Theory of Intersectionality

Intersectionality highlights how people and groups negotiate systems of privilege and oppression across time and space. Intersectionality promotes a more multidimensional, inclusive view of social identity, families, and communities. This chapter introduces intersectionality theory and presents an argument for why it is useful in psychological and social sciences as well as clinical practice. Core ideas and assumptions of intersectionality reflect that aspirational goal. L. McCall identified three main analytical approaches in intersectional research—anticategorical, intracategorical, and intercategorical complexity. A. L. Few and K. R. Allen argued that these tensions were rooted in a fear of and resistance to perceived intellectual appropriation and the erasure of Black feminist theoretical roots and the concern that intersectionality was being depoliticized from emancipatory, social-justice-oriented tenets of Black feminism. Clinicians risk perpetuating dominant systems of oppression when there is a lack of critical self-awareness of power in the therapeutic relationship.