Title Intersectionality As a Social Movements’ Strategy and a Challenge in Anti-Racist Struggles

Intersectionality, as a tool for critical analysis and practice (Collins & Bilge 2016; Collins 2019), comes from critical theories and social movements of the past but its story continues to be written and renewed today. Intersectionality keeps being an inspiring perspective, which provides an empowering framework that fuels the collective organizing of multi-marginalized subjects and social groups. It also poses specific challenges to different social justice movements, in various contexts, prompting them to deal with complex inequalities and power imbalances among their members and in society. There is a growing debate both inside and outside academic circles about how intersectionality is interpreted and applied in these different situations. In my presentation, I’ll delve into this debate and discuss the uses and challenges of intersectionality in anti-racist struggles. Leveraging insights from my research, I will spotlight cases from Southern Europe and Latin America, focusing on the fight against discrimination in migrant women’s groups, the mobilizations for rights and decent work by racialized domestic workers, and the anti-racism engagement of racialized youth with immigrant backgrounds (“Growing old, feeling like citizens?” PRIN Project). On the one hand, the analysis will show how an intersectional approach is reflected in the construction of political identities, coalitions, and alliances which go beyond a single-issue construction of anti-racist struggles. On the other, the intersectional approach helps to bring to light the situated character of the category of race and the forms of racism that take shape in different historical, cultural and political contexts, in intertwining with other systems of oppression based on gender, social class, origins, citizenship, age and so on.