ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory Fall 2019
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.

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Oct. 21:  ESSAY PROPOSAL DUE Intersections.
    READ: Henne, K., 2018. “Gender and Race, Intersectionality Theory of.” The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, pp.1-4. (Google it to find it.)
    AND READ: Mullings, Leith. 2005. “Resistance and resilience: The Sojourner Syndrome and the social context of reproduction in central Harlem.” Transforming Anthropology 13(2): 79-91.     

The following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make sense of this, and other, theories. In addition, we will apply the theory to your anthropological question:

How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created? (First, second and third waves of feminism; other emancipatory movements)
What questions does this theory ask?
What information does this theory see as important?
What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?
How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

Some general background to feminist intersectionality
- feminism: first, second and third waves
- post modern versions, structural versions, political economy versions
- emphasis on politics (in cultures, of research, writing, etc.)
- writing against culture (Abu-Lughod)
- subaltern (Spivak): questions of representativeness and of knowledge systems (thus, sometimes an emphasis on ideological orientations)
    - strategic essentialism
- question distinction between theory and ethnography
- the canon/an alternative canon
- alternative forms of presenting anthropological material

Henne:
- argues intersectionality should not be envisioned as distinct lines of identity, but as mutually constituting factors
- structural intersectionality; political intersectionality; representational intersectionality
- individual identity? Or contextual/structural factors?
- need to unsettle Eurocentric masculine knowledge regime – how is it built on Euro-male privilege?

Some concepts from Mullings
- intersectionality:
- difference: intersections
    - class/resource inequality
    - race/racism, including institutionalized racism
    -gender/gender discrimination
- thus, often a primary emphasis on structure
- “transformative work”: a form of agency, resistance
- Sojourner Syndrome


Applying intersectionality to your question.

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