WGST’s own Prof. Nicole Else-Quest, along with doctoral students Allison French and Nicole Telfer of the University of Maryland’s Department of Psychology, recently released an article entitled The Intersectionality Imperative: Calling in Stigma and Health Research. From the abstract:
“In drawing attention to the power, privilege, and inequities embedded in multiple interconnected social
categories like gender, race, and class, intersectionality is a critical theory and approach well-suited to
stigma and health research. With deep historical roots in 19th century Black feminism, intersectionality has
traveled generatively across diverse disciplines. Like stigma, intersectionality is fundamentally about the
power conferred by our social context. Like stigma research, intersectional research ultimately aims to
rectify inequities and promote the well-being of members of stigmatized or marginalized groups. Using an
intersectional approach in stigma and health can guide research aims; prompt new questions, and reframe,
reconceptualize, or discover psychological phenomena or processes, as well as empower members of
stigmatized groups and address disparities and inequities. It can be deployed to think innovatively about
differences, similarities, connections, and coalitions among intersectional groups, or to analyze how
institutions perpetuate disparities. Acknowledging the important contributions made by stigma and health
research within an intersectional approach, we call in stigma and health researchers who either question
intersectionality’s relevance to their work or want to explore its applicability or feasibility. Reflecting on
some of the debates within intersectionality scholarship around what intersectionality is, who it is for, and
how it can be implemented, we also point to future directions for research. We affirm the intersectional
imperative to identify and rectify inequities and disparities that construct and result from intersecting
systems of oppression, while acknowledging a diversity of interpretations and methods that embrace that
guiding principle.”
Read the full-text article here!