Intersection

In this chapter, I review the ways in which intersectionality has entered the lexicon of geography, and in particular the ways in which this risked reinforcing the white, masculinist, and colonial history of the discipline. I chart the intersection of intersectionality studies with cultural geography, consider key contributions that discuss issues relating to intersectionality without necessarily using the term itself and point to the problematic way in which such work is often overlooked. I then consider some of the earliest work to engage directly with intersectionality pointing to limitations in its framing of this as largely only a feminist issue. Overall, I critique the tendency in geography to depoliticise and whiten intersectionality and to associate it only with identity politics and with feminist research; instead, I seek to re-centre the role of race, racism, and racialisation alongside gender as key to intersectionality in geography going forward.