Definition
Intersectionality is an approach for studying and challenging power, as it exists, is produced, and is reinforced systemically and structurally. As such, it is crucial for addressing structural power imbalances that inhibit progress toward UN Sustainable Development Goals. Scholars attribute a more concrete formation of intersectional approaches to women of color as they work to advance their voices in spaces of theory, research, and social movements. Historically in these spaces, the voices of women of color were often absent, ignored, silenced, or erased relative to the voices of others such as white women or men of color. Generally through structural analyses, intersectionality accounts for how the enforcement of different hierarchical social divisions (commonly including aspects of identity such as race, class, and gender) are interrelated and work together to influence people’s social positionality, their power (or lack thereof), and their subsequent experiences of...
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Ryder, S., Boone, K. (2019). Intersectionality and Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_51-1
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