Intersectionality in policy:feminist breakthrough?

Abstract

The language of intersectionality has been increasingly adopted in Australia by leading gender-equality and gender-focused organisations, as well as policy makers, advocates and other stakeholders. In this article we seek to interrogate the application and operationalisation of intersectionality in policy. We examine the way the use of this terminology at times reflects the co-option of an approach that originally sought to capture the complex realities of power differentials. To do this, we explore three Australian examples and use these to interrogate how intersectionality has been operationalised with respect to migrant and refugee women and consider some of the implications this may have for policy and practice in the areas of gender equality and violence. Our key concern is that in specific contexts, including the policy sphere, the language of intersectionality has moved beyond the origins of a conceptual framework, analytical or methodological approach to speak to complex power relations and has instead become a ‘catch all’ term used to denote diversity and/or difference.</p