Intersections

Last year I read an article in which Kimberle Crenshaw who is a black feminist anthropologist in which she analyzed the culture of hip hop from the perspective of an African American woman. She uses a term called intersectionality which seems very similar to the idea of the situated knower mentioned in the Stanford reading for this week. Essentially the term means that every person is situated within several cultural categories, for example I am not only a male but a straight male who is also a student of particular ethnic background, social class etc. Crenshaw uses the term to explain how our perspectives from these several groups collectively influence how we perceive the world around us. While I believe this to be true what is important to remember is that we cannot reduce people to simply their gender, race, social class but look holistically at their circumstances as the various realms in which we occupy help us form our understanding of the human experience.