Efforts to promote equitable public policy with algorithms appear to be fundamentally constrained by the “impossibility of fairness” (an incompatibility between mathematical definitions of fairness). This technical limitation raises a central question about algorithmic fairness: How can computer scientists and policymakers support equitable policy reforms with algorithms? In this article, I argue that promoting justice with algorithms requires reforming the methodology of algorithmic fairness. First, I diagnose the problems of the current methodology for algorithmic fairness, which I call “formal algorithmic (...) fairness.” Because formal algorithmic fairness restricts analysis to isolated decision-making procedures, it leads to the impossibility of fairness and to models that exacerbate oppression despite appearing “fair.” Second, I draw on theories of substantive equality from law and philosophy to propose an alternative methodology, which I call “substantive algorithmic fairness.” Because substantive algorithmic fairness takes a more expansive scope of analysis, it enables an escape from the impossibility of fairness and provides a rigorous guide for alleviating injustice with algorithms. In sum, substantive algorithmic fairness presents a new direction for algorithmic fairness: away from formal mathematical models of “fair” decision-making and toward substantive evaluations of whether and how algorithms can promote justice in practice. (shrink)

Intersectionality has become the primary analytic tool that feminist and anti-racist scholars deploy for theorizing identity and oppression. This paper exposes and critically interrogates the assumptions underpinning intersectionality by focusing on four tensions within intersectionality scholarship: the lack of a defined intersectional methodology; the use of black women as quintessential intersectional subjects; the vague definition of intersectionality; and the empirical validity of intersectionality. Ultimately, my project does not seek to undermine intersectionality; instead, I encourage both feminist and anti-racist scholars to (...) grapple with intersectionality's theoretical, political, and methodological murkiness to construct a more complex way of theorizing identity and oppression. (shrink)

Ulrich Beck asserts that global risks, such as climate change, generate a form of ‘compulsory cosmopolitanism’, which ‘glues’ various actors into collective action. Through an analysis of emerging ‘cosmopolitan risk communities’ in Chinese climate governance, this article points out a ‘blind spot’ in the theorization of cosmopolitan belonging and an associated inadequacy in explaining shifting power relations. The article addresses this problem by engaging with the intersectionality of the cosmopolitan space. It is argued that cosmopolitan belonging is a form of (...) performative identity. Its key characteristic lies in a ‘liberating prerogative’, which enables individuals to participate in the solution of common problems creatively. It is this liberating prerogative that forces the state from a position of political monopoly and marks the cosmopolitan moment. (shrink)

This article explores various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions. It compares the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism. It examines issues such as the relative helpfulness of additive or mutually constitutive models of intersectional social divisions; the different analytical levels at which social divisions need to be studied, their ontological base and their relations (...) to each other. The final section of the article attempts critically to assess a specific intersectional methodological approach for engaging in aid and human rights work in the South. (shrink)

The term ‘intersectionality’ recognises the need for a ‘holistic approach’ in the determination of the right to be free from discrimination and violence. While the European Court of Human Rights has never expressly used the term, this article argues that the recent case of B.S. v Spain provides an example of a more robust use of Article 14 of the convention taking into account the real life experiences of those facing intersectional discrimination. The decision recognising the special vulnerability of a (...) migrant, female sex worker is therefore both welcome and necessary. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing barriers to healthcare in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. These barriers include those embedded within the i...

Makerspaces and hacklabs are believed to encourage a positive attitude towards gaining computer skills. Within these communities for peer production, citizens can apply cutting-edge technologies in DIY projects. In recent decades, mushrooming makerspaces and hacklabs were embraced by the tech industry and governments alike. Feminist makerspaces and hacklabs, however, as they are centred around a queer feminist agenda, have raised eyebrows. In order to foster diversity in tech development, they create safer spaces for self-expression. Here, feminist laymen*, makers, designers, artists (...) and tinkerers experiment with open-source hardware and software. Art and design projects emerging from feminist hacklabs focus on issues of representation and democratic participation in digital media, as well as on ways of reclaiming one’s own body. This article tries to unpack how, after an exhibition on sexual health norms, a feminist hacklab was attacked by local right-wing and conservative politicians. The attack resulted in the defunding of the feminist hacklab. But it also started a transformation process within the collective, as members became aware of critical interferences of diffracting marginalisations. The crisis triggered a discussion on how each member was threatened to very different degrees; for example, there was more at stake for members depending on their legal status in the country. The right-wing and conservative campaign against the feminist hacklab damaged the initiative, but at the same time it pushed the collective to generate increased vehemence and resilience. (shrink)

The pandemic reveals; the novel coronavirus pandemic has brought the historically rooted inequities of our society to the forefront. We argue that an intersectional analysis is needed to further help peel back the veil that the pandemic has begun to reveal. We identify structural gendered racism—the totality of interconnectedness between structural racism and structural sexism in shaping race and gender inequities—as a root cause of health problems among Black women and other women of color, which has been amplified during the (...) pandemic. We show that women of color occupy disadvantaged positions within households, occupations, and health care institutions, and therefore face heightened risk for COVID-19 and lowered resources for mitigating the impact of the deadly virus. Intersectional analyses and solutions must be centered to also reveal, we hope, a new way forward. (shrink)

The current explosion of genetic knowledge and the rapid proliferation of genetic tests has rightly provoked concern that we are approaching a future in which people will be labeled and disadvantaged based on genetic information. Indeed, some have already suffered harm, including denial of health insurance. This concern has prompted an outpouring of analysis. Yet almost all of it approaches the problem of genetic disadvantage under the rubric of “genetic discrimination.”This rubric is woefully inadequate to the task at hand. It (...) ignores years of commentary on race and gender demonstrating the limits of antidiscrimination analysis as an analytic framework and corrective tool. Too much discussion of genetic disadvantage proceeds as if scholars of race and gender had not spent decades critiquing and developing antidiscrimination theory.Indeed, there are multiple links among race, gender, and genetics. Dorothy Roberts has discussed the historical links between racism and genetics, while she and others have begun to map connections between gender and genetics. (shrink)

Early data from several countries regarding the gendered implications of COVID-19 suggest that men are more likely to die as an effect of infection. This has been explained by biological factors but also by behavioral and life-style issues characteristic mostly for men. What has not been widely discussed, however, is the analysis of the relationships between men’s responses to the crisis, their care activities, and certain models of masculinity that persist in many societies. In this paper, I use a three (...) dimensional model of care – a) self-care, b) care for others, and c) care for one’s society – in order to analyze how certain masculine behaviors, rooted in socially constructed gender performances, resonate with the COVID-19 pandemic. The data used in this paper are of secondary character and will serve to analyze the most common responses of men within the three dimensions of care mentioned above. The theoretical framework utilizes the notion of caring masculinity supported by an emerging theory of protective masculinity. (shrink)

Science studies scholars often study up to high-tech elites who produce and design scientific knowledge and technology. Methodological tension begins when you pair a desire to study down to less economically developed countries, with the desire to study up to high-tech elites within them. This becomes further complicated when the ethnographer and his/her informants share professional interests and credentials. In these situations, the researcher has high status because of geopolitical privilege. However, the researcher is neither a high-tech elite nor a (...) local cultural elite. How might the ethnographer successfully access and navigate field sites imbued with these unseen power differentials? There are currently no visual mapping tools to enhance the process of reflexivity by feminist ethnographers, as they consider their globally embedded multiple, hierarchical, and situated positionality. This reflection methodology piece provides a tool to consider this phenomenon, as it exists across the Global North/south divide of power. Such a tool would be useful to northern ethnographers to better strategize ethics and access while avoiding complicity with structures of inequality and empowering their southern interlocutors. (shrink)

Intersectionality has become a significant intellectual approach for those thinking about the ways that race, gender, and other social identities converge in order to create unique forms of oppression. Although the initial work on intersectionality addressed the unique position of black women relative to both black men and white women, the concept has since been expanded to address a range of social identities. Here we consider how to apply some of the theoretical tools provided by intersectionality to the clinical context. (...) We begin with a brief discussion of intersectionality and how it might be useful in a clinical context. We then discuss two clinical scenarios that highlight how we think considering intersectionality could lead to more successful patient–clinician interactions. Finally, we extrapolate general strategies for applying intersectionality to the clinical context before considering objections and replies. (shrink)

Singular they has emerged as a key term in contemporary gender politics, reflecting growing usage of they/them as nonbinary personal pronouns. Drawing on interviews with 54 progressive gender activists, we consider how singular they can be used to resist and redo aspects of the prevailing gender structure. We identify three distinct usages of singular they: as a nonbinary personal pronoun, as a universal gender-neutral pronoun, and as an indefinite pronoun when a person’s self-identified gender is unknown. While previous research on (...) singular they as a gender-inclusive language practice has focused primarily on its usage as a nonbinary personal pronoun, our findings point to the relevance for gender politics of all three usages. Our analysis offers new insight into how nonbinary they challenges dominant gender norms and practices beyond incorporating additional gender categories. Given our findings, we propose further investigation of how using gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in specific contexts can advance progressive activists’ goals. Finally, we argue that the longstanding usage of singular they as an indefinite pronoun has new importance today in affirming gender as a self-determined identity. (shrink)

Phenomenology provides a method for disability theorists to describe embodied subjectivity lacking within the social model of disability. Within the literature on body integrity identity disorder, dominant narratives of disability are influential, individual bodies are considered in isolation, and experiences of disabled people are omitted. Research on BIID tends to incorporate an individualist ontology. In this article, I argue that Merleau-Ponty's conceptualization of “being in the world,” which recognizes subjectivity as embodied and intersubjective, provides a better starting point for research (...) describing the experiences of those with BIID and amputees. (shrink)

Public and academic medical ethics debates surrounding justice and age discrimination often proceed from a problematic understanding of old age that ignores the diversity of older people. This article introduces the feminist perspective of intersectionality to medical ethical debates on aging and old age in order to analyze the structural discrimination of older people in medicine and health care. While current intersectional approaches in this field focus on race, gender, and sexuality, we thus set out to introduce aging and old (...) age as an additional category that is becoming more relevant in the context of longer life expectancies and increasing population aging. We analyze three exemplary cases on the individual, institutional, and public health level, and argue that considering the intersections of old age with other social categories helps to accommodate the diverse identities of older people and detect inequality and structural discrimination. (shrink)

Despite being a collection of holistic assessment tools, the comprehensive geriatric assessment primarily focuses on the social category of age during the assessment and disregards for example gender. This article critically reviews the standardized testing process of the comprehensive geriatric assessment in regard to diversity-sensitivity. I show that the focus on age as social category during the assessment process might potentially hinder positive outcomes for people with diverse backgrounds of older patients in relation to other social categories, such as race, (...) gender or socio-economic background and their influence on the health of the patient as well as the assessment and its outcomes. I suggest that the feminist perspective of intersectionality with its multicategorical approach can enhance the diversity-sensitivity of the comprehensive geriatric assessment, and thus improve the treatment of older patients and their quality of life. By suggesting an intersectional-based approach, this article contributes to debates about justice and diversity in medical philosophy and advocates for the normative value of diversity in geriatric medicine. (shrink)

This paper probes theories of justice underpinning the concept of equity to deconstruct the term and ascertain how best to equitably support refugee and asylum-seeking youth in U.S. schools. Building upon theories posited by John Rawls, Michael Sandel, and Amartya Sen, the paper aims to extend beyond ideal theory into a theoretical framework of equity with operationalizing potential. Recognizing refugee and asylum-seeking youth as part of the U.S. social contract and therefore bound to government support, the paper represents that equitable (...) education for these young people in our globalized world is essential from both a human rights and economic perspective. Such equitable education will only be achieved when universal minimum standards are offered to everyone and made inclusive, so that all are invited to fully participate as culturally respected learners and knowledge producers in academic spaces. (shrink)

With the rise of ‘globesity’, fat activism and Fat Studies have become political players in countering negative stereotypes and the devaluation of fat bodies. Both groups are diverse, yet share a common goal to celebrate and/or accept fatness, and challenge practices and discourses that reinforce ‘normal’ bodies. In this article, we reflect on our engagement with a Fat Studies conference, and critically interrogate the assumptions that underlie this particular space. It is not surprising that fat activists and Fat Studies scholars (...) bring different ideologies to the table, yet the differences between them have not been adequately scrutinised or theorised. Drawing upon Linda Alcoff’s feminist philosophy, we examine how identity politics and intersectional perspectives are both used in fat activism, yet have the effect of creating unresolved tensions between singular and multiple embodied identities. We argue that an identity politics approach has the potential to create boundaries for policing and exclusion, and is thus at odds with the much broader axes identified by intersectorial approaches. Rather than dismiss the power of identity politics, we argue for a careful reframing of the relationship between identity politics and intersectionality in fat activism and Fat Studies. We suggest that unexamined contradictions that arise from this mismatch may be counterproductive to the important subversive aims of the movement. (shrink)

In this paper we make the case for the emergence of novel kind of bias with the use of algorithmic decision-making systems. We argue that the distinctive generative process of feature creation, characteristic of machine learning (ML), contorts feature parameters in ways that can lead to emerging feature spaces that encode novel algorithmic bias involving already marginalized groups. We term this bias _assembled bias._ Moreover, assembled biases are distinct from the much-discussed algorithmic bias, both in source (training data versus feature (...) creation) and in content (mimics of extant societal bias versus reconfigured categories). As such, this problem is distinct from issues arising from bias-encoding training feature sets or proxy features. Assembled bias is not epistemically transparent in source or content. Hence, when these ML models are used as a basis for decision-making in social contexts, algorithmic fairness concerns are compounded. (shrink)

In the series Dear White People, students at the fictional University of Winchester struggle for racial justice. We analyze how the series treats “race” and racism and how this relates to contemporary debates in the United States. While the series presents an imaginary environment, we recognize strong similarities to actual student life and students grappling with various experiences of oppression including sexual violence. We draw on theories of identity formation and intersectionality to uncover how the series portrays and complicates “Blackness” (...) as an identity-forming experience and as an experience shaped by converging forms of structural discrimination. While we highlight the merit of combining two theoretical approaches, we note that especially intersectionality helped uncover a major blind spot of the series. Although Black women are at the center of the series and the struggle for racial equality at Winchester, their particular experiences of violence are marginalized in seasons 1–3. This tendency to overlook the experiences of Black women reflects the larger debate around race, racism, and movements for social justice. (shrink)

The European Union, a pioneer in gender equality policies, is moving from predominantly attending to gender inequality, towards policies that address multiple inequalities. This article argues that there are tendencies at EU level to assume an unquestioned similarity of inequalities, to fail to address the structural level and to fuel the political competition between inequalities. Based upon a comparison of specific sets of inequalities, this article explores where and how structural and political intersectionality might be relevant. It argues that a (...) ‘one size fits all’ approach to addressing multiple discrimination is based on an incorrect assumption of sameness or equivalence of the social categories connected to inequalities and of the mechanisms and processes that constitute them. Focusing on similarities ignores the differentiated character and dynamics of inequalities. It also overlooks the political dimension of equality goals. Moreover, it has become clear that attention to structural mechanisms and to the role of the state and the private sphere in reproducing inequalities is much needed. The final part of the article presents constructive ideas for a more comprehensive way of addressing multiple inequalities. (shrink)

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities, recognition of different voices, and critiques of the public and private dichotomy, are particularly suited for dealing with the challenges of contentious and contested processes of citizenship. We argue more (...) specifically that feminist debates and practices provide fruitful contributions for the citizenship challenges that the European Union must face. (shrink)

"[N]o matter how much of a coalition space this is, it ain't nothing like the coalescing you've got to do tomorrow, and Tuesday and Wednesday."This essay is a critical reflection on the centrality of coalitional politics for decolonial feminist philosophy. Decolonial feminisms emerge from multisited struggles with colonization and, as a result, are rich and heterogeneous.1 Thus, the starting point for decolonial feminists must be one that centers on coalitional politics. Women of color have long emphasized the importance of coalition (...) to collective struggle against a matrix of systems of oppression.2 However, the work of forging coalitions is just that, work. Indeed, the work of coalition building, as Bernice... (shrink)

In our societies today, the prevalence of serious, untreated trauma means that we cannot reliably expect to receive or give unconditional love, understood as love which functions within a normative framework to protect each and all of us as having dignity. Serious, untreated trauma makes unconditional love, so understood, unreliable because each time the pattern of the psychological damage (trauma) is triggered in the traumatized person, in the wrongdoers, or in the bystanders, their behaviour easily becomes self- and other-numbing, destructive, (...) and moralizing in an irrational and often self-deceived attempt to preserve or defend themselves or others against forces felt as threatening even though they are not. It is also common for someone who lives in societal conditions where avoiding patterned, traumatizing behaviour is impossible to experience the emotional temptation to give up on the possibility of a better future for oneself, one’s loved ones, or one’s community within the larger community or the state. For some, this is experienced as a draw towards suicide, while others experience it as a serious temptation to give up on working together with the good forces in society. This paper seeks to continue Charles Mills’s work on radicalizing Kant by sketching a Kantian account of trauma and thereby develop philosophical resources that can help us fight historical oppression and violence. (shrink)

Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes (...) explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere. (shrink)

This article aims to claim ‘body size’ as an increasingly important axis of signification. It draws on research from various disciplines to present an exploratory overview of the different ways in which body size categorizations – being fat or slender – intersect with other axes, such as gender, race, sexuality, social class and age. The article argues that an intersectional perspective on body size adds to our understanding of the layeredness and complexity of power differentials, normativities and identity formations that (...) co-produce inequalities. Furthermore, it attempts to show how processes of exclusion and marginalization based on body size categorizations are similar to racist, ableist and misogynist logics and practices. Hereby the article intends to demonstrate the vast impact of body size categorizations, specifically but not exclusively on the lives of those who occupy the marked position in relation to this axis: the ‘fat’. It argues that an intersectional perspective helps us to see body size discrimination more clearly and can help disrupt dominant discourses about the body in order to create a truly ‘healthy’ environment in which bodies of all sizes, shapes, colours and abilities can be celebrated. (shrink)

Childbearing trans and nonbinary people are confronted with the heteronormative and cisgender frameworks that underpin “maternity” services. We explored the educational needs of 108 perinatal staff in the United Kingdom as related to the needs of trans and nonbinary service users. Participants were most confident in formulating care plans and least confident about the provision of colleagues’ perinatal care in this context. While the majority of participants were positive toward the trans and nonbinary communities, they considered that those communities remain (...) marginalized in perinatal services. Transphobic, anti-trans, and nonbinary attitudes were highlighted by our respondents. Our findings suggest that caregivers witnessed transphobia among colleagues and were apprehensive themselves about providing care to childbearing trans and nonbinary people. They reported a cisheteronormative model of care that lacked awareness of trans and nonbinary issues. The educational needs identified included information about the practicalities of childbearing as a trans or nonbinary person, how to use inclusive language effectively, and creating policies and processes for supporting childbearing trans and nonbinary people. These caregivers’ preferences included hearing from trans and nonbinary people and sharing best practices among themselves, with open discussions about how to be inclusive. (shrink)

Recent case law on sexual violence crimes heard before the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and courts, that interpret them in connection with ethnic conflict, raises the question of which acts can be defined as sexual violence. The International Criminal Court, in the situation of Kenya, does not regard acts of forced nudity, forcible circumcision and penile amputation as sexual violence when they are motivated by ethnic prejudice and intended to demonstrate the cultural superiority of one tribe over another. The (...) Court argues that not every act of violence that targets parts of the body commonly associated with sexuality should be considered an act of sexual violence. This recent interpretation of what counts as sexual violence provides another example of the complicity of international criminal law institutions in the ongoing construction process of female subordination. The ICC, in the Kenya situation, implicitly confirms the mutilation of female agency by interpreting penile amputation as a kind of power game between males, and by instrumentalizing the male sexual organ as an indicator of masculinity and manhood. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 554-568, Winter 2021.

Despite recognition of the gender dimensions of climate change, there is little attention to racism in climate justice perspectives. In response, this article advocates developing an ecologically informed intersectional approach designed to disclose the ways racism contributes to the construction of illegible lives in the domain of climate policies and practices. Differential impacts of climate change, while an important dimension, is ultimately inadequate to understanding and responding to both climate justice and environmental racism. What is required is a rich understanding (...) of the histories and lineages of the deep incorporation of racism and environmental exploitation. To catalyze such an approach to climate justice, this article develops an analysis of three instances of the intermingling of racism and environmental exploitation: climate adaptation practices in Lagos, Nigeria; the enmeshment of race and coal mining in the post–Civil War United States; and the infusing of precarity and rainforest destruction in Brazil. (shrink)

This book review discusses Ashley J. Bohrer's book Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism. The author explores the possible connections between Marxism and intersectionality, in order to construct a framework that would be capable of challenging the systems of domination as they are produced under contemporary capitalism. By considering their histories and debates, Bohrer attempts to formulate a possible shared future for the two schools of thought.

Feminists may overlook the way that our practices of reading and writing serve as discursive technologies of power, particularly if we fail to acknowledge the dominance of the invisible subject position of the white woman. Under such circumstances, specific seemingly neutral rhetorical strategies can serve as potent tools of dominance, infusing the reading situation with strategies of subordination that go unremarked because they are authorised by tradition and convention. I examine here the use of a specific rhetorical device in a (...) specific context, the evocation of a comment by Judith Butler that I call The Case of the Et Cetera, as it appears in six critiques of intersectionality by European scholars and one by a North American scholar relying on the European narrative. I argue that Butler’s comment is used to deploy a pattern of rhetoric that I call managing intersectionality. This move depoliticises intersectionality by making it the property of a white managerial subject position that is treated as racially unmarked. My target is the metadiscursive regime that authorises this uninterrogated reinscription of racialised hierarchy in feminist academic argument. (shrink)

Political campaigns increasingly rely on Facebook for reaching their constituents, particularly through ad targeting. Facebook’s business model is premised on a promise to connect advertisers with the “right” users: those likely to click, download, engage, purchase. The company pursues this promise by algorithmically inferring users’ interests from their data and providing advertisers with a means of targeting users by their inferred interests. In this study, we explore for whom this interest classification system works in order to build on conversations in (...) critical data studies about the ways such systems produce knowledge about the world rooted in power structures. We critically analyze the classification system from a variety of empirical vantage points—via user data; Facebook documentation, training, and patents; and Facebook’s tools for advertisers—and through theoretical concepts from a variety of domains. In this, we focus on the ways the classification system shapes possibilities for political representation and voice, particularly for people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people. We argue that this “big data-driven” classification system should be read as political: it articulates a stance not only on what issues are or are not important in the U.S. public sphere, but also on who is considered a significant enough public to be adequately accounted for. (shrink)

In this article I caution that María Lugones's critiques of Kimberlé Crenshaw's intersectional theory posit a dangerous form of epistemic erasure, which underlies Lugones's decolonial methodology. This essay serves as a critical engagement with Lugones's essay “Radical Multiculturalism and Women of Color Feminisms” in order to uncover the decolonial lens within Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality. In her assertion that intersectionality is a “white bourgeois feminism colluding with the oppression of Women of Color,” Lugones precludes any possibility of intersectionality operating as (...) a decolonial method. Although Lugones states that her “decolonial feminism” is for all women of color, it ultimately excludes Black women, particularly with her misconstruing of Crenshaw's articulation of intersectionality that is rooted within the Black American feminist tradition. I explore Lugones's claims by juxtaposing her rendering of intersectionality with Crenshaw's and conclude that Lugones's decolonial theory risks erasing Black women from her framework. (shrink)

The broad fields of ethical reflection on racialization, racial justice, black liberation theology, and queer theology of color must come to terms with the year 2016, which can be framed on one side with the Black Lives Matter movement, and on the other side with a presidential election cycle in which racism and racial justice played particularly salient roles. Against this backdrop, this book discussion looks at recent literature on racial justice asking three questions. How does historical consciousness shape contemporary (...) ethical thought on racial justice? In what ways do the intersectionalities of gender and sexuality, immigration and transnationality, class, and contemporary culture present particular challenges and new possibilities? And how do the ethical frameworks of religious traditions contribute to the development of public theology for racial justice? The conclusion considers how religious ethics concerned with racial justice does harm or contributes to religiously grounded responses to racial injustice. Reflection on these questions points to the need for ongoing engagement with the black experience—broadly construed and within the context of multiple intersections—in the United States and globally in ethical analysis. However, this in turn makes particular and critical demands on how it is that we are to both teach and read religious ethics and political theology at our institutions, as well as in the churches. (shrink)

Critical race theory guides the analysis of the nature of a white epistemology in psychological science, the consequences for the study of race, and how scientific racism has been possible in the pursuit of knowledge. The article argues that race has not only been misused in the politics of psychology but misappropriated because of the logic of psychological science. The epistemic process is divided into four components to argue that naïve empiricist approaches in psychology, centered on scientific method, prevent an (...) intricate understanding of race. Reasons for privileging method in psychology and the consequences of a white epistemology are discussed, including a narrow epistemic horizon and an inability to account for the temporality and contextuality of psychological phenomena. Ignorance, failure, or unwillingness to account for epistemic complexity when studying race are identified as problems. Questions about who benefits from narrow epistemologies are answered and suggestions for a broader practice of knowledge and education are provided. (shrink)

Women's equality claims have occupied the forefront of the European debate on face-veil bans; most claims have been denounced as mere manipulation for anti-Islamic and/or anti-immigrant political agendas, and the dilemma between anti-sexist and anti-racist struggles has been argued to be false. This article examines how opportunistic manipulation of gender equality claims and the ‘ethnicisation’ of sexism have been assessed and confronted in the scholarly debate opposing the bans, as well as the impact that this debate has had on women's (...) equality claims and the intersectionality issue. I argue that the women's oppression argument has not been fully considered, because it would have disrupted the anti-racist struggle due to unresolved problems with understanding intersectionality. (shrink)

A few years ago, it was common for philosophers to begin inquiry into hope by noting that the subject has received little attention in the philosophical literature. But our ability to make this claim is quickly coming to an end; hope has been earning increasing recognition in the discipline, with philosophers exploring important questions related to the nature of hope, what makes hope rational, and how hope is connected to human wellbeing and agency. Despite this recent interest, however, there remains (...) very little discussion of the social and political dimensions of hope. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate the importance of a feminist perspective in bringing these dimensions into fuller view. I argue that feminist insights into the relational nature of the self, which call attention to where selves are socially situated in relation to others, enable a richer understanding of the nature and value of hope. (shrink)

This is the second of two special issues, and the articles are grouped according to two themes: The previous, first issue featured articles that shared the theme Technologies and the Political, while this second issue is focused on the theme of Subjectivities. In this second, somewhat expanded, introduction, the “sky’s the limit.” This introduction canvasses various theoretical and conceptual-empricial perspectives that the articles of both issues touch on and further tries to open many doors through which readers are invited to (...) go on their own rather than give readymade answers. This introduction is written not only to give both an overview of some of the most important conceptual, methodological, and empirical contexts that the two special issues evoke but also to create invitations for many further conversations to be had from here on forward by beginning the interrogating and troubling of the intercourse between “science” and “science fiction”: beause all of this has happened before and will happen again. (shrink)

In a recent paper (Haslanger 2016), Sally Haslanger argues for the importance of structural explanation. Roughly, a structural explana- tion of the behaviour of a given object appeals to features of the struc- tures—physical, social, or otherwise—the object is embedded in. It is opposed to individualistic explanations, where what is appealed to is just the object and its properties. For example, an individualistic explanation of why someone got the grade they did might appeal to features of the essay they wrote—its (...) being well-written, answering the set question, etc. But if the class is graded on a curve, then a better explanation will appeal to features of the class—of the social structure in which the student is embedded. That she wrote a better paper than 90% of the class explains better than that she wrote a well-argued paper. In this paper, I get clear as to various candidate concepts of structure that we might appeal to in structural explanations, argue that Haslanger’s preferred account is lacking, and present an alterna- tive that is more conducive to social structural explanation. (shrink)

This introductory article provides a contextual and theoretical overview to this special issue of Body & Society. The special issue presents five selected case studies – focusing on the contexts of transplantation, psychiatry, amputation and war, and a transvalued media ecology of cancer – to offer meditations on a number of interlinked questions. The first of these is the entanglement of biomedical governance – political/economic as well as self-disciplinary – with the nexus of estrangement, which can denote both the distancing (...) of otherness and self-division. Second is the realm of feeling, of phantasmatic projection and of the ways in which the biopolitical becomes reciprocally, discursively, enmeshed in a wider cultural imaginary. Third is the shifting terrain of gender and feminist politics, a key dimension of which is the necessary reworking of feminist thought in the wake of a radically altered biomedical and biotechnological landscape. Under the rubric of Estranged Bodies, the collection considers themes of dissolution and the fragility of the body/subject read through bodily catastrophe, radical body modification and extreme medical intervention. Also considered is the notion of assemblage – the provisional coming together of disparate parts – which encourages a rethinking of questions of reconstituted, displaced and re-placed bodies. (shrink)