Intro: The task

1. Intersectional Identity

1. Format of Concept

1. General: identity is heavily influenced/determined by social experience and contexts.
2. Specific: identity derives from internalizing within oppressive social orders across a variety of determinants
3. Determinants: experiences common for those with specific group membership –gender, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, etc.

1. Preliminaries

1. The Whole of Personal Identity: claim of intersectionality is not meant to imply who we are is entirely determined by social systems
2. Identity Determinants: conceptually on a par with one another –certain groups are not a priori privileged
3. Cris-crossing Identity Determinants: experiences common to groups interact and modify the impact of experiences common to other groups
4. Estrangement and Endowment: paradox of group membership is that it is both integrating, comforting, and deeply tied to one’s identity, yet also restricting and painful

1. Tropes of Intersectionality: metaphors for complex identities designed to capture aspect of such identities

1. Crenshaw’s "Crash" Victim: struck in intersection, severe injury, no one to blame –both drivers go free
2. McClure’s "Group Membership:" venn-diagrams –categories, at home, willing participation
3. Lugones/Anzaldua’s "border dwellers:" familiarity with both sides, not entirely comfortable, epistemic advantages

1. Barriers for Intersectional Identities

1. Set up: the problem for intersectional identities

1. Self-knowledge and self direction are constituents of autonomy
2. Self-knowledge of intersectional identity is difficult to discern
3. Self-direction of intersectional identity is multiply determined

1. Self-knowledge

1. Dominant Creeds: denial of social stratification ("we’re all middle class, no?"), assertion of upward mobility, atomized Disney individuality
2. Ordinary Discourse: exaggerated significance of some groups, lack of finessed first person singular identity terms

1. Self-determination

1. Prescribed Personality Life Plans and Behaviors: "be lady like," "be a man," be black, a lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc.
2. Determination as Experience: again, determinants are not billiard ball-like functions (not secured, nor uniform), however, individuals from different groups have different common experiences –different shared forms of socialization

1. Tension: demands of different groups can be at odds with one another, c.f. Latina-lesbian

1. Self-knowledge

1. Platform of Self-knowledge: blending of identity determinants

1. Framing Self-portraits: use of intersectional model requires one (as minimal condition of self-knowledge) to place themselves on multiple axes of determination
2. Necessary Starting Point: locating one’s role in overlapping systems of injustice

1. Relating to Group Membership

1. Not blind loyalty to group(s)
2. Critiquing and Reflecting: discerning and evaluating ways that internalization has occurred

1. Responsibility

1. Axes of Harm & Axes of Benefit: complexity of self alleviates tendency towards sweeping generalizations into the Victim and the Blameworthy
2. For underprivileged: admitting social privileges where appropriate
3. For Dominant Social Groups: recognize one’s reliance on unearned advantage, use of epistemic "normal" as defense, impartiality as distorted "high ground" (c.f. "now MY father has lost his job after 35 years!" –that’s unfortunate, but what about the thousands who never had the chance to even compete for that job).

1. Self-Definition

1. Continuity: characteristics imparted by group membership

1. agents "feel" continuous –narrate this to themselves
2. No Trait Nuggets: characteristics are not static uniform qualities "implanted" in individuals –they’re "metabolized"

1. Self-analysis in Decision

1. Traditions are often worthy of admiration and can form basis from which to make judgments –inspiration and guidance
2. Immersion: intersectional subjects are not wholly subsumed in norms and standards of one group
3. Wedge of Options: intersectionality both reinforces conventions while offering alternative standpoints from which to reassess values and practices
4. Authority: as locus of cris-crossing norms and standards the agent plays active role in mediating outcome of decisions, i.e. she is the bearer of authority –rather than tradition x or y

1. Synthesis: autonomous actions

1. Analyze: one’s self and the history of groups
2. Interpret: meaning of decisions and acts is informed by analysis
3. Reconfigure: standard order of various groups is challenged and reorganized

1. Collective Self-Definition

1. Integrity of individual self-definition is constantly destabilized and malnourished
2. Group formation for finding people on similar path becomes crucial
3. Interactive projects develop into collective definitions

1. Play & Integration

1. Play: potential of intersectionality can be mined through play

1. Improvisation: strategy for linking disparate elements form different determanants into a fluid whole
2. `Mates: social bonds are forged and strengthened in activity of "playing"

1. Frankfurt’s Integration: understood as too random, Play is an insufficient tool to organize authentic development

1. Frankfurt’s 1^st Error: Wholehearted endorsement is not proper to border dwellers, nor useful (since skirting the cracks of intersectionality is how one finds new opportunities –and is key to survival)
2. Frankfurt’s 2^nd Error: Disidentification with facts of victimization is not feasible nor desirable (for generating healthy emotional responses)

1. Meyers’ Integration: "emergent intelligibility of an individual’s" ongoing development of an authentic self

1. Skillful Unregimented Activity: improvised use of autonomy competency
2. Dynamic Character: order is not central to integration or a well defined identity –style and skill become hallmarks of the activity of exercising skills, c.f. "their sound –musical identity"
3. Import of Subjectivity: confirmation, encouragement, and guidance from affective reports (i.e. emotions)