![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
In the last few years, it has become a commonplace to state that domination takes place through a multiplicity of axes, where gender, class, race, and sexuality intersect with one another. While a lot of insightful empirical work is being done under the heading of intersectionality, it is very rarely linked to the anarchist tradition that preceded it. In this article, I would like to articulate this point by showing the usefulness but also the limits of the notion of intersectionality to understand mechanisms of domination and then move on to argue for the need of an anarcha-feminist research program. Secondly, I will try to provide the philosophical framework for such an enterprise by arguing that it is in a Spinozist ontology of the transindividual that we can best find the conceptual resources for thinking about the plural nature of women’s bodies and thus of their oppression. This will allow me to attempt to articulate the question of ‘what it means to be a woman’ in pluralistic terms and thus also to defend a specifically feminist form of anarchism. In conclusion, I will go back to the anarcha-feminist tradition and will show why today it is the best possible ally of feminism in the pursuit of a critical theory of society.
Keywords anarchism, feminism, imaginal, intersectionality, Marxism, materialism, Spinoza
References
Section:
| Arruzza, C (2010) Le relazioni pericolose: matrimoni e divorzi tra marxismo e femminismo. Rome: Alegre. Google Scholar | |
| Bakunin, M (2005) Against patriarchal authority. In: Graham, R (ed.) Anarchism: A Documentary History of Liberatarian Ideas, Vol. I. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 236–238. Google Scholar | |
| Balibar, E (1997) Spinoza: From individuality to transindividuality. In: Medelingen vanwege het Spinozahauis. Delft: Eburon, 3–36. Google Scholar | |
| Balibar, E (1998) Spinoza and Politics. London: Verso. Google Scholar | |
| Bottici, C (2007) A Philosophy of Political Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Bottici, C (2014) Imaginal Politics: Images beyond Imagination and the Imaginary. New York: Columbia University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Castillo, P, Petrie, R, Torero, M (2012) Beautiful or white? Discrimination in group formation. GMU Working Paper in Economics (February), nos 12–29. Google Scholar | |
| Chanter, T (2006) Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy. London: Continuum. Google Scholar | |
| Collins, PH, Andersen, M (eds) (2012) Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. Google Scholar | |
| Cornell, D (1995) The Imaginary Domain: Abortion, Pornography & Sexual Harassment. London: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Crenshaw, K (1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167. Google Scholar | |
| Davis, A (1981) Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House. Google Scholar | |
| Donaldson, L (ed.) (1992) Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender, and Empire Building. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Google Scholar | |
| Ehrlich, C (2009) Anarchism, feminism and situationism. In: Graham, R (ed.) Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Vol. II. Montreal: Black Rose Books., 492–499. Google Scholar | |
| Ehrlich, HJ (2013) Toward a general theory of anarchafeminism. In: Ehrlich, HJ (ed.) The Best of Social Anarchism. Tucson: AK Press, 51–56. Google Scholar | |
| Federici, S (2012) Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. Oakland: PM Press. Google Scholar | |
| Ferguson, SJ (2013) Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Class: Dimensions of Inequality and Identity. London: SAGE. Google Scholar | |
| Fleury, C (ed.) (2006) Imagination, imaginaire, imaginal. Paris: PUF. Google Scholar | |
| Fraser, N (2013) Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. London: Verso. Google Scholar | |
| Gatens, M (1996) Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality. London: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Gatens, M, Lloyd, G (1999) Collective Imaginings: Spinoza, Past and Present. London: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Goldman, E (1969) Anarchism and other Essays. New York: Dover Publications. Google Scholar | |
| Hippler, T (2011) Spinoza’s politics of imagination and the origins of critical theory. In: Bottici, C, Challand, B (eds) The Politics of Imagination. London: Birkbeck Law Press, 55–73. Google Scholar | |
| Holmes, B (2010) Marked bodies (gender, race, class, age, disability, disease). In: Garrison, DH (ed.) A Cultural History of the Human Body, Vol. 1. Oxford: Berg. Google Scholar | |
| Kornegger, P (2009 [1975]) Anarchism: The feminist connection. In: Graham, R (ed.) Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Google Scholar | |
| Lara, MP (1998) Moral Textures: Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press. Google Scholar | |
| Malatesta, E (2001) L’anarchia. Rome: Datanews. Google Scholar | |
| Marcucci, N, Pinzolo, L (eds) (2010) Strategie della relazione. Riconoscimento, transindividuale, alterita. Rome: Meltemi. Google Scholar | |
| Mojab, S (2015) Marxism and Feminism. London: Zed Books. Google Scholar | |
| Morfino, V (2010) Transindividual e/o riconoscimento: ancora sull’alternativa Hegel/Spinoza. In: Marcucci, N, Pinzolo, L (eds) Strategie della relazione. Riconoscimento, transindividuale, alterita. Rome: Meltemi, 179–200. Google Scholar | |
| Muñoz, JE (1999) Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar | |
| Muñoz, JE (2009) Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Negri, A (1991) The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysic and Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar | |
| Newman, DM (2001) Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. New York: McGraw Hill. Google Scholar | |
| Newman, S (2016) Post-anarchism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Google Scholar | |
| Nietzsche, F (1976) The Antichrist. In: The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Kaufmann, W. New York: Penguin Books, 565–656. Google Scholar | |
| Oksala, J (2011) The neoliberal subject of feminism. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 42(1): 104–120. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Preciado, B (2013) Testojunkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. New York: The Feminist Press. Google Scholar | |
| Sargent, L (ed.) (1981) Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism. Boston: South End Press. Google Scholar | |
| Schürmann, R (1986) On constituting oneself an anarchist subject. Praxis International 3: 294–310. Google Scholar | |
| Shannon, D (2009) Articulating a contemporary anarcha-feminism. Theory in Action 2(3): 58–74. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Simondon, G (2007) L’individuation psychique et collective. Paris: Editions Aubier. Google Scholar | |
| Spinoza, B (1994) Ethics. In: A Spinoza Reader, ed. and trans. Curley, E. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Sunderman, Z (2015) “The Disability Paradox”, in Public Seminar, http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/10/the-disability-paradox/#.WZLIx4qQxZ0 Google Scholar | |
| Williams, C (2006) Thinking the political in the wake of Spinoza: Power, affect and imagination in the Ethics. Contemporary Political Theory 6: 349–369. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Yeates, N (2009) Globalizing Care Economies and Migrant Workers: Explorations in Global Care Chains. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar |
