Grounded in Black feminist scholarship and activism (e.g. Collins 1990; hooks 1984; Combahee River Collective 1977) and formally coined in 1989, by Black legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw,1 intersectionality has garnered significant attention. Some scholars, from a range of disciplines/fields of study, have drawn on intersectionality to challenge inequities and promote social justice, as have government policy actors, human rights activists, and community organizers. A particularly growing area of interest is the study of public policy.
As it moves beyond siloed or single-category thinking (e.g. gender, race, class) to engage with interconnected domains of power, intersectionality is increasingly recognized as an innovative approach for understanding the differential impacts of policy on diverse populations. Specifically, intersectionality draws attention to aspects of policy that are largely uninvestigated or ignored altogether: the complex ways in which multiple and interlocking inequities are organized and resisted in the process, content, and outcomes of policy. In so doing, the exclusionary nature of traditional methods of policy, including the ways in which problems and populations are constituted, given shape and meaning, is revealed. Further, intersectionality positions public policies as constituting structural domains of power (Collins 2017, 26) that can be effectively harnessed for social change, including creating environments to support well-being, social inclusion, and equality.
However, the potential of intersectionality has not been fully realized in the fields of policy analysis/studies, largely due to the fact that it is still a relatively innovative approach. And while scholars and activists have started to advance conceptual clarity and provide guidance for intersectionality policy applications, more attention is still required to develop and examine the potential and pitfalls of bringing intersectionality to the analysis of public policy. There is also a pressing need for knowledge exchange in relation to methodological approaches and empirical work that demonstrates the value added of intersectionality to public policy. The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy fills these voids by highlighting the key challenges, critiques, and possibilities of intersectionality-informed approaches in public policy analysis and studies. This collected volume brings together international scholars, across a variety of sectors and disciplines, to consider how intersectionality informs policy research and analysis. Importantly, the collection offers perspectives from a variety of contexts and geographic locations, on the added value and âhow-toâ of intersectionality-informed policy approaches that aim to advance equity and social justice.
The suitability and applicability of intersectionality to policy are of particular relevance as we see, for example, the rise of the neoliberal and often conservative state, demographic shifts, environmental changes, conflict and violence, police brutality, human rights violations, and, importantly, the responses of those who are often most oppressedâimmigrants, migrants, refugees, people of colour, indigenous communities, LGBTQ* groups, and so on. As we confront long-standing and current issues around sustainability, equity, and justice, there is an urgency to understand not simply the functioning of the state, and who is left behind as a result of existing structures and policies (as is now the focus, e.g. of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Black Lives Matter Movement), but how the policy-targeted groups are not simply responding but asserting their autonomy and power and understanding of the âgood communityâ or what Tiffany Manuel (2006) refers to as the âgood life.â According to Manuel (2006):
The chapters that make up this collection offer us intellectual ground for understanding the utility of intersectionality by addressing this larger question posed by Manuel. They do so by considering the utility of public policy for improving lives but also by considering how those targeted by policy, in an increasingly complex and often unpredictable world, envision a policy approach that allows them to live a good life on their own terms.Intersectionality theory extends our understanding of how people pursue the âgood lifeâ by addressing the question: how do gender, race, class, and other forms of identity and distinction, in different contexts, shape not only the way that we view policies meant to improve our lives and the choices we make in response to those policies but also our ability to envision the possibilities for living the good life? (emphasis in original, 175)
Critical Policy Analysis Developments: A Brief Review
In recent years, the boundaries of traditional policy analysis have in fact been fundamentally challenged to better confront new trends and developments and to find ways to more precisely comprehend and respond to persistent political and social problems in an increasingly complicated and diverse world (Fischer et al. 2015; Hankivsky et al. 2012; Wagenaar 2014; Orsini and Smith 2007). Arguably, some of the most significant contributions to the advancements in progressive policy analysis have been generated within the field of critical policy studies (CPR). Rejecting the so-called neutrality of empiricism and positivism, this broad and multi-faceted field moves beyond conventional approaches to public policy inquiry with its focus on discursive politics, policy argumentation and deliberation, and interpretive modes of analysis (Howarth 2010; Fischer 2003).
CPR highlights the responsibility of inquirers to take account of social and political contextâincluding present conditions, past trends, and prevailing power relationshipsâto advance inquiry that relies not only on experts but also on citizens in a manner supporting and encouraging democracy (Fischer et al. 2015). Not only does this entail rethinking the interplay of qualitative and quantitative methods, it also requires explicit attention to the role of values. Using a variety of methods, CPR seeks to identify and examine existing policy commitments against normative criteria such as social justice, democracy, and empowerment (Fischer et al. 2015, 1). Arguably, such normative criteria are essential to realizing the emancipatory potential of public policy and advancing equity (Paterson and Scala 2015).
Essential to the emancipatory project of policy is ensuring that policymaking processes, discourses, and content bring a comprehensive understanding of the social locations of the people they are targeting and how such locations are shaped and structured by existing and new policies (Jordan-Zachery 2017; Hankivsky et al. 2012; Hankivsky and Cormier 2011; Weber 2009; Manuel 2006; Yuval-Davis 2006). Increasingly, and rightly so, it is recognized that public policy should be inclusive of differently situated populations and groups and responsive to the needs of increasingly diverse societies, including how various actors understand themselves and are seen by others (Beland 2017). In line with intersectionality theory, an effective critical policy analysis should be instrumental in revealing harmful biases, assumptions, stereotypes, exclusions, and oppressive effects of existing policy interventions that prevent the realization of the individual and/or communityâs emancipatory goals.
Within the critical policy analysis thrust, feminist approaches have figured prominently, pointing out the extent to which traditional mainstream policy analysis results in âpartial and perverse understandingsâ of the ways in which womenâs lives are affected by policy (Harding 1986). Recent Black feminist policy-centred research asks us to consider discursive practices and what they tell us about the policymaking process (Jordan-Zachery 2017; Isoke 2013; Berger 2004). Combined, these bodies of work have brought to the fore the extent to which the methods and theoretical frameworks that dominate policy analysis have been developed and implemented by those in powerâlargely white, male and well educatedâand reflect their assumptions, world view, and values (see also Jordan-Zachery 2009; Bacchi 1999; Marshall 1997; Hawkesworth 1994; Marshall and Anderson 1994; Jewell 1993; King 1973). And the goal has been to make gender visible in the entire policy process, leading to the development of specific strategiesâfor example, gender mainstreaming and tools to better understand the ways gender is a central and fundamental category in the organization of human lives, including in the domain of public policy.
In comparison, race and ethnicity have been largely absent in many analyses of public policy. In recent times, there have been some important advances. Scholarship that analyses race and traffic stops (Rice and White 2010), the school to prison pipeline (Morris 2016), and wage inequality between women (Jordan-Zachery and Wilson 2014) points to the value of interrogating race as a central variable in understanding policy frames and outcomes. Jordan-Zachery (2017) more recently asked us to consider how the performance of intra-group intersectionality and policy invisibility, by centring how Black women speak (use identity to frame issues) on social issues affecting Black women (often perceived as non-prototypical Bla...