Intersectionality as an ethical commitment

In my chapter, I examine how research on violence against women can inform our thinking about intersectionality, and propose to approach intersectionality as an ethical commitment, centralizing the doing and key values that we, as a feminist scholarly community, delineate as important. The issue of violence, and the way it disproportionately affects multiply marginalized communities, presents an ethical challenge to feminist scholars committed to social justice. Indeed, as a theory and critical praxis, intersectionality has historically been developed in narrow conjunction with the study of violence affecting women of color. Therefore, I argue that such studies on violence can inform us about the norms and values that have shaped intersectionality, and that these cannot be brushed aside by researchers committed to social justice. Instead, thinking about intersectionality in terms of values and normative commitments can support us in determining how and why boundaries should be imposed upon interpretations and understandings of intersectionality.