "this increase in inequality marks
s rhe end of a postwar egalitarian regime which took different
forms in these regions" (WIR 2018).
1 Using intersectionality as an analytic tool points to several
s important dimensions of growing global inequality. First,
social inequality does not fall equally on women, children,
people of color, differently abled people, transgendered
{ people, undocumented populations, and indigenous groups.
{ Rather than seeing people as a homogeneous, undifferenti-
ated mass of individuals, intersectionality provides a frame-
r work for explaining how categories of race, class, gender, age,
and citizenship status, among others, position people differ-
ently in the world. Some groups are especially vulnerable to
changes in the global economy, whereas others benefit dispro·
portionately from them. Intersectionality brings a framework
of intersecting social inequalities to economic inequality as
the measure of global social inequality.
By focusing on race, gender, age, and citizenship status,
intersectionality shifts how we think about jobs, income,
and wealth, all major indicators of economic inequality. For
example, income differences that accompany labor market
practices of hiring, job security, retirement benefits, health
benefits, and pay scales do not fall equally across social
groups. Black people, women, young people, rural residents,
undocumented people, and differently abled people face
barriers to finding well-paying, secure jobs with benefits.
Many of these groups live in areas that have been hard hit
by a changing global economy and environmental hazards.
Factories have relocated, leaving few opportunities for those
who cannot afford to move. Many people remain poor from
one generation to the next because they cannot earn a decent

wage that provides them with income security. Labor market
discrimination that pushes some people into parr-time jobs
with low pay, irregular hours, and no benefits, or that renders
them structurally unemployed, does not fall equally across
social groups.
Similarly, intersectionality also fosters a rethinking of the
concept of the wealth gap. Rather than seeing the wealth gap
as unconnected to categories such as race, gender, age, and
citizenship, an intersectional lens posits that differences in
wealth reflect interlocking systems of power. The racialized
structure of the wealth gap has been well documented in the
US, where disparities between whites, blacks, and Latinos
have reached record highs (Chang 2010; Pew Research
Center 2011).4 Yet the wealth gap is not only racialized but
also simultaneously gendered. The wealth gap is generally
analyzed through an either/or lens, race or gender, but with
noteworthy exceptions (see, e.g., Oliver and Shapiro 1995),
less often through an intersectional both/and lens. Measuring
economic inequality by means of data on households, rather
than on individuals, helps document the wealth gap between
racially differentiated households and sheds light on the sit-
uation of households headed by single women across races.
Intersectional analyses demonstrate how the structure of the
inequality gap is simultaneously racialized and gendered for
women of color.5
Second, using intersectionality as an analytic tool compli-
cates class-only explanations for global economic inequality.
Both the neoclassical economics accepted in US venues and
Marxist social thought more often found in European settings
foreground class as the fundamental category for explaining
economic inequality. Both of these class-only explanations
treat race, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and ethnicity as sec-
ondary add-ons, namely, as ways to describe the class system
more accurately. Yet by suggesting that economic inequality
can neither be assessed nor effectively addressed through class
alone, intersectional analyses propose a more sophisticated
map of social inequality that goes beyond class-only accounts.
Feminist theorist Zillah Eisenstein (2014) argues that class
and capitalism are inherently intersectional:
· ·t nghts activists speak about race they are told they
Y/heD
~--..1 hink about class as we II. When anu-racast
CIVI . . 1emamsts
c . . focus
ross
..
.IJC""hro troblems of gendered racism they are also told to include
:~.eS~ when formulating class. ine_q~ality, o~e should have
nd gender in view as well. Capttal ts mtersecttonal. It always
r:ectS
race with the bodies that produce the labor. Therefore, the
anreumularion of wealth is embedded in the racialized and engen-
the d~~d strUctUres that enhance it. (Italics added)
gap
1nd
' IQ p siting that contemporary configurations of global capital
zed r:ar fuel and ~ustain ~rowing ~ocial inequalities are about
the class exploitation, racasm, sex1sm, and other systems of
lOS power fosters a rethinking of the categories used to under-
rch stand economic inequality. Intersectional frameworks that go
>Ut beyond class reveal how rae~, gender, sexuality, age, ability,
lly citizenship, and so on relate m complex and entangled ways
ith ro produce economic inequality.
5), Third, using intersectionality as an analytic tool reveals
ng how differential public policies of nation-states contribute
ter to reducing or aggravating growing global inequality. The
en post-World War II period was marked by the growth of social
it- welfare states in some national contexts, and the absence
!S. of such states in others, and more recently the dismantling
1e of social welfare states in yet others. There are many varia-
Jr nons of states and policies - for example, pubhc policies of
countries in the former Soviet Union that pursued a differ-
i- ent course toward social equality, or colonies that became
y. countries - but here we focus on social democracy and neo-
d liberalism as shorthand terms for much broader sets of ideas
;s or philosophies that have had and seemingly will continue to
g have an important influence on the public policies of nation-
s states. These overarching intellectual frameworks of social
democracy and neoliberalism inform the public policies of
1 nation-states as well as understandings of each other. They
{ also differ in important ways on their interpretations of social
inequality.
Drawing on the tenets of social democracy, social welfare
state policies strive to protect the interests of the public. As a
philosophy, social democracy is grounded in the belief that
democratic institutions flourish best when they see the protec-
tion of social welfare of all people as part of their mandate. In
this sense, participatory democracy is a strong pillar of social
democracy because it assumes that fostering both broad
citizen participation and fair access to the decision-making
processes of the social welfare state strengthens democratic
institutions. Unemployment, poverty, racial and gender dis-
crimination, homelessness, illiteracy, poor health, and similar
social problems constitute threats to the public good when
social problems such as these remain unaddressed. To con-
front these challenges, social welfare states aim to promote
public well-being via various combinations of establishing
regulatory agencies for electricity, water, and similar entities,
investing in public infrastructure and basic services, and pro-
viding direct state services. For example, in the US, environ-
mental safety and food security have long been the purview of
the federal government in the belief that, in order to protect
everyone, industrial polluters of water and air, as well as the
meat-packing industry, require a fair yet vigilant regulatory
climate. Social welfare policies provide for a range of projects,
including highway funding, school funding, and public trans-
portation, as well as programs that care for the elderly, chil-
dren, poor people, the disabled, the unemployed, and other
people who need assistance. Overall, the basic idea is that,
protecting its citizens and acting on behalf of the public good
constitute core values of social democracy and strong social
welfare states require participatory democracy.
In contrast, neoliberal state policies take a different view
of the role of the state in promoting public well-being. As
a philosophy, neoliberalism is grounded in the belief that
markets, in and of themselves, are better able than govern-
ments to produce economic outcomes that are fair, sensible,
and good for all. The state practices associated with neo-
liberalism differ dramatically from those of social welfare
states. First, neoliberalism fosters the increased privatiza-
tion of government programs and institutions like public
schools, prisons, healthcare, transportation, and the military.
Under the logic of neoliberal ideology, private firms that are
accountable to market forces rather than democratic over-
sight of citizens can potentially provide less costly and more
efficient services than government workers. Second, the logic
of neoliberalism argues for the scaling back, and in some
cases elimination of, the social welfare state. The safety net
etaI f vemment assistance to the poor, the unemployed, the
0
:lad . gboled the elderly, and the young is recast as wasteful
:ing d tsa · ohf 1r:espons1
' character~suc · "bl e g~vernm en~. Th"1rdd,
1
spending
Ute iberal logic clatms t at .ewer econom1c regu at1ons an
~is neo le trade that .IS free o f government constramts . protect
r
ilar obs. This freedom from env1ronmenta
mo · I regu Iatton
· a?.d entt-
·
ten ~es such as unions s~ould produce greater pr~fitab1h~ for
:ln- ome companies, wh1ch should lead to more Jobs. Fmally,
ote ~eoliberalism posits a form of individualism that rejects the
~ng notion of the public good. By neoliberal logic, people have
tes, only themselves to blame for their problems: solving social
ro- problems comes down to the self-reliance of individuals
ln· (Cohen 2010; H~rvey 2005). . . .
of The relationship between neoltberaltsm and soc1al democ-
~ racy has been contentious. Neoliberal philosophies have been
·he used to launch sustained attacks on the public programs of
•ry soc1al democracies that were put in place to address social
ts, mequality. The effects have been shrinking funding for public
15· msritutions of all sorts, including public schools, healthcare,
il- housing, and transportation. The philosophy of neoliberalism
er predicted that such cuts would not foster social inequality, but
lt, that they might reduce it. Yet, since the 1980s, as the exponen-
ld tial growth within nations of both income and the wealth gap
al shows, the results of neoliberal policies are quite the opposite.
Democratic states that pursued neoliberal policies identify big
w government not as a solution to social inequality, but as one
\s of irs causes. Following the trickle-down economics principle
at that claims that tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy in
1· society stimulate business investment in the short term and
e, benefit society at large in the long term, such policies want
)·
Jess government intrusion in the marketplace, on the assump-
·e tion that neoliberal policies will reduce social inequality by
1· growing the market and providing more opportunities for
ic everyone. Global social inequality has grown in tandem with
y. the weakening of the social democratic state.
·e Increasingly, many social democratic nation-states that
·- try to remedy social inequality by adopting neoliberal eco-
e nomic policies face serious challenges, among them, the rise
c of far-right populism. On the one hand, refusing to implement
e policies that are informed by neoliberalism can make a state
t less competitive in the global marketplace. Making industries
more competitive in the global marketplace via computer
automation and artificial intelligence, deskilling, and job
export increases the profitability of companies. Industry 4.0
is a name given to the current trend of automation and data
exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-
physical systems, the Internet of Things, cloud computing,
and cognitive computing. This will have an increasing impact
on global economic competition between states and between
cities. Yet, such policies can aggravate existing economic ine-
quality, fanning the flames of right-wing populism by those
who consider they are the ones left behind.
On the other hand, as we discuss in Chapter 5, implement-
ing neoliberal public policies as the solution to inequality can
foster social unrest. Economic development of the nation-state
does not necessarily reduce economic inequality. Those same
strategies eliminate jobs and suppress wages, leaving dosed
factories, unemployed workers, and the serious potential for
social unrest in their wake. Brazil's experiences in the wake of
hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup capture the tensions that dis-
tinguish a nation-state that aimed for a balance between social
welfare policies and neoliberal aspirations. The money spent in
preparation may have raised Brazil's profile in the global arena,
yet it simultaneously sparked massive social protest about cost
overruns and corruption. Ironically, it also led to the emergence
of a national far-right populist leader in the 2018 elections.
Intersectional analysis illuminates the differential effects of
public policies on producing economic inequality of people of
color, women, young people, rural residents, undocumented
people, and differently abled people. Yet intersectionality's
focus on people's lives provides space for alternative anal-
yses of these same phenomena that do not stem from the
worldviews of academic elites or government officials. Black
people, women, poor people, LGBTQ people, ethnic and reli-
gious minorities, indigenous peoples, and people assigned to
inferior castes and groups have never enjoyed the benefits of
full citizenship and, as a result, they have less to lose and more
to gain. People who bear the brunt of shrinking benefits from
social welfare states or neoliberal marketplace policies may be
more hopeful than their public officials about the possibilities
of social democracy. Drawing inspiration from Pope Francis,
they may also view growing economic inequality, as well as
What Is /ntersectionality? 25
tputer 1 forces that cause it, as "the root of social evil," yet
d JOb tile sacra
Jefuse · I'rves. w·tt h out
ro sit passively wareh'~ng ·tt d estray t herr.
'Y 4.0 hope of change, neither soctal protest nor soctal movements
Ida~ ,re possible.
:Yber.
Jting,
:tpacr The black women's movement in Brazil
ween
: tne. M re than 1,000 black women and their allies attended the
:hose :enth annual meeting of Latinidades, the Afro-Latin and
~fro-Canbbean women's festival in Brasilia. As the largest
lent- festival for black women in Latin America, the 2014 event
, can was scheduled to coincide with the annual International
State Day of Black Latin American and Caribbean Women.
:arne Latinidades was no ordinary festival. Several decades of
osed black women's activism in Brazil had created the politi-
for cal social, and artistic space for this annual festival that
·e of wa~ devoted to the issues and needs of black women in
dis- Brazil specifically, as well as Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean
•cial women more generally.
ttm In 1975 at the beginning of the United Nations (UN)
!n~ Decade of Women, black women presented the Manifesto
:ost of Black Women at the Congress of Brazilian Women. The
nee Manifesto called attention to how black women's life expe-
riences in jobs, families, and the economy were shaped by
; of gender, race, and sexuality. During this Decade of Women,
: of white feminists remained unwilling or unable to address
ted black women's concerns. Leila Gonzalez, Sueli Carneiro, and
y's many other black feminist activists continued to push for
al- black women's issues. Their advocacy is all the more remark-
·he able given that it occurred during the term of Brazil's military
ck government (1964-85) and that it preceded contemporary
·It- understandings of intersectionality.
to Brazil's national policy concerning race and democracy
of mtlitated against such activism. Brazil officially claimed not
re to have "races,n a position that rests on the Brazilian gov-
m ernment's approach to racial statistics. Without racial catego-
>e nes, Brazil officially had neither "races" nor black people as
:s a socially recognized "racial" group. Ironically, the myth of
s, Brazilian national identity erased race in order to construct
IS a philosophy of racial democracy, one where being Brazilian
superseded other identities such as those of race. In essence,
by erasing the political category of race, Brazil's national
discourse of racial democracy effectively eliminated language
that might describe the racial inequalities that affected black
Brazilian people's lives. This erasure of" blackness" as a politi-
cal category allowed discriminatory practices to occur in areas
of education and employment against people of visible African
descent because there were neither officially recognized terms
for describing racial discrimination nor official remedies for
it (Twine 1998). Brazil's cultivated image of national identity
posited that racism did not exist and also that color lacks
meaning, apart from when it was celebrated as a dimension
of national pride. This national identity neither came about
by accident nor meant that people of African descent believed
it. Women of African descent may have constituted a visible
and sizable segment of Brazilian society, yet in a Brazil that
ostensibly lacked race, the category of black women did not
exist as an officially recognized population. Black women
challenged these historical interconnections between ideas
about race and Brazil's nation-building project as setting the
stage for the erasure of Afro-Brazilian women.
Black feminists' ongoing criticisms of racial democracy
and advocacy for the needs of black women provided a
foundation for the new generation of activists to organize
Latinidades. These intergenerational social movement ties
enabled younger black women to highlight the connections
between gender, race, and class that were advanced within
intergenerational networks of black feminist activists. In
this context, Latinidades's expressed purpose of promoting
"racial equality and tackling racism and sexism " both con-
tinued the legacy of an earlier generation and showcased
the use of intersectionality as an analytical category within
Afro-Brazilian feminism. For example, Concei«;ao Evaristo,
Afro-Brazilian author and professor of Brazilian literature,
attended the festival. Her novel Poncia Vicencio, a land-
mark in black Brazilian women's literature, remains a classic
in examining the challenges and creativity of an ordinary
black woman who faces multiple expressions of oppression
(Evaristo 2007). Evaristo's presence spoke both to the synergy
of arts, activism, and academic work among Afro-Brazilian
feminists, and also to the significance of intergenerational
tee, . lJectUal and political engagement for the black women's

nal mte 'I
movement in Braz1 : . . .
age 'Fhe festival cultivated a range of relattonsh1ps that typl-
tck lly were seen as separate. As is the case with intersection-
iti- ~ry the festival accommodated people from all walks of
eas ~fe. 'Community organizers, pro~essors, graduate students,
:an parents artists, schoolteachers, high-school students, repre-
rns senrari;es of samba schools, government officials, and music
for lovers among others, all made the journey to Brasilia to
ity attend Larinidades. The festival centered on women of African
:ks descent, but many men and members of diverse raciaVethnic
on groups from all areas of Brazil's states and regions, as well
IUt as from Costa Rica, Ecuador, and other Latin American and
ed Caribbean nations, also attended. This transregional and
lie transnational heterogeneity enabled participants to share
1at their strategies for tackling how racism and sexism affected
Ot Afro-Latin women.
en But the festival's inclusivity also highlighted an expansive
as understanding of intersectionality that reflected the synergy of
he intellecrual and activist work. Black women's activist traditions
informed both its sessions and its special events. Latinidades did
:y not JUSt talk about the need for relations across social divisions
a of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, and ability;
ze it promoted opportunities to do so. Community organizers
es rubbed shoulders with academics, as did young people with
15 revered elders. For example, Angela Davis's keynote address
in got the audience on its feet, many with fists raised in the Black
'n Power salute. The festival also set aside time for a planning
tg meeting to educate attendees about the upcoming Black
1· Women's March for a National Day of Denouncing Racism.
d Another programming strand emphasized the significance
n of African diasporic cultural traditions, especially in Brazil.
,, Writers, artists, activists, and academics learned from one
.,
~
another. From the content of academic sessions, to a workshop
1- for girls on black aesthetics and beauty, to a session on the art
c of turbans and their connections to black beauty, to a capoeira
y workshop, and a tree-planting ceremony of the seedlings of
n sacred baobab trees, Latinidades saw culture as an important
y dimension of Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean women's lives.
1 After two days of intensive workshops, talks, and films, festi-
I val participants spilled out of the museum onto its expansive
plaza to enjoy two nights of live music. Latinidades was a fes-
tival where serious work and play coincided.
Latinadades's use of intersectionality as an analytic tool for
structuring the conference illustrates broader issues concern-
ing how Afro-Brazilian women's longstanding commitment
to challenging racism and sexism reflects the specific social
context of their experiences. Notwithstanding its myth of
racial democracy, Brazil's specific history with slavery, colo-
nialism, dictatorship, and democratic institutions has shaped
its distinctive patterns of intersecting power relations of race,
gender, and sexuality. Sexual engagements, both consensual
and forced, among African, indigenous, and European-
descended populations created a Brazilian population with
varying hair textures, skin colors, body shapes, and eye colors,
as well as a complex and historically shifting series of terms
to describe them. Skin color, hair texture, facial features, and
other aspects of appearance became de facto racial markers
for distributing education, jobs, and other social goods. As
Kia Caldwell points out, "popular images of Brazil as a car-
nivalesque, tropical paradise have played a central role in
contemporary constructions of mulata women's social identi-
ties. Brazil's international reputation as a racial democracy is
closely tied to the sexual objectification of women of mixed
racial ancestry as the essence of Brazilianness" (2007: 58). For
Afro-Brazilian women, those of mixed ancestry or with more
European physical features are typically considered to be
more attractive. Moreover, women of visible African ances-
try are typically constructed as non-sexualized, and often
as asexual laborers or, conversely, as prostitutes (Caldwell
2007: 51). Appearance not only carries differential weight for
women and men, but different stereotypes of black women
rest on beliefs about their sexuality. These ideas feed back
into notions of national identity, using race, gender, sexuality,
and color as intersecting phenomena.
Intersectionality's framework of mutually constructing
identity categories enabled Afro-Brazilian women to develop
a collective identity politics. In this case, they cultivated a
political black feminist identity politics at the intersections of
racism, sexism, class exploitation, national history, and sexu-
ality. The political space created by reinstalling democracy in
the late 1980s benefited both women and black people. Yet
was one significant difference between the two groups.

rherelirnate where women's rights encompassed only the needs
1
1for
1 ~ a ~ire women, and where black people experienced an anti-
:ern. ~l wk racism in a context of alleged racial democracy, Afro-
nent B ~~ilian women experienced differential treatment within
>cia! br th the feminist movement and the Black Movement. Clearly,
h of ~men and men had different experiences within Brazilian
olo. :Oety _ there was no need to advocate for the integrity of
tped ~e categories themselves. Yet the framing of the women's
-ace, movement, even around such a firm subject as "woman," was
sua! inflected through other categories. Because both upper- and
!an- middle-class women were central to the women's movement,
vitb their status as marked by class, yet unmarked by race (most
ors, were white), shaped political demands. Brazil's success in
rms electing women to political office reflected alliances among
lnd women across categories of social class. With the noteworthy
:ers exception of Benedita da Silva, the first black woman to serve
As in the Brazilian Congress in 1986 and the Senate in 1994,
:ar- feminism raised issues of gender and sexuality, but did so in
in ways that did not engage issues of anti-black racism that were
lh· so important to Afro-Brazilian women.
Tis Unlike white Brazilian women, black Brazilians of all sexes
:ed and genders had to create the collective political identity
;or of "black" in order to build an antiracist social movement
)fC that highlighted the effects of anti-black racism. Brazil's
be history with transatlantic slavery left it with a large popu-
lation of African descent - by some estimates, 50 percent of
en the Brazilian population. Those who claimed an identity as
ell "black" seemed to contradict the national identity of racial
or democracy, and thus ran the risk of being accused of disloy-
~n alty and not being fully Brazilian. In this sense, the Black
:k Movement that emerged in the 1990s did not call for equal
-y, treatment within the democratic state for an already recog-
nized group. Rather, recognition meant both naming a sizable
tg segment of the population and acknowledging that it experi-
'P enced anti-black racial discrimination (Hanchard 1994).
a Neither Brazilian feminism led by women who were pri-
)f marily well-off and white, nor a Black Movement that was
I- actively engaged in claiming a collective black identity that
n identified racism as a social force could by itself adequately
·t address Afro-Brazilian women's issues. Black women who
30 What Is Jntersectionality?
participated in the Black Movement found willing allies

when it came to antiracist black activism, but much less
understanding of how the issues faced by black people took
gender-specific forms. Indeed, they found little recognition of
the special issues of living lives as black women in Brazil at
the intersections of racism, sexism, class exploitation, second-
class citizenship, and heterosexism. Brazil's history of class
analysis, which saw capitalism and workers' rights as major
forces in shaping inequality, made space for exceptional indi-
viduals such as Benedita da Silva. Yet when it came to race as
a category of analysis, black women faced similar pressures to
subordinate their special concerns under the banner of class
solidarity. These separate social movements of feminism, anti-
racism, and workers' movements were important, and many
black women continued to participate in them. Yet because
no one social movement alone could adequately address
Afro-Brazilian women's issues, they formed their own.
Taking a step back to view black Brazilian women's ideas
and actions illustrates how a collective identity politics
emerged around a politicized understanding of a collective
black women's identity based on common experiences of
domination, exploitation, and marginalization (Caldwell
2007). For example, when black domestic workers organ-
ized, it was clear that women of African descent were dispro-
portionately represented in this occupational category. Not
all domestic workers were "black," but the job category was
certainly closely associated with black women. Afro-Brazilian
women were more vulnerable to violence, especially those
living in favelas and who did domestic work. Drawing on
cultural ties to the African diaspora, black women activists
also saw their roles as mothers and othermothers as impor-
tant for political action. Women of African descent in Brazil
knew on one level, through personal experience, that they
were part of a group that shared certain collective experi-
ences. They were disproportionately engaged in domestic
work. Their images were maligned in popular culture. They
were disproportionately targets of misogynistic violence.
They were mothers who lacked the means to care for their
children as they would have liked, but had ties to the value
placed on mothering across the African diaspora. Yet because
they lacked a political identity and accompanying analysis
es attach to these experiences, they couldn't articulate a col-

ss f0crive identity poliucs to raise their concerns. None of their
>k closest alhes - black men in the Black Movement, or white
of women in the feminist movement, or socialists in organiza-
at tions that advocated for workers' rights - would have the
d- best interests of such women at hearc as fervently as they
ss themselves did (Carneiro 1995).
)£ Latinidades marked one moment within a long struggle
li- to acknowledge race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality as
as mutually constructing multidimensional aspects of Afro-
to Brazilian women's lives. It was simultaneously a celebration
ss and a recommitment to continue the struggle. Yet as the
:i- premature death of Marielle Franco (1979-2018) suggests,
lY building an Afro-Brazilian women's movement is neither easy
se nor finished. A black bisexual woman who grew up in a Rio
ss de Janeiro favela, Franco was one of the most outspoken
Brazilian activists and politicians of her generation. Elected
as to rhe City Council of Rio de Janeiro in 2016, she chaired
cs the Women's Defense Commission and fiercely condemned
ve police killings and violence against women. Her strong grass-
of roots and social media mobilizing presence made her a highly
!II effective advocate for the rights of black women, youth, and
n- LGBTQ people. Her political assassination made her an icon
o- of democratic resistance and of the struggle for social justice
ot in Brazil and beyond. A champion of human rights, Marielle
as Franco's death and life remind us of the significance of inter-
m sectronality for movements for social justice.
se
m
ts
if•
Core Ideas of Intersectional Frameworks
dl
!Y Our three uses of intersectionality as an analytic tool- namely,
i- how the FIFA World Cup illuminates intersecting power rela-
ic tions, the growing recognition of economic inequality as a
!Y global social problem, and how intersectionality unfolded
e. within the black women's movement in Brazil- may seem
·ir quite different from one another. But together they shed light
Je on six core ideas within intersectionality: social inequality,
se mtersecting power relations, social context, relationality,
IS social justice, and complexity. Just as these themes reappear,
32. What Is lntersectionality?
albeit in different forms, within intersectionality itself, they
repeat in different ways throughout this book. We briefly
introduce them here, develop them in future chapters, and
return to them in Chapter 8.
First, each of the three cases discussed above sheds light on
intersectional analyses of social inequality, albeit from very
different vantage points. The case of FIFA World Cup football
contrasts the depiction of fairness on football's playing field
with social inequalities of gender, race, nation, and class that
characterize FIFA's business practices. In contrast, the case
of how growing global inequality came to the attention of
ISA and the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism emphasizes
how intersectionality might inform different explanations for
economic inequality. Philosophies of social democracy and
neoliberalism that shape public policies have important effects
on the economic inequality that characterizes social inequal-
ity. The Afro-Brazilian women's movement explores how
social movements constitute important political responses to
national patterns of social inequality, in this case, the inter-
sections of racism, sexism, class exploitation, and national
identity. Recognizing that social inequality is rarely caused
by a single factor, intersectionality adds additional layers of
complexity to understandings of social inequality. Using inter-
sectionality as an analytic tool moves beyond seeing social
inequality through race-only or class-only lenses and instead,
understands social inequality through the interactions among
various categories of power.
Second, these cases highlight different dimensions of inter-
secting power relations as well as political responses to them.
The case of the FIFA World Cup illustrates how intersecting
power relations are organized and operate in a social institu-
tion where the ideology of fair play masks significant power
differences. This case introduces how intersecting power rela-
tions are to be analyzed both via specific intersections - for
example, of racism and sexism, or capitalism and heterosexism
- as well as across domains of power- namely, structural, dis-
ciplinary, cultural, and interpersonal. The case of global social
inequality shows how intersectional frameworks that take
power relations into account, especially those that analyze
how nation-state power works with different philosophies
of social democracy and neoliberalism, raise new questions
:hey b t global social inequality. In contrast, the Afro-Brazilian

efly a ouen's movement emphasizes how everyday people organ-
and worn . power reIat1ons
to oppose intersecttng . th atharm t h em.
· on
:C examming how black women in Brazil organized to resist
yultiple forms of social inequality, black women's activism
ery llusuates how community organizing and grassroots involve-
>all ment generated intersectional analysis and praxis.
eld These cases illuminate a third core theme of intersectional
hat analysis, namely, the importance of examining intersecting
:tse power relations in a social context. Because analyzing inter-
of sectionality in a global social context is a strong theme of
~es this book, we have selected cases that offer different lenses on
·or intersectionality in a global context, taking care to highlight
nd national contexts as well as particular contexts within them.
:ts Contextualization is especially important for intersectional
d- proJects produced in the Global South. just as the women
IW athletes from South Africa, jamaica, and Nigeria encountered
to obstacles when playing FIFA World Cup soccer, so scholars
~r- and activists working in nation-states of the Global South face
a! difficulties in reaching wider audiences. We selected the case
!d of the black women's movement in Brazil to illustrate how
)f many of intersectionality's more prominent ideas reflect the
r- specific concerns of a group within specific social contexts- in
11 this case, black women within the Brazilian nation-state with
l, a history of slavery and colonialism. just as Afro-Brazilian
g feminism situates intersectionality within a Brazilian context,
so too might other expressions of intersectionality require
·- a similar contextualization. The analysis of the World Cup
examined the global contours of intersecting power relations.
,, The analysis of growing recognition of global economic ine-
quality emphasizes the importance of nation-state policies
and the social contexts of government institutions.
Fourth, these cases point to how relationality informs all
aspects of intersectionality. Relationality embraces a bothland
analytical framework that shifts focus from seeing categories
as oppositional, for example, the differences between race
and gender, to examining their interconnections. Relationalicy
takes various forms within intersectionality and is found in
terms such as "coalition," "solidarity," "dialog," "conversa-
tion," "interaction," and "transaction." But the terminology is
less important than seeing how this shift in perspective toward
relationality opens up new possibilities for intersectionality's
inquiry and praxis. For example, regarding inquiry, the case
of global economic inequality illustrates how class-only argu-
ments may be insufficient to explain global social inequality,
and that intersectional analyses that examine the relation-
ships among class, race, gender, and age might be more valu-
able. Similarly, regarding praxis, the Afro-Brazilian women's
movement illustrates how intersectionality emerged within
coalition building for an intergenerational social movement.
Fifth, these cases highlight the complexity of doing critical
intersectional analysis. Using intersectionality as an analytic
tool is difficult, precisely because intersectionality itself is
multifaceted. Because intersectionality aims to understand
and analyze the complexity in the world, it requires intricate
strategies to do so. Rather than proclaiming that complexity
is important, we aimed to demonstrate through our case selec-
tion the multifaceted nature of intersectionality. Each of our
cases is a highly abbreviated rendition of a far more complex
intersectional argument. Starting with a well-known social
institution (FIFA), or an important social problem (social
inequality}, or a seemingly invisible political phenomenon
(black women's movement) involves incorporating ever more
complex levels of analysis. Intersections of race and gender
can identify the need for class analysis, or viewing intersec-
tions of nation and sexuality can highlight the need for other
categories of analysis. This level of complexity is not easy for
anyone to handle. It complicates things and can be a source
of frustration for scholars, practitioners, and activists alike.
Yet complexity is not something that one achieves by using
intersectionality as an analytic tool, but rather something that
deepens intersectional analysis.
Finally, some commitment to social ;ustice has histori-
cally informed much of intersectionality's critical inquiry
and praxis. We selected these cases to introduce intersec-
tionality because they all illuminate how intersectionality's
use as a critical analytic tool is connected to a social justice
ethos. What makes an intersectional project critical lies in
its connection to social justice. For example, our analysis of
global economic inequality illustrates how fostering social
justice requires complex analyses of global economic ine-
quality.
-
What Is lnterseetionality? 35
' 's Yet because intersectionality's ties to social justice may not
se b self-evident, the need to pursue a social justice agenda as
u- ~ essential dimension of inrersectionality remains conren-
y, \us. Many people believe that social ideals, such as the belief
1- ~ mertrocracy, fairness, and the reality of democracy, have
l- ~!ready been achieved. For them, there is no global crisis of
's social inequality because economic inequality is the outcome
n of fair competition and fully functioning democratic insti-
tutions. Social inequality can exist without it being socially
ll unjust. Our cases challenge this view, suggesting that FIFA
c reproduces s.oci~l i~equali~ i~ ways that are. n~ither fair nor
s just. Social JUStlce 1s elusive m unequal soc1et1es where the
d rules may seem fair, yet differentially enforced through dis-
e criminatory practices, the case of Brazil's racial democracy.
y Social justice is also elusive where the rules themselves may
appear to be equally applied to everyone, yet still produce
r unequal and unfair outcomes: in social democracies and neo-
c liberal nation-states, everyone may have the "right" to vote,
I but not everyone has equal access to do so, and not everyone's
I vote counts the same.
Our goal in this book is to democratize the rich and
growing literature of intersectionality - not to assume that
only African American students will be interested in black
history, or that LGBTQ youth will be the only ones inter-
ested in queer studies, or that intersectionality is for any one
segment of the population. Rather, we invite our readers to
use intersectionality as an analytic tool to examine a range
of topics such as those discussed here. In this chapter, we
have introduced selected main ideas within intersectionality
by using intersectionality as an analytical tool. In Chapters
2 and 3, we further examine intersectionality's analytical
framework by introducing the distinction between intersec-
tionality as a form of inquiry and as praxis and by tracing the
emergence of these ideas. In Chapters 4 and 5, we return to
the use of intersectionality as an analytical tool by showing
its utility for analyzing global phenomena - specifically,
human rights, reproductive rights, digital media, global
social protest, and neoliberal state policies. In Chapters 6
and 7, we take up identity politics and critical education as
two important issues that have shaped intersectionality as
discourse. Our concluding chapter revisits the challenges
of using intersectionality as an analytic tool, as well as the
varying forms that its core themes of social inequality, rela-
tionality, power, social context, complexity, and social justice
can and might assume.

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eReserves

For more information about Reserves (physical materials and

In the early twenty-first century, the term "intersectional-

IntersectJonality investigates how intersecting power relations

This working definition describes intersectionality's core

Using lntersectionality as an Analytic Tool

People generally use intersectionality as an analytic tool to

lS who experience distinctive forms of discrimination (sexual-

Phule confronted several axes of social division, namely

intersectionality is" (2013: 795). Our cases of how intersect-

Power plays: the FIFA World Cup

Across the globe, there is no way of knowing exactly how

power relations ta~e wit~in disti?ctive d~mains .of. power.

Cup and many of the 12 stadiums that Brazil constructed for

into the structural domain of power do - we all think we are

marginalization, and then encourage, train, or coerce people

of heteronormativity are ~lo~e~y aligne~ :-vith these ?isciJ?li-

Economic inequality: a new global crisis?

When it comes to highlighting global economic inequality

n d veloping countries such as India and China. However, if we

one generation to the next because they cannot earn a decent

tee, . lJectUal and political engagement for the black women's

was one significant difference between the two groups.

participated in the Black Movement found willing allies

es attach to these experiences, they couldn't articulate a col-

:hey b t global social inequality. In contrast, the Afro-Brazilian

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