An intersectional approach
This chapter examines intersectionality in multidisciplinary literature, including social work, sociology, political science and women and gender studies. I present epistemological debates in intersectionality literature, along with critiques of the concept. I argue that diverse intersectional theorising can be integrated into social work approaches to homelessness to transcend individual and structural debates in homelessness and social work literature. Finally, I further discuss critiques, dilemmas and complexities of intersectionality, including McCall’s (2005) categorical approaches, and Lykke’s (2010) ‘post-constructionist’ theorising of intersectionality.
American, Australian, British and European authors have tended to focus on homelessness by counting numbers of ‘homeless people’; constructing objective policy definitions associated with particular resources; examining the causes of homelessness; calculating costs to the community; emphasising individual characteristics, needs and problems; finding solutions and highlighting transitions and pathways into and exiting from homelessness (Blau, 1992; Jencks, 1994; Johnson, 1995; Johnson and Cnaan, 1995; Clapham, 2002; 2005; Johnson et al., 2008; Zufferey, 2008; Busch-Geertsema et al., 2010). In this book I argue that intersectionality can challenge homogenous and linear representations of homelessness and complicate approaches that count numbers, construct objective definitions, examine singular causes, calculate costs, find solutions and highlight transitions and pathways. An intersectional approach can focus on power relations and how homelessness is multidimensional and inextricably connected to intersecting sites of disadvantage and inequality.
Social workers have also been criticised for homogenising and categorising people who are homeless and constructing causation discourses that do not fit the complexities of their lived experiences (Zufferey and Kerr, 2004; Horsell, 2006). Whilst focusing on individualised care issues and pathways into and out of homelessness can be useful responses, they do tend to emphasise how individual characteristics, needs and problems (such as substance abuse or mental illness) contribute to causing homelessness. This focus potentially supports individualist discourses and can obscure diverse and intersecting relations of power. Social workers, however, are involved in constructing both individualised and structural responses to homelessness, as well as building coalitions with service users in collaborative dialogues that work towards social justice (Zufferey, 2008; Mostowska, 2014). In this book, I argue that the individual-structural debates in homelessness and social work can be transcended by incorporating a multilayered conceptualisation of intersectionality (Winker and Degele, 2011).
Social work authors Murphy and her colleagues (2009) note that intersectionality provides a systems-focused perspective, which is consistent with social work’s commitment to system reform and social justice. Thus, an intersectional social work approach helps frame social work advocacy efforts, through understanding how unequal power relations interplay to constitute social constructions of homelessness and social work responses to homelessness.
In this book I also contend that assumptions underpinning intersectionality are consistent with social work’s commitment to social change and building coalitions between key stakeholders, such as researchers, policy makers, service providers and service users.
Intersectionality literature has variously focused on identity categories (or subjectivities) as well as meaning-making processes and how identities are socially located. This includes a focus on ‘identities and categories of difference’; ‘processes and systems of differentiation’ and the ‘complexities of subject formation’ (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 231). These intersecting identity relations, social locations and structural barriers continue to constitute multiple forms of oppression (Crenshaw, 1991; Mehrotra, 2010), which contribute to shaping homelessness. This book posits that intersectionality enables social workers to recognise, examine, reflect on and address complex and multiple intersecting layers of ‘oppression’ (and privilege) that constitute social work and homelessness, including identity and process dynamics associated with gender, race, ethnicity, culture, class, sexuality, age and ability (Thornton Dill and Kohlman, 2012).
Since the late nineteenth century, intersectional theorising has been promoted by black feminists, including Anna Julia Cooper’s (1892) analysis of racism and sexism, Angela Davis’ (1971) analysis of race, gender and class in black women’s lives, Deborah King’s (1988) discussion of multiple jeopardy and Patricia Hills Collins’ (1990) theorising of the matrix of domination. Legal professor Kimberlie Crenshaw (1991) originally conceptualised structural and political intersectionality to respond to race and gender discrimination in the American legal context. This approach was initially established to understand how singular axes (such as gender or race) in anti-discrimination legislation ignored the multiple discriminations experienced by black women. The ways that gender intersects with other forms of inequality (especially those founded on racism and colonialism) has been under-theorised (Jackson and Scott, 2010), especially in social work. However, intersectional approaches go beyond gender and race locations, ‘to any grouping of people, advantaged as well as disadvantaged’ (Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 201).
Intersectionality has been taken up by many different disciplines besides the legal profession (Crenshaw, 1991; 2003), including in women and feminist studies (Davis, 2008; Lykke, 2010; Carbin and Edenheim, 2013), political science (Wilson, 2013), by critical race theorists (King, 1988; hooks, 1990, 2000; Collins, 2000), as well as in social work (Murphy et al., 2009). In the field of social work, intersectionality has tended to be used in a structuralist way, to forward a social justice agenda – such as to examine how social inequalities such as racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism and ageism are mutually constitutive and interact at micro (individual), mezzo (group) and macro (society) levels (Murphy et al., 2009, p. 10). Intersectional approaches invite social workers to think simultaneously at the level of structures, dynamics and subjectivities (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013).
Intersectionality also ‘emerged from feminist debates about difference at a particular historical moment in western culture’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 101). Feminist approaches and social work have a long and intertwined history, sharing commitments to activism and the betterment of society (Kemp and Brandwein, 2010; Wahab et al., 2015; Wendt and Moulding, 2016; Bryant, 2016). Feminist scholars encourage a reflexive positioning and a focus on situated knowledges, from diverse, multidisciplinary perspectives and locations (Lykke, 2010). Feminist movements have historically been constructed as ‘waves’. For example, feminists of the second wave movement in the 1960s advocated for political and legal reform, and argued that women’s oppression was related to unequal capitalist and patriarchal systems (Kemp and Brandwein, 2010). This movement included a commitment to women’s emancipation and addressing oppressive and hierarchical power relations, such as sexism, homophobia, racism and religious oppression. These positions constitute what is known as critical or structural feminist approaches that have been criticised for constructing grand narratives and truths about oppression and binary power relations (Fawcett et al., 2000). Furthermore, both feminism and social work have been criticised for promoting white, Western, middle-class women’s experiences and neglecting to acknowledge diversity (hooks, 2000; Pease, 2010). Postcolonial and transnational feminist theorist Mohanty (2003), in her key text on ethnicity, argued that white, Western and middle-class feminists construct a homogenous global feminist ‘we’, with its origins in the privilege of whiteness.
Postmodern and post-structural feminism emerged from the criticism of critical and structural approaches. The postmodern feminist perspective is particularly associated with the work of Judith Butler (1990) who viewed gender as being discursively constructed and performative, while the term post-structural feminism focused more on discursive constructions of ‘reality’ and how language and discourses constitute gendered subjectivities within shifting power relations (Weedon, 1987). However, postmodern and post-structural feminisms have also been criticised for tending towards individualism, relativism and not providing a basis for collective political action (Fawcett et al., 2000). From its inception, intersectional theorising was radical and political, it critiqued the essentialism of white identity-based politics, by highlighting the inseparability of racial and gender oppressions from the socio-political location and standpoint of black feminists (Mehrotra, 2010, p. 420; May, 2015).
Intersectional feminism has become a powerful discourse and useful political tool to disrupt dominant power relations (Yuval-Davis, 2006; Dhamoon, 2011; McKibbin et al., 2015; May, 2015). Intersectional feminism incorporates numerous critiques of previous feminist approaches and is often now ‘presented as the feminist theory’ (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013, p. 245). Intersectionality is variously referred to as a framework (McCall, 2005; Hancock, 2007), a politics (Crenshaw, 1991), a metaphor (Crenshaw, 1991), a ‘knowledge project’ about a ‘matrix of domination’ (Collins, 2000), a theory (Yuval-Davis, 2006), a paradigm (Hancock, 2007), an analytical tool (Nash, 2008), a nodal point (Lykke, 2010), a discourse (McKibbin et al., 2015) and a field (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013). Within the literature, authors note that there is a slippage in intersectionality theorising, between structuralist and poststructuralist ontologies, creating confusion about intersectional definitions (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013; McKibbin et al., 2015).
Different countries and continents have engaged with intersectionality differently. In the American context, intersectionality has emerged from structuralist traditions, whilst in the British and European context, intersectional authors have tended to draw more on constructivist theorising (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013, p. 235). For three decades British sociologist Nira Yuval-Davis has published extensively on intersections between gender, ethnicity, race, class and nationality, and has advocated for broadening the ‘triple oppression’ (gender, race, class) argument of US-based black feminists. She argues for an intersectional approach that ‘analyzes social stratification as a whole’ and that we cannot homogenise the ways that any ‘political project’ affects different people (Yuval-Davis, 2011, p. 3). Recently, a group of Australian feminist (including some social workers) stated that they preferred to refer to intersectionality as being a ‘discourse’, to progress ‘research, policy and practice responses to family violence and to other issues affecting disadvantaged groups of people’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 102), which would include homelessness.
Dutch feminist and political philosopher Baukje Prins (2006) examines systemic (mostly US-based) and constructionist (mostly UK- and Europe-based) approaches to intersectionality. She notes that systemic intersectionality foregrounds structural inequalities, intersecting systems of domination/subordination (related to, for example, gender, class, race, ethnicity and sexuality), and problematises binaries such as masculinity–femininity, white–black, middle–working class. However, constructionist authors argue that systemic approaches fall short in their analysis of agency and subjectivity and social identification constraints (Prins, 2006’; Lykke, 2010). That is, that constructionist approaches provide more possibilities for examining the complexities of intersectional identification, by taking into account both intersecting systems of power, and how power is subjectively productive and produced (Lykke, 2010). For example, how do intersecting power differentials produce individual life history narratives of both people who experience homelessness and social workers? How do social workers and people defined as homeless engage with these power dynamics? How are diverse experiences of homelessness affected by interwoven gendering, racialising, ethnifying and class stratifying processes? In this book, researchers, policy makers, social workers and activists are invited to consider their own social positions and power when taking an intersectional approach (see Chapter 5). I argue that multi-layered analyses that link individual experiences to broader structures and systems are crucial for exploring how power relations are shaped and experienced.
Intersectional scholars in social work literature advocate for including different analyses of neglected intersections. For example, similar to Yuval Davis, in a global context, Mehrotra (2010) maintains that intersectional social work must increasingly incorporate discussions on migration, diaspora and nationality. Sandberg (2013, p. 351) suggests that intersectional social work must also think about the meanings of local geographies and how this impacts on our analyses of and responses to social problems. Sandberg (2013, p. 351) argues that ‘differences between urbanity and rurality are not only a matter of distribution of resources … but are also linked to the privileges of definition that come with being situated as either at the centre or at the periphery’. For example, the omission of the voices of rural victims of domestic violence and rural social problems more widely reflects how rural issues are in a peripheral position, outside the centre of knowledge production in social work. Whilst urban and rural geographies cannot be conceptualised as an axis of oppression, rural locations can create particular kinds of vulnerability, such as isolation from services and supports (Sandberg, 2013), including in the field of homelessness (Cloke and Milbourne, 2006). Therefore, urban and rural geographies should be included when analysing neglected points of intersection and the diversity of people’s lives (Sandberg, 2013). This applies to many neglected concepts in the field of social work and homelessness, including global and local migration, definitional differences and how intersecting experiences of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, race, age and class shape how homelessness and social work are constituted.
Multidisciplinary intersectionality scholars argue that ‘social divisions have different organising logics’ (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006, p. 187) but that they are not independent and dichotomous. For example, socio-economic backgrounds, institutionalised racism, sexism and homophobia are ontologically different, with variable intersecting effects on the subjectivities of people who experience homelessness. British sociologists Strid et al. (2013, p. 575) argue that inequalities are interconnected but ‘can simultaneously be named separately and distinguished’, so that the relations between multiple inequalities are theorised as ‘mutually shaping rather than as either additive or mutually constitutive’. Intersectional approaches explore social categories, social positions, social locations and normalising practices (Verloo, 2006), with the aim to construct a particular political project (May, 2015). The social construction of lived categories (such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and class) are produced (and reproduced), in relation to a range of social positions (such as multiple ethnicities or dichotomised genders), the origins of the social category (such as the contested nature/nurture gender debates), the location of inequality (such as in regards to the organisation of labour, citizenship or intimacy), as well as the material and discursive processes that re-produce inequalities, in regards to white, heterosexual and middle-class norms (Verloo, 2006, p. 217). Intersectional authors call for a dialogue between people from different social positionings (Ferree, 2009; Yuval-Davis, 2012, p. 48). This would include social workers having a dialogue with people who are defined as ‘homeless’ about their experiences of homelessness, highlighting their perceptions of social workers and services (see Chapter 6).
An intersectional social work approach provides a new critical way of examining homelessness, by analysing and reflecting on intersecting power dynamics that are structural, political and cultural (Crenshaw, 1991). When Crenshaw spoke of the General Motors and African American women legal case that did not fit gender or race anti-discrimination laws, this has been referred to as an example of structural and political intersectionality (Lykke, 2010). She also discussed the numerous structural, political and representational interactions of race and gender in male violence against ‘women of color’ (Crenshaw, 1991). Next, I consider this framework in relation to social work and homelessness. First, structural inequalities are embodied, socio-political and experienced differently by different individuals. For example, homelessness is a structural issue caused by a myriad of interrelated injustices that social workers could work towards changing. However, each individual has different experiences of these inequalities, which requires different responses. Second, the political aspect of intersectionality can relate to how different categories of citizens engage in identity politics in ways that may disempower and marginalise each other unintentionally. For example, feminist advocates who focus entirely on gender can neglect how homelessness is constituted by a diverse range of interrelated social identities that have differing effects, dependent on the social and environmental contexts of individual lives. Lastly, cultural representations of homelessness can also disempower and reproduce gendered and racialised inequalities. For example, in my research on representations of homelessness in the Australia print media, it was evident that service providers were constructed as ‘experts’ and ‘saints’ who were ‘helping’ deserving people (Zufferey and Chung, 2006; Zufferey, 2012), which reinforced unequal power relations. Public discourses have tended to promote individualist explanations of homelessness and neglected to consider broader structural, political and social influences on how homelessness is represented and responded to (Horsell, 2006; Zufferey, 2008), which potentially shapes how the problem has come about and how social work responds to it.
Whilst Crenshaw is more structuralist in her approach, Lykke (2010, p. 51) draws on ‘post -constructionist’ ideas to define intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological tool for analysing unjust social relations. Lykke (2010) combines post-constructionist and corpomaterial (that is, the embodiment of sex and materiality of bodies) feminist approaches, including the semiotic-material approach of Haraway (1991) and discursive-material approach of Barad (2007). Her discussion of intersectionality weaves together ontology, epistemology and ethics, constructing ambiguity, multiplicity and diversity, as pluralist understandings (Lykke, 2010, p. 161). Lykke (2010) analyses how historically specific power relations (or ‘constraining normativities’) are based on discursive and structurally constricted social categories that interact to re-produce social inequalities. She argues that constructions of gender/biological sex intersect with other socioculturally constructed identities, such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, disability and nationality. In this book I explore both structuralist and poststructuralist conceptualisations of intersectionality, relating these to what they can offer to the theorising of social work and homelessness – because there has been considerable literature published on the topic of intersectionality, but not particularly in relation to social work and homelessness (Zufferey, 2009; Zufferey, 2015). I take both a critical and a social constructionist position to argue that intersectional theorising can provide a more robust approach from which to explore the diversities and complexities of homelessness, whilst also focusing on advocating for social justice and social change.
The purpose of social work is related to ‘helping’ socially disadvantaged population groups and advocating for social change (AASW, 2010). Early social work authors constructed individual service needs of homeless persons as being basic, stabilisation needs, such as help in obtaining public entitlements and professional services; change-oriented needs, such as counselling and case management; and emergency needs, such as responding to crises (Johnson and Cnaan, 1995, p. 354). These individualised service responses and social work interventions have been aligned to policy and funding approaches that categorise the ‘support needs’ of ‘homeless people’, around housing, income, health, mental health, substance abuse and domestic and family violence. These approaches are also directed at population groups, such as men, women, children and families and/or focusing on geographical locations, such as rural and urban homelessness. However, these categorisation processes can contribute to ‘siloing’ or ‘dichotomising’ social work responses to homelessness, without focusing on how social inequalities are produced and intersect, to constitute social work responses to homelessness.
Whilst there are many social work scholars who have drawn on critical and structural approaches to homelessness, social work literature has historically been dominated by clinical approaches and medical discourses (Johnson and Cnaan, 1995). In the 1990s, American social work authors Johnson and Cnaan (1995, p. 340) provided an overview of social work involvement in the field of homelessness focusing on ‘interventions’ rather than sociological points of view. Johnson and Cnaan (1995, p. 341) synthesised articles published in social work literature, with at least one author who was a social worker, based on research that took place in social work settings, as well as widely cited ‘classical studies’ on homelessness. They found that most sources of information on homelessness focused on definitions, causes and cost to society – including moral cost – the composition of the homeless population, the needs of ‘homeless people’, treatment interventions and gaps in services (Johnson and Cnaan, 1995, p. 341; see also Hopper, 1989; Rossi, 1989; Blasi, 1990). This interventionist focus shapes contemporary social work responses to homelessness because discourses about ‘individualised needs’ are powerful in social work and homelessness literature (Zufferey, 2008; 2012). Focusing predominantly on gender, critical feminist Nancy Fraser (1989, p. 147) had argued that women are most likely to be service users and therefore, the ‘needs’ interpretation of the ‘welfare client’ is a feminised terrain that frequently positions them as passive recipients of social assistance. In this book, I argue that intersectionality can contribute to highlighting how intersecting social locations and social processes can both oppress and privilege service users and social workers, within unequal power relations.
Similarly, European social scientist Nordfeldt (2012, p. 117) promotes an intersectional approach to homelessness to capture complexity and consider intersections between structural, institutional and individual contexts that can increase the risk of people becoming homeless. These individual/structural debates have a long history in social work literature. Individualised discourses are frequently juxtaposed with structuralist explanations for homelessness (Horsell, 2006). British author Neale (1997) linked the concepts of undeserving and deserving to individual and structural discourses. She argued that when homelessness is interpreted as a function of structural factors, ‘homeless people’ are constructed as ‘deserving’ of services and assistance. However, individuals can equally be constructed as ‘undeserving’, if perceived to be responsible for their own homelessness. Taking this further, American sociologist Rosenthal (2000) observed that people who experience homelessness are labelled ‘slackers’ (incompetent because of their own fault, such as drugs users), ‘lackers’ (incompetent due to no fault of their own, such as people with a serious mental illness) and ‘unwilling victims’ (competent but caught in circumstance beyond their control, such as women escaping domestic violence). Rosenthal notes that to be ‘deserving’ of assistance requires one to be incompetent. This analysis points to disabling discourses in social work responses to homelessness. British social policy author Pleace (2000) argues that there is a ‘new orthodoxy’ in homelessness literature that combines structural/individual explanations of homelessness. That is, structural factors such as economic inequalities, poverty, unemployment and lack of affordable housing can create the conditions within which homelessness occurs – but some individuals are more vulnerable to the effects of these adverse social and economic conditions than others, which explains why more people with ‘high support needs’ experience homelessness (Pleace, 2000). Consistent with the approaches of sociologists Anthias (2001 and 2002) and Winker and Degele (2011), I posit that this debate can be taken further by proposing a multilayered intersectional social work approach that responds to: individual and group experiences of discrimination, social structures, interactions and processes, institutionalised organisational practices, cultural symbols and discursive representations of social problems, such as media representations of homelessness.
Intersectionality can also be used to understand and analyse political resistances that are intertwined with power relations that re-signify categories and normative identity markers (Lykke, 2010, p. 52). An intersectional social work approach advocates for social workers engaged in research, policy, practice and academia to reflect on what categories we privilege and what categories we make invisible. As well, how do individuals resist and negotiate the power relations and social conditions in which they are embedded? That is, how do people who are defined as homeless resist dominant definitions and public representations, often also promoted by social workers? These are perpetual reflexive questions for social workers working in the field of homelessness.
To represent intersectionality graphically, social work authors Murphy et al. (2009, p. 55) and Hulko (2015, p. 72) use circular diagrams illustrating intersections between multiple social locations and social identity categories, such as race, ethnicity, age, gender, class, physical ability, Indigeneity, nationality, sexuality, religion and so on. However, they position oppression and privilege in the circle differently. Murphy et al. (2009, pp. 54–55) place oppression at the centre of the circle and privilege on the outer edge, arguing that intersectional research often examines ‘non-normative’ population groups. This attention tends to align with feminists who focus on intersectional analysis as specific to black and ethnic minority women and ‘marginalised’ people/s (Murphy et al., 2009).
Social work scholar Hulko (2015, p. 71) places privilege at the centre of the circle because she argues that intersectional research need not be restricted to people who inhabit multiple sites of oppression and marginalisation. When teaching about intersectionality, Hulko (2015) asks students to position themselves within a social location diagram. To define oppression, Hulko draws on Iris Marion Young’s (2011) five faces of oppression: violence, exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness and cultural imperialism. Hulko’s approach is akin to the ‘majority inclusive principle’ of intersectionality (Christensen and Jensen, 2012), which, I argue, enables social workers to reflect on their own privileges when working in the field of homelessness (see Chapter 5).
When discussing feminism and intersectional theory, Gina Samuels and Fariyal Ross-Sheriff (2008, p. 6) pose three challenges for scholars engaging in the intellectual agenda of intersectionality:
[to] avoid essentialising the added groupings or identities of race, class, sexuality … [to] attend to interlocking privileges as well as oppressions and … [to] attend to changes in context that then shift the meaning of various social identities and statuses.
Ross Sheriff’s work with Afghan women and Samuels’ research with black-white racial adoptees highlight women’s multiple and shifting identities and capabilities, in spite of their oppressive life conditions (Samuels and Ross-Sheriff, 2008, p. 6).
In this book I also advocate for an intersectional social work approach that explores the interplay between privileges and oppressions. Thus, I claim that it is important for social workers to ask critical questions such as: who defines who is oppressed or privileged? Can one person be variously oppressed or privileged in different contexts?
While intersectionality has dominated women’s studies, it has been far less prevalent in the fields of social work and homelessness. The European Journal of Women’s Studies published a special issue on intersectionality after considerable debate on what constitutes intersectionality at their tenth anniversary conference (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006). Given that there is not one feminist epistemology, the recognition of particular intersections has created much debate and tensions among multidisciplinary feminist scholars (Lykke, 2010). Despite diverse structural, systemic, constructionist, positional and discursive theorising within intersectional literature, mobilising and combining anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, anti-nationalist and anti-colonial movements remains important (Yuval-Davis, 2006; Bredstrom, 2006; Lykke, 2010; May, 2015). Next, I explore the diverse perspectives and research of multidisciplinary intersectional authors, namely Lykke (2010), Dhamoon (2011), Matsuda (1991), McCall’s (2005) categorical approaches, Winker and Degele (2011) and May (2015).
Lykke’s (2010, p. 87) work on intersectionality, in the context of the discipline of women and gender studies, takes a ‘post-constructionist’ approach to intersectionality. She notes that gender and other social categorisations are historically, socially, culturally and linguistically constructed. Lykke (2010, p. 68) provides a genealogical analysis of the concept of intersectionality. This genealogy shows that intersectionality was explicitly named by Crenshaw (1991). However, Lykke (2010) argues that even before this term was coined, the implicit focus on intersectionality, intersecting power differentials and normative identity markers, can be traced back to the nineteenth century. For example, Sojourner Truth’s speech in 1851, ‘Ain’t I a woman?’, foreshadows campaigns by black feminists more than a century later. As well, in 1977, the Combahee River Collective promoted a ‘Black Feminist Statement’ outlining the intersections between black women’s political, sexual and economic oppressions (Kemp and Brandwein, 2010). Lykke (2010) argues that it is important to read history with intersectionality as a lens, even when the label or name was not used. That is, that feminist theorising of intersectionality has occurred under other names, using other concepts and frames.
Furthermore, feminist activism has provided a strong challenge to the legitimising of biologically determinist and culturally essentialist perceptions of sex/gender and other sociocultural categorisations (Lykke, 2010, p. 25). Stressing the importance of gender de-constructionist theories to challenge biological determinism and cultural essentialism, she argues that the constructionist agenda has been able to establish sociocultural gender as a specific area of knowledge independent of biological sex. Feminist deconstruction goes back to authors such as Simone De Beauvoir who argued that ‘One is not born but becomes a woman’ (1984 [1949]) and to Judith Butler (1990; 2004) who wrote about ‘doing gender’, linking queer, post-structuralism, deconstruction and speech act theory. Lykke (2010) discusses intersectional feminism from both postcolonial/anti-racist and queer feminist prongs, which challenges the exclusiveness of gendered and racialised power relations, but neglects to consider intersections, such as between ethnicity and hetero/sexuality. In this book I argue that unequal power relations are social processes in which gender intersects with other social locations (such as ethnicity and sexuality), with associated discourses and ‘real’ material effects. For example, men and women are socially located within different gendered and racialised power relations that intersect and contribute to maintaining homelessness (Passaro, 2014).
Political scientist Rita Dhamoon (2011, pp. 230–240) identifies changing considerations in intersectional literature. She argues that the spirit of critical self-reflection, concepts and language used in intersectional literature are subject to change. Various terms are used that describe intersections, including interlocking, multiple jeopardy, discrimination-within-discrimination, multiple consciousness (King, 1988; Matsuda, 1992), multiplicity (Wing, 1990–1991), multiplex epistemologies (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006, p. 187), translocational positionality (Anthias, 2002), multidimensionality (Hutchinson, 2001), inter-connectivities (Valdes, 1995) and synthesis (Ehrenreich, 2002). Nonetheless, keeping the focus on interactions assists to examine how ‘processes of differentiation dynamically function through one another … although the character of these processes and their effects are varied and indeterminate’ (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 231). For example, in social work, the process of differentiating who is and who is not homeless is contested and differs in different cultural contexts. Dhamoon (2011, p. 235) proposes that a swirling matrix of meaning making can pictorially capture the ‘interactive, unbounded, and relational dynamics of productive power’. She argues that although difference making is ‘shifting, messy, indeterminate, dynamic and multilayered’, it does not preclude ‘locating contingent specificities of difference and power’ (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 239). I also propose that dynamic meaning-making processes are important for examining the complexities and diversities of social work and homelessness. However, social work decisions are made within specific social and geographical locations that intersect with normative gendered, racialised, sexualised, classed and able-bodied assumptions.
In legal studies, Matsuda (1991, p. 1189) argues that intersectionality assists us to examine the blind spots of an analysis. For example, when we see something that looks racist, we might ask, where is the patriarchy in this? Or, if something looks homophobic, ask, where is class? Such questions enable social workers to let implicit social relations frame questions of explicit intersectional analysis, to include missing or invisible categories. However, this process does not answer whether there is a finite or infinite list of intersections or whether categorisations may reinforce or neutralise each other. To the question of ‘how many facets of social difference and axes of power need to be analysed?’ Yuval-Davis’ (2012, p. 3) answer is that the number depends upon time and place, and involves assessing empirical reality as well as political and ontological struggles. For the purposes of this book, an intersectional analysis of homelessness and social work will highlight the material and discursive diversities and complexities of the issue at this point in time.
Sociologist Leslie McCall (2005; 2009) is motivated by questions about how different kinds of explicit intersectional analysis handle the complexities of power differentials, as evident in her discussion of anti-categorical, intra-categorical and inter-categorical methodologies. I have previously examined these categorical complexities in relation to homelessness when discussing feminist social work research and practice (see Zufferey, 2015; 2016).
An anti-categorical approach examines how concepts, terms and categories are constructed, and problematises the processes of categorisation (McCall, 2005).This approach can deconstruct problematic categorisations and the fixing of homeless and social work identities, around for example, gender roles, racial differences, class disadvantage, age stereotypes and sexuality, which invites a rethinking and reconceptualising of social work and homelessness. For example, in Chapter 4, I deconstruct policy definitions of homelessness that highlight housing as a solution to homelessness. Dominant definitions can be deconstructed from the perspectives of women and children affected by domestic violence who experience feelings of homelessness in their own homes, as well as from the perspectives of Aboriginal people for whom Indigenous notions of ‘home’ are often unrelated to housing (Zufferey and Chung, 2015). This analysis can be done without essentialising and homogenising these differences as for example, male or female and Indigenous or non-Indigenous traits or ‘characteristics’, but by noting that homelessness is discursively constructed, with material effects. As well, in regards to geographical location, Sandberg’s (2013, p. 360) research on rural women’s experiences of domestic violence found that anti-categorical approaches can deconstruct ‘rural and urban as categories’ as well as locate ‘local geographies within discourses of power and knowledge’.
When discussing urban and rural geographical locations and intimate partner violence (IPV), Sandberg (2013) argues for combining intra- and anti-categorical approaches. This is so that rural victims of IPV are analysed as a neglected point of intersection and that the diversity of ‘ruralities’ are also acknowledged. She contends that the ‘uncritical use of the category ‘rural’ in studies of IPV may contribute to the othering of rurality where negative stereotypes of being ‘backward, dumb and violent hillbillies’ are reproduced (Sandberg, 2013, p. 357). However, ‘shifting between intra- and anti-categorical approaches requires a great deal of epistemological flexibility’ (Sandberg, 2013, p. 360). This analysis by Sandberg indicates how McCall’s (2005) different categorical approaches in intersectionality do not need to stand alone and can be combined, whilst continuing to align with social work’s commitment to social justice and equality.
The intra-categorical focus takes the construction of identity categories (or social locations) into account but acknowledges that identities are fluid and multiple, and that intersections within social categories are neglected in research literature (McCall, 2005; Winker and Degele, 2011). The intra-categorical intersectional approach assists social workers to focus on neglected and diverse perspectives of different stakeholders in the field of homelessness in more depth. For example, by asking the questions: how are intersections associated with sexuality neglected (Rowntree, 2014) in social work literature and research on homelessness, when are they made visible, and from whose perspective?
Inter-categorical approaches tend to examine relationships of inequality between population groups and categories strategically, to explore ‘the nature of the relationships of social groups and, importantly, how they are changing’ (McCall, 2009, p. 59). For example, regional and economic inequalities central to homelessness can be highlighted by examining different dimensions of wage inequalities in different regions of the United States (McCall, 2009). In this book I argue that each of these intersectional approaches can be useful for examining the complex power dynamics in social workers’ responses to homelessness.
Nonetheless, intersectional theorists (such as social workers) are cautioned against constructing ‘hierarchies of oppression’ that centre ‘single axis logics’ (Yuval-Davis, 2012, p. 48; May, 2015, p. 63). Given that the purpose of social work has historically been related to empowerment and addressing injustice affecting socially disadvantaged groups (BASW, 2002; IFSW, 2005; NASW, 2008; AASW, 2010), when analysing ‘difference’ it is difficult for social workers to resist constructing additive, compounding ideas of disadvantage. If social workers engage in arguing about which social category is more or less oppressed, social workers are constructing hierarchies of disadvantage and competing in a process that Yuval Davis (2012, p. 48) calls the ‘oppression olympics’. For example, if social workers are examining race and gender relations that contribute to homelessness, the homeless experiences of men, women and children from ethnic minority and Aboriginal population groups can be made visible, including their risks of remaining poor and becoming homeless. However, a missing question could be: where is dis/ability, religion, class, age and sexuality in this analysis (Matsuda, 1991)? Yet, it is also important not to homogenise people from, for example, ethnic minority groups or Aboriginal backgrounds, by also focusing on the diversities within population groups. Thus, the ‘doing’ of intersectional research, policy and practice is complicated, which can be further understood by engaging with McCall’s (2005) anti-categorical, intra-categorical and inter-categorical approaches.
European sociologists Winker and Degele (2011) argue for a multilayered intersectional analysis that incorporates and broadens McCall’s (2005) categories. They contend that to engage in intersectionality involves thinking simultaneously at the level of structures, dynamics and subjectivities. They used intersectionality when analysing 13 narrative interviews with people with no paid employment, who were ‘differentiated in terms of age, social origin, gender, sexual orientation, child responsibility, nationality, ethnicity, work experience, physical capability and so on’ (Winker and Degele, 2011, p. 58). The eight steps of their intersectional analysis sought to: describe identity constructions (such as woman-man, poor-rich), identify symbolic representations (such as women are better communicators than men), find references to social structures (such as according to gender, class, race and the body), interrelate central categories (such as classism, sexism, racism, heteronormativism, bodyisms etc.), compare and cluster subject constructions (such as, control over one’s bodily self, overcoming bureaucratic barriers, desiring a stake in society and financial security), analyse power dynamics, deepen analysis of injustice and elaborate on intersections, such as how constructions support or resist dominant norms (Winker and Degele, 2011, p. 63). These multilayered analytical processes are also particularly pertinent to social work and homelessness, to intersect individual, structural, political and representational explanations of homelessness, whilst advocating for social justice.
American women’s studies scholar Vivian May (2015, p. x) focuses on social justice and social change and explains that intersectionality is:
resistant knowledge developed to unsettle conventional mindsets, challenge oppressive power, think through the full architecture of structural inequalities and asymmetrical life opportunities, and seek a more just world. It has been forged in the context of struggles for social justice as a means to challenge dominance, foster critical imaginaries and craft collective models for change.
This explanation reinforces that it is crucial to frame intersectionality as a form of ‘social critique to foreground its radical capacity to disrupt oppressive vehicles of power’ (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 230). However, there are debates in literature about categorisation processes.
Social work scholars such as Murphy et al. (2009) note that inclusive social work practice would be well served to incorporate McCall’s (2005) categorical approaches. However, scholars such as Lykke (2010), influenced by post-isms (such as post-structuralism and post-constructionism), have argued that McCall’s categorical classifications are limiting, especially when considering the nuances of intersectional inequalities. This more post-structural perspective aims to move beyond ‘categorisations’ to emphasise the power relations and social ‘processes’ contributing to social inequalities. That is, intersectionality involves categorisations that occur through constitutive processes that are gendering, racialising, classing, dis/ableing and ‘third worlding’ and which can be both oppressing and privileging (Bacchi, forthcoming). As McKibbin et al. (2015, p. 99) and Carbin and Edenheim (2013) remind us, intersectionality emerged from a structuralist ontology. However, McKibbin et al. (2015, p. 101) advocate for an intersectional feminism that draws on poststructuralist ontologies that can ‘still hold a notion of subjectivity to be the experience of self as an effect of power and discourse’.
In intersectional theorising, there has been a shift from studying identities and categories to studying processes and systems, moving away from potentially essentialising identities and towards using the post-structural notion of subjectivities. Therefore, intersectionality can combine a focus on identities, categories, processes and systems to include:
identities of an individual or set of individuals or social group that are marked as different (e.g., a Muslim woman or black women), the categories of difference (e.g., race and gender), the processes of differentiation (e.g., racialisation and gendering), and the systems of domination (e.g., racism, colonialism, sexism, and patriarchy).
(Dhamoon, 2011, p. 240)
I would also argue that these intersecting identities, categories, processes and systems are important to consider in the fields of social work and homelessness. The process of marking and claiming identity differences involves examining how the identities of both ‘homeless people’ and ‘social workers’ are diversely constituted and embodied. Subjectivities are constituted by messy and intersecting power differentials, within social processes that can be both privileging and oppressing.
However, social work responses to homelessness exist within unequal power relations that potentially uphold the status quo. That is, social work practice exists within ‘systems of domination’ that are racist, colonialist, sexist and patriarchal, to name just a few (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 240). Therefore, it remains important for an intersectional social work approach to involve self-reflexivity, during which social workers reflect on their own privileged social location/s, in relation to people who experience homelessness. In social work practice, power is produced, relational and located within social institutions that function to include and exclude people through the construction of difference/s, such as social workers constructing who is deemed ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of services. In New York, Passaro (1996; 2014) examined how gender, race and family status contributed to chances of exiting homelessness. She found that remaining homeless is a different process to becoming ‘houseless’ and that black men were most likely to be chronically homeless because they were overlooked by the service system, pointing to gendered and racialised practices of social discrimination.
In contrast to this critical approach, drawing on post-structural theorising, Lykke (2010, p. 150) argues that intersectional theorising actually constructs provisional boundaries and defines how subjects and objects relate to each other, which differs according to each particular political project. She creates a dynamic world of research subjects, objects of knowledge, knowers and what is known, building on Haraway’s (1991; 2004) and Barad’s (1996) theorising. For example, Lykke (2010, p. 53) draws on Karen Barad’s (2003, p. 815) notion of ‘intra-action’ to argue that identity categories are not bounded phenomena but processes of mutual construction and transformation, through interpersonal communication. Both the research subject and the object of research are defined and contextualised within the relationship between the two, not fixed but momentary (Lykke, 2010, p. 151). Lykke’s (2010) work is also relevant to social work research and practice because constructions of intersubjectivities in interpersonal communication is an important process to consider for social workers working in the field of homelessness.
Furthermore, social work is a self-reflexive project. Haraway’s notion of situated knowledges (1988) explores the interconnectedness between the siting and the sighting of research concepts (Lykke, 2010, p. 152), such as homelessness. The notion of siting involves the researcher reflecting on his/her situatedness in time, space, history, body and inscribed intersecting power differentials (Lykke, 2010). For example, unequal power relations position (or site) the social work researcher in the research process and contribute to how research topics are sighted. Nonetheless, research participants (such as people who are defined as homeless) are social agents whose actions are beyond the control of the researcher. As well, the interconnectedness of materials and discursive dimensions of research designs should be scrutinised because discourses and materiality are inseparable (Lykke, 2010, p. 152). According to Barad (1996), research is constructed as a result of the processes of ‘siting’ and ‘sighting’ (all influenced by the social worker’s lens). These procedures can be seen to be a form of situated intersectionality (Yuval-Davis, 2015), whereby social processes and social locations can be privileging and/or oppressing, depending on the context, time and place of the interaction. These social processes can contribute to upholding or resisting dominant understandings of a particular social phenomenon, such as homelessness.
In contrast to producing reductionist distinctions between different categories, Lykke (2010, p. 153) draws on Haraway’s (2004) metaphor of implosion to accentuate complexity, relationality, inseparability and interconnectedness. Implosion is a process that collapses inwards rather than outwards and can be traced back to dynamic processes of transformation, from which there are momentary products that are at the same time subjective and objective, discursive and material, organic and technological, as well as human and nonhuman (Lykke, 2010, p. 154). The world is a complex process and it is analytically problematic to sort out subjectivity from objectivity, discourses from materiality, fact from fiction and micro from macro (Lykke, 2010, p. 154). Building on notions of reflection and representation, the metaphor of diffraction is used by Haraway (1997) to disrupt linear, causal explanations of difference and to examine dynamic and complex social processes. This intersectional theorising of differencing processes through implosion and diffraction can potentially disrupt linear constructions of homelessness that assume a continuum, and one way progressions related to entry into and exiting from homelessness, to encompass more entangled and fluid constructions.
Therefore, whilst a reflexive methodology is like using a mirror as a critical tool, Lykke (2010, p. 154) argues that this does not bring us further than the ‘static logic of the Same’. That is, we are not limited to reflecting on oneself (a ‘social worker’) in relation to ‘the Other’ (a ‘homeless person’). Drawing on the works of Haraway (1997) and Barad (1996), as discussed previously, Lykke (2010) proposes that the notions of diffraction, together with imploded objects and siting and sighting phenomena, can examine the complex production of difference patterns and create new understandings of an ever-changing world. For example, when a research object (such as homelessness) can be interpreted as an imploding, diffracting object or phenomenon, the analysis can be diverse and multifaceted.
Lastly, Lykke (2010, p. 161) discusses how ethics differ according to feminist positions. The anti-epistemological approaches of postmodern feminisms are deconstructive and problematise categories, such as ‘woman’, ‘experience’ and ‘standpoint’, which cannot simply be defined as ‘good’ and ‘just’ (Lykke, 2010). Therefore, feminist (and social work) ethics do not involve framing the correct response to the socially constructed ‘other’ but rather involve responsibility and accountability for the ‘lively relationalities of becoming’ of which we are all part (Barad, 2007, pp. 377–393). These ideas are important for social workers researching homelessness, to move beyond commonly constructed us–them dichotomies that represent social workers and service users. Both homelessness and social work are temporally and spatially located, socially constructed concepts as well as material experiences, with diverse and intersecting social effects and consequences.
Lykke’s (2010) intersectional theorising goes beyond McCall’s (2005) categorisations, using a more post-constructionist and post-structural lens. However, both of these theorists can be useful for exploring and constructing intersectional social work approaches to homelessness. This book aims to incorporate intersectionality into social work and homelessness scholarship, rather than take a position on these debates in literature about intersectionality. Nonetheless, a brief discussion of the critiques of intersectionality is in order, given that they are flourishing (May, 2015) and engender the ‘same disciplining moves among feminists that have been deployed against feminism’ (Crenshaw, 2011, p. 223), especially against black feminists in the academy.
Critiques of intersectionality
Critiques of intersectionality involve questioning its ‘theoretical, political and methodological adequacy’ (May, 2015, p. 103). These include: that intersectional theorists continue to promote universal structural inequalities based on single axis approaches that centre on, for example, gender, race or social class; that it increases fragmentation; that it is not being ‘rigorous’ and systematic, and is becoming meaningless as a term (May, 2015, p. 105). That is, that intersectionality has become a ‘catch-all phrase’ (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006, p. 187), and is not performing what it declares (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013, p. 240). Nash (2008, p. 4) notes that feminist and anti-racist scholars drawing on intersectionality must attend to ‘difference while also strategically mobilizing the language of commonality’; that there is a ‘ lack of a defined intersectional methodology’; that ‘black women are often used as quintessential intersectional subjects’; that intersectionality is vaguely defined, and that there are tensions in the ‘empirical validity of intersectionality’ (for example, is it a ‘theory of marginalized subjectivity or a generalized theory of identity’?). Nonetheless, Nash (2008, p. 13) argues that ‘privilege and oppression can be co-constituted’ subjectively, and that Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality ‘has galvanized an array of disciplines to consider questions of essentialism, exclusion, and complex identity in new ways’. Yet, Crenshaw’s structural approach has also been critiqued by Lykke (2010) for being too static. Lykke (2010) argues that when an analysis of the subtle processes involved in discursively constructing multiple identity markers is necessary, Crenshaw’s (2003) notion of crossroads is not sufficient, as it would be for legal advocacy work. She implicitly critiques scholars who assume an ethic of neutrality, as well as those who advocate from a standpoint, including the advocacy of black feminist standpoint theorists, such as Patricia Hill Collins (2000).
In turn, Lykke (2010) has been critiqued for focusing too strongly on gender and not enough on intersections, and for ignoring historical political struggles in feminism by marginalised groups (May, 2015). Her genealogical analysis, in which she shows that ‘intersectional thinking’ predates the concept of ‘intersectionality’, has been criticised for failing to:
incorporate the serious criticism from marginalized feminist groups from all over the world (black, lesbian, colonized) in the 1970s and 1980s … reduced by only being acknowledged as examples of ‘intersectional thinking’ alongside white and heterosexual feminist ‘intersectional thinking’.
(Carbin and Edenheim, 2013, p. 4)
Thus, Lykke’s (2010) theorising of intersectionality has been criticised for lacking in specificity and content, and for failing to acknowledge the ongoing political struggles of minority women for social justice (Carbin and Edenheim, 2013).
As well, European feminist authors Carbin and Edenheim (2013, p. 245) position constructivist intersectionality within a particular neoliberal, socio-political context:
Intersectional feminism, and maybe especially its constructivist version, we fear, has come to signal a liberal consensus-based project (that ignores capitalism as oppressive structure) in an increasingly neoliberal and conservative European context.
As previously discussed, this positioning has been resisted by a group of Australian feminist authors, who note that intersectionality can be used collectively, even as a ‘discourse’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 101).
Some post-structural authors argue that Crenshaw’s (1991) original intention in developing the term intersectionality, which was about how to map ‘intersectional dynamics’, is recaptured by post-structural feminists, who advocate for more complex metaphors (Bacchi and Eveline, 2010). As Crenshaw (1991, pp. 1296–1297) observes, ‘to say that a category such as race or gender is socially constructed is not to say that that category has no significance in the world’. As well, ‘power clusters around certain categories and is exercised against others’, such that the claiming of an identity is one ‘differencing practice’ that may at times be necessary (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1297; Bacchi and Eveline, 2010). However, I do not support the concept of intersectionality as being a static list of structural, social locations, as this can lead to essentialist, problematic identity politics. As Crenshaw (1991, p. 1242) maintains, identity politics can also conflate or ignore intragroup difference as markers of social inequality. Feminist post-structural scholars such as Lykke (2010) and Bacchi (2009) contend that there are multiple truths and realities, and that gendering, racialising, heteronorming and disabling social dynamics discursively interact. They emphasise the importance of challenging the essentialising of identities, whilst at the same time supporting collective action in the formation of identity groups, in response to harmful ‘differencing’ dynamics (Bacchi and Eveline, 2010). In relation to social work, an intersectional approach would mean that social workers reflect on their own privileges within these ‘differencing’ dynamics.
Danish social psychologist Dorthe Staunaes (2003) contends that the concept of intersectionality needs re-working to incorporate the agency of the subject. Although individuals (including social workers) are constrained by discourses, within these limits they also engage in meaning-making processes, take up subject positions, elaborate on them and make them their own. An intersectional analytical process can examine where different categorisations are taken up and prioritised in the everyday life experience of subjects, including social workers and people who experience homelessness. Different discursive normativities construct different constraints for differently gendered, ethnicised and racialised individuals, rather than ‘predefined’ grids of intersecting categories (Lykke, 2010, p. 74). Therefore, I contend that social workers would benefit by looking at processes by which individuals create meaning out of categorisations and normativities that frame everyday lives, rather than what people ‘are’ or ‘have’. This involves examining the ‘doing’ of intersectionality and how this ‘doing’ results in troubled/untroubled (Wetherell, 1998) or inappropriate/d (Minh-ha, 1986) subject positions.
To conclude, according to sociologist Kathy Davis (2008), intersectionality is a meeting place for both structuralists and post-structuralists. Taking a different view, Bacchi (2012) maintains that melding different positions is a way of depoliticising social processes to make ‘everyone’ feel at home but in the end, some positions are prioritised and others are silenced. Bacchi (2012) notes that we cannot leave our ontological positions ‘outside’, which she believes is an ontological misunderstanding because how one sees the world clearly has consequences. She argues that conventional research projects displace ontological assumptions from the research process, ‘even as they are implicitly central to them’ (Bacchi in Bletsas and Beasley, 2012, p, 131). In this book, I invite readers to take up their own positions, by acknowledging that it depends on their political project, whether they incorporate structural or post-structural thought in their intersectional theorising. Like Ferree (2009), I am not arguing that only an intersectional analysis can do justice to the complexities of political power and social inequality. However, an intersectional social work approach can highlight that social inequalities intersect, are dynamic and are in changing, mutually constituted relationships with each other, from which they cannot be disentangled (Walby, 2007).
In this chapter, I have raised a number of questions about the applicability of intersectionality to social work and homelessness. The complexities of intersectionality and diverse scholarly engagement with the approach can be overwhelming and difficult to integrate. Intersectional theorising examines categorical complexities, multiple and intersecting axes of social difference and social processes that contribute to maintaining privilege and oppression (McCall, 2005; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Bryant and Hoon, 2006; Gressgård, 2008; Winker and Degele, 2011; Christensen and Jensen, 2012). However, I did ask myself, can this theorising be done without taking a position on whether there is a finite or infinite list of intersections, or on whether categorisations may reinforce or neutralise each other? Drawing on Lykke’s (2010) use of Karen Barad’s (2003, p. 815) notion of ‘intra-action’, I came to understand that identity is not a category or a bounded phenomenon, but is mutually constructed through social processes, that can be unjust or mutually transformative. This mutually transformative understanding can potentially occur through processes of interpersonal communication central to the skills, ethics and values of social work.
I have examined multidisciplinary intersectional literature and have argued for integrating an intersectional approach in social work responses to homelessness. The complexities of intersectionality make it a useful frame with which to view social work and homelessness. That is because diverse physical, emotional, spatial, ontological and spiritual contexts constitute experiences of homelessness (Somerville, 1992; 2013), as well as social work. Consistent with social justice ethics and anti-oppressive social work approaches, intersectional theorising involves locating and positioning social work and homelessness within social institutions that are unequal, multilayered, dynamic and complex (Mattsson, 2014). It can broaden activism in this area by challenging dichotomous powerless/powerful identities constructed in client-worker relationships that frame homelessness as a social problem to be ‘fixed’ by service providers, such as social workers (Zufferey, 2008; Winker and Degele, 2011). Thus, intersectional social work approaches can be potentially transformative, by examining social processes, as well as intersecting social categorisations that can constitute social inequalities (Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 201; Nixon and Humphreys, 2010, p. 138), such as homelessness.
A key consideration for social work practitioners, policy makers and educators in the fields of homelessness is to be well informed about the intersectional inequalities and discrimination affecting their client group/s. Yuval-Davis (2012, p. 48) calls for transformative dialogue between people from different positionings, which, in this context, includes social work practitioners, diverse groups of service users and policy makers. The challenge for social workers is to maintain a focus on how social processes and categorisations intersect, to contribute to the constitution of the ‘problem’ of homelessness and how social work responds to it. This book is the first step towards examining intersectionality in social work and homelessness research, policy and practice, and towards advancing an intersectional social work approach to homelessness that is inclusive and respectful of diversity.
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