Patricia Hill Collins and the notion of intersectionality: contributions to a critical social theory

Abstract

The present work intends to present, initially, based on the work Intersectionality (2021), by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, a notion of intersectionality, considering its historical trajectory, as well as its close relationship with black feminism , which is anchored in this notion as a kind of theoretical model of the black feminist tradition in Brazil. It is possible to understand intersectionality from different perspectives, whether as a concept, a theory, a practice or, the most accepted form, as an analytical tool whose objective is to present diagnoses and answers to social problems; when we consider that it is possible to read the different social markers such as class, race, gender, among others, linked to each individual and not mutually exclusive. In effect, these various social markers overlap and interconnect in such a way that they operate unifiedly and interfere in our experience in society, a fact that highlights the need to consider what Collins calls the Bases of intersectional power relations, whatever they are. , the cultural, structural and interpersonal domain of power, which encompass the relationship between the country's historical process and the analyzed cultural context. It is in this sense that, despite the heterogeneity of the term, it is possible not only to extract a general understanding, but also to assimilate this heterogeneity as an advantage in relation to other proposals for critical reading of the social, which highlights the coherence that a feminist theory of participatory construction requires. Having said that, we propose to reflect, in a second moment, in the work Bem mais que ideas: intersectionality as critical social theory (2022), how it became a challenge for the author to explain the theoretical object of intersectionality, as it is a dispute epistemological approach to indicate what would fit under this conceptual “umbrella” in the field of critical theory. In this proposal, Collins presents us with similarities between his concept and the critical theory of the Frankfurtians, as well as other meanings of what is critical in social theories, to highlight the possible spaces in which intersectionality becomes an alternative for theories of social transformation , adding social reading devices neglected by other theories.