Doing Research Part 5 of 6: Intersectional Approaches to Problem Solving
There are so many different ways to approach a research problem. Some approach it theoretically, while others take a practical approach. Others use a disciplinary lens or an interdisciplinary lens. I cannot cover all the different approaches here, but what I can do is explain how to approach problem solving with an intersectional lens. This involves understanding two concepts — critical inquiry and critical praxis. While interrelated, each concept is unique.
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Kimberle Crenshaw’s groundbreaking 1991 article, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color,’ argues that intersectional inquiry and praxis are both needed to address the social problem of violence against Black and racialized women. What Crenshaw was most focused on was understanding violence as a social problem, not an interpersonal one. She argued that when it comes to violence, you must think intersectionality about its many rooted causes.
While the term intersectionality is applied to nearly everything today from studies of race to studies of the environment, what I would like to explain is how vital it can be to furthering your understanding of research.
Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry
In Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge’s Intersectionality (2016) they explain that intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry invokes a broad sense of using intersectional frameworks to study a range of social phenomena, e.g., the organizational structure of football, the beliefs of bankers, etc. across different social contexts, e.g., local, regional, national, and global. At its core, critical inquiry comprises two perspectives:
An approach to understanding human life and behaviour rooted in the experiences and struggles of disenfranchised people;
An important tool linking theory with practice that can aid in the empowerment of communities and individuals (2016: 33; 36).
Many theoretical approaches are forms of critical inquiry, that is, they are rooted in the experiences/struggles of people and/or linking theory with practice. Such as feminist studies, media studies, gender studies, and critical race studies. These are the common fields most people think of when it comes to intersectional critical inquiry, but it can be adopted in any field of study.
Critical inquiry with an intersectional framework can (and should) be applied to any field of study where there are hierarchies of power, differential access to resources, and unequal distribution of wealth. This approach does not hold that “people are all the same” or that “difference doesn’t exist.” Instead, critical inquiry is direct, head-on, and avoids the illusion of inclusion. In other words, intersectional approaches to research which draw on multiple fields, disciplines, and perspectives have expanded our understanding of historical (often structurally-based) issues.
““The term ‘critical’ means criticizing, rejecting, and/or trying to fix the social problems that emerge in situations of social injustice. Global economic inequality and social inequality fall more broadly under this umbrella.” ”
Intersectionality as Critical Praxis
Hill Collins and Bilge describe intersectionality as a critical praxis when using intersectional frameworks to study a range of social phenomena across different social contexts (like critical inquiry), but in ways that explicitly challenge the status quo and aim to transform power relations. For example, practitioners and activists are often frontline actors for solving social problems that come with complex social inequalities, a social location that predisposes them to engage intersectionality as critical praxis (2016: 33; 42).
A praxis perspective does not merely apply scholarly knowledge to a social problem or set of experiences but rather “uses knowledge learned within everyday life to reflect on those experiences as well as on scholarly knowledge” (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2016: 42).
Both/And Not Either/Or Approach
A praxis perspective does not separate scholarship from practice, with scholarship providing theories and frameworks, and practice relegated to people who apply ideas in real-life settings or to real-life problems. Instead, it asks that you think of both scholarship and practice as intimately linked and mutually informing each other, rejecting views that see theory as superior to practice or that argues that theoretical approaches to research are the only valid forms of inquiry that will yield results that matter to a general public.
If you’re a community worker or an artist whose work is deeply personal and rooted in experiential knowledge, it is nearly impossible for you to disconnect your practice from your research. Thinking about intersectionality as critical praxis might be the knowledge you need to empower you to lean into a both/and approach, rather than an either/or framework.
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Ultimately, when it comes to intersectionality, lean into the fact that by looking at a problem from multiple perspectives, and then doing so from a point of view that is centred in community and/or personal mission and/or social politics, you can do amazing research that does not ask you to compromise what you believe in to “fit” a box you think is required for your work to be validate as “research.”
As this series has demonstrated, research truly is about the choices you make, it is not about what others think. By embracing intersectionality, you will develop stronger approaches to problem solving.
In Part 6 of this series, I provide tips and strategies for using keywords when searching databases, and how to work with primary sources.
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Recommended Reading:
Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge. Intersectionality (2016)
Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz & Aswin Punathambekar. Media Industry Studies (2020)
Edward Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” Race & Class 27.2 (1985)
Randy Stoecker and Elise Avila, “From Mixed Methods to Strategic Research Design.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24.6 (2021): 627-640
