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27 - Conceptualizing the Multiple Levels of Identity and Intersectionality

from Part IV - Current Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

By
Leoandra Onnie Rogers  and
Moin Syed
Edited by
Michael Bamberg ,
Carolin Demuth  and
Meike Watzlawik
Michael Bamberg
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
Carolin Demuth
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Meike Watzlawik
Affiliation:
Sigmund Freud University, Berlin
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Summary

With disciplinary roots in legal studies and Black feminist scholarship in the United States, intersectionality provides a bird's-eye view of structural inequality and oppression. Yet, as the construct of intersectionality has moved across disciplines, alternate perspectives have come into view and new questions have been asked. Psychological perspectives on intersectionality have centered on questions (and tensions) about how to apply intersectionality in the study of identity – that is, whether intersectionality informs how individuals come to understand themselves and others, and how this may occur. Identity is an obvious link to intersectionality because the categories of difference/inequality that comprise intersectionality are also the identity groups that we study (e.g., racial identity and gender identity). At the same time, identity is (mostly conceived to be) a personal-level construct, which seems to stand in opposition to the structural lens that defines intersectionality. In this chapter, we use empirical data to consider what the study of identity reveals to us about intersectionality as a psychological process. We first define intersectionality and our developmental approach to identity drawing on Erikson’s (1968) psychosocial identity theory. Next, we discuss core challenges that identity researchers in psychology often face when integrating intersectionality: the emphasis on individual-level processes, discrete variables, and linear associations. We then present an analysis of Black and White adolescents’ race × gender identities to conceptualize identity and intersectionality as phenomena that can be measured at the personal, relational, and structural levels. We conclude that this multilevel analytical framework allows us to see intersectionality in identity development.

Keywords

Identityintersectionalityrace and genderqualitative analysis
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Identity , pp. 604 - 626
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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