Identities-at-intersections in an ANti-oppresive lens

Identity is an effect of being; it is not fixed. Each of us will have to traverse politics moved by power and social relations that make difference of identities and diversity manifest. In my original work in 2018, I argued that identities can be respectably called identities at the intersections, or identities-at-intersections.    

What are identities-at-intersections? The term identities-at-intersections is defined through the lens of perceiving, understanding and elaborating the social positions and positioning of identities within the spaces of intersections of hegemony. This definition that I developed was inspired by Crenshaw’s (1993, 2001) intersectionality theory, and Anthias’ (2013, 2014) work on intersections and social positioning. Crenshaw defines intersectionality as the situation that "occurs when a woman from a minority group tries to navigate the main crossing in the city.  The main highway is “racism road”. One cross street can be Colonialism, then Patriarchy Street. She has to deal not only with one form of oppression but with all forms, those named as road signs, which link together to make a double, a triple, multiple, a many layered blanket of oppression" (Crenshaw, 2001, as quoted in Yuval-Davis, 2006, 196).   

Structural pillars of hegemony promote self-determination at the expense of the Other or an ‘othering gaze’. Others who do not belong to the dominant groups are ditched at the intersections; these subordinated identities experience various forms of trauma, human suffering caused by inequality and oppression, including poverty, racism, and sexual or gendered violence, and victimization due to deficit mentality caused by ableism, to name a few. Inequalities and oppression are experienced by marginalized subjects who live at the intersections of the structural pillars of hegemony.   

Nonetheless, agency within dynamic power relations allows the identities living within those intersections to formally advance ontological (what they are and what they value) and epistemic (what they know and what must be known about them) standpoints, to make these identities’ lived experiences known and heard. The rich standpoints allow for knowledge building and meaning-making, apart from truth and authentic reconciliation.   

A variety of social systems and their interlocutors have the onus to pursue supporting these standpoints of identities-at-intersections. Through the application of emerging anti-oppressive framework in social reproductive work, particularly, in education as a parity than a polity, and an organization as a community than a hierarchy, I support the pursuit of agency of identities-at-intersections.