Seeking to capture the multi-layered, contradictory, nature of subjectivities and social positions through a framework which insists upon the complex, dynamic nature of the social, intersectionality feminism has inspired Marxist-Feminists to push the social-reproduction feminism paradigm beyond a narrow preoccupation with gender/class relations. Yet even its most politically radical articulations stop short of fully theorising the integrative logic they espouse. This article explores the roots of this under-theorisation, and suggests that a more fully integrative ontology informs certain formulations of social-reproduction feminism. In understanding the social as constituted by practical human activity whose object (the social and natural world) is organised capitalistically, social-reproduction feminism highlights the dialectical relationship between the capitalist whole and its differentiated parts. The challenge for Marxist-Feminism is to embrace this dialectical approach while building on the insights of intersectionality feminism to more convincingly capture the unity of a complex, diverse social whole.
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Ackerly Brooke & McDermott Rose ‘Introduction. Recent Developments in Intersectionality Research: Expanding beyond Race and Gender’ Politics & Gender 2012 8 367 370
Anthias Floya ‘Hierarchies of Social Location, Class and Intersectionality: Towards a Translocational Frame’ International Sociology 2012 28 1 121 138
Arat-Koç Sedef Bezanson & Luxton ‘Whose Social Reproduction? Transnational Motherhood and Challenges to Feminist Political Economy’ 2006 2006
Bakker Isabella & Silvey Rachel Beyond States and Markets: The Challenges of Social Reproduction 2008 London Routledge
Bannerji Himani ‘Building from Marx: Reflections on Class and Race’ Social Justice 2005 32 4 144 160
Bannerji Himani Bakan Abigail B. & Dua Enakshi ‘Marxism and Anti-Racism in Theory and Practice: Reflections and Interpretations’ Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxism and Critical Race Theories 2014 Toronto University of Toronto Press
Bezanson Kate & Luxton Meg Social Reproduction: Feminist Political Economy Challenges Neo-Liberalism 2006 Montreal and Kingston McGill-Queen’s University Press
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Butler Judith Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1990 London Routledge
Carbado Devon , Crenshaw Kimberlé , Mays Vickie & Tomlinson Barbara ‘Intersectionality: Mapping the Movements of a Theory’ Du Bois Review 2013 10 2 303 312
Chang Grace Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy 2000 Cambridge, MA South End Press
Colen Shellee Ginsburg Faye D. & Rapp Rayna ‘“Like a Mother to Them”: Stratified Reproduction and West Indian Childcare Workers and Employers in New York’ Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction 1995 Berkeley University of California Press
Crenshaw Kimberlé Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics 1989 Chicago University of Chicago Legal Forum
Davis Kathy ‘Intersectionality as Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes a Feminist Theory Successful’ Feminist Theory 2008 9 1 67 85
Dhamoon Rita Kaur ‘Considerations on Mainstreaming Intersectionality’ Political Research Quarterly 2011 64 1 230 243
Ferguson Susan ‘Building on the Strengths of the Socialist Feminism Tradition’ Critical Sociology 1999 25 1 1 15
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Katz Cindi ‘Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction’ Antipode 2001 33 709 738
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See Ferguson 1999, 2008; Luxton 2006; Luxton, Ferguson, Schein and Carty 2014.
Sayers 1985, p. 16.
Nash 2008, p. 4.
Ackerly and McDermott 2012, p. 367.
Davis 2008, p. 68.
Ackerly and McDermott 2012, p. 367. See Davis 2008, p. 75, for a snapshot of the literature. Also see Butler 1990; Bannerji 2005; McCall 2005; Nash 2008; Winker and Degele 2011.
Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 195. The term ‘camp’ is in scare-quotes because each ‘camp’s’ adherents do not rigidly subscribe to and/or defend the distinctions Yuval-Davis draws.
Nash 2008, pp. 6, 7.
Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays and Tomlinson 2013, p. 206.
Nash 2008, p. 12.
See Dhamoon 2011, p. 233; Nash 2008, pp. 6–7; and Yuval-Davis 2006, pp. 195–8, for elaborations on these criticisms. See Carbado et al. for a partial rebuttal (Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays and Tomlinson 2013, p. 308).
Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 195.
Nash 2008, p. 10.
See, for example, Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 195. Crenshaw and others who take an additive approach will describe oppressions as interdependent, but this is asserted rather than explained.
Hill Collins 1990, p. 222. Hill Collins uses the term ‘interlocking’ to evoke the necessary relation of systems of oppression in the broader social context (as opposed to the more contingent ‘intersectional’ historical moments).
Dhamoon 2011, p. 234.
Dhamoon 2011, pp. 238–9.
Anthias 2012, p. 130.
Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 195.
Dhamoon 2011, pp. 238–9 (emphasis added).
Anthias 2012, p. 132. Anthias does not explicitly equate ‘translocational’ with ‘transnational’, but is unclear about what else might constitute the former.
Anthias 2012, pp. 133 and 131.
See Davis 2008. As well, Dhamoon’s ‘matrixes of meaning-making’ (Dhamoon 2011) seem to see power primarily in discursive terms.
See McNally 2015.
Williams 1977, pp. 83–9.
Bannerji 2005, p. 146.
Bannerji 2014, p. 128.
See, for example, Nash 2008, p. 13; and Anthias 2012, p. 131.
Laslett and Brenner 1989, p. 382.
Marx 1964, p. 111; Marx and Engels 1932, Volume 1, Chapter 1. If this expansive understanding of labour is indeed a premise of history, its internal differentiation (over time and across space) needs to be explained. An exclusive focus on any particular form of labour (value-creating, or domestic, or peasant, for instance) risks occluding the wider picture.
Gramsci 1971, pp. 34–5.
Ferguson and McNally 2013, p. xxv.
For example, see Picchio 1992.
Luxton 2006, pp. 36–7.
Marx 1973, p. 29.
Marx 1976, pp. 275, 716.
Miles 1989, p. 70.
Ferguson 2008; see also Katz 2001.
Ollman 1971, Section iii.
See McNally 2015, pp. 142–4.
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Seeking to capture the multi-layered, contradictory, nature of subjectivities and social positions through a framework which insists upon the complex, dynamic nature of the social, intersectionality feminism has inspired Marxist-Feminists to push the social-reproduction feminism paradigm beyond a narrow preoccupation with gender/class relations. Yet even its most politically radical articulations stop short of fully theorising the integrative logic they espouse. This article explores the roots of this under-theorisation, and suggests that a more fully integrative ontology informs certain formulations of social-reproduction feminism. In understanding the social as constituted by practical human activity whose object (the social and natural world) is organised capitalistically, social-reproduction feminism highlights the dialectical relationship between the capitalist whole and its differentiated parts. The challenge for Marxist-Feminism is to embrace this dialectical approach while building on the insights of intersectionality feminism to more convincingly capture the unity of a complex, diverse social whole.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 9305 | 2585 | 190 |
Full Text Views | 2384 | 531 | 28 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 3492 | 1118 | 62 |