Kimberlé Crenshaw Books

An urgent call to change the story of police violence against women and girls.

A ground-breaking collection applying Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality to the black diasporic experience in Britain. In the 1980s, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term 'intersectionality'. Since then, the concept has spread across national and disciplinary boundaries, and has had a transformative impact on the way in which we understand identity and the experience of discrimination. But outside the US, the application of intersectional theory has largely been disconnected from any analysis of 'Blackness', despite intersectionality's origins in critical race theory (CRT). Curated by Crenshaw, Andrews and Wilson as well as several of the leading scholars of CRT, this collection bridges that gap, and is the first to apply both these concepts to contexts outside the US. Focusing on Blackness in Britain, the contributors examine how scholars and activists are employing intersectionality to foreground Black British experiences. Its essays encompass key issues such as gender and Black womanhood, issues of representation within contemporary British culture, and the position of Black Britons within institutions such as the family, education and health. The book also looks to the role intersectionality can play in shaping future political activism, and in forging links beyond 'Blackness' to other social movements.

Over the past twenty years, the concept of "intersectionality" has emerged as an influential approach to understanding the complex facets of discrimination and exclusion in a society whose members--with often complex racial, gender, or sexual identities--can experience bias in multiple ways. In this incisive introduction to Crenshaw's groundbreaking work, readers will find the key essays and articles that have defined the concept of intersectionality collected together for the first time. Crenshaw explores how a holistic analysis of discrimination gives rise to a more nuanced understanding of salient social forces. This long-awaited volume examines the Central Park jogger case, Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," LGBT activism, Anita Hill's testimony against Clarence Thomas, and other significant matters of public interest. In each case, her analysis challenges and exposes the intricate social dynamics among individuals and groups whose identities are increasingly layered. This new account covers the evolution of the meaning of intersectionality over the course of two decades and how this concept has radically changed the face of social justice activism. "On Intersectionality" is compulsory reading from one of the most brilliant critical race theorists of our time.