12 May 2021

Collins and Bilge—Disciplinary Segregation

Intersectionality (2016)
Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge
p. 100—"Overall, the non-intersectional approach of each area limited its ability to consider the ways which other areas might shape its distinctive concerns."
My gut reaction to this paragraph was that it is too sweeping/total in its dissent. Upon a second reading, the word "limited" seems a satisfactory qualification. It is even so hard to believe that disciplinary "segregation" was ever fatal; more likely, I would think, the cross pollination, being of that inevitable/ineluctable type that we all love to invoke in situations like this, was, variously: unintentional, inexplicit, fluid, chaotic, ebbing/flowing, etc. If so, the contribution of Intersectional thinking vis-a-vis advancing said work to a more powerful, relevant, effectual place, would be selective and incremental rather than total and sweeping; and that matter bears as heavily on internal academic politics/legitimation/turf wars/etc. as it does on the Cause. Just saying.

[from a post-it, late 2017]

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