Power, representation and intersectionality

Questions of power and representation have been central to feminist political scholarship. This section invites proposals engaging in a new generation of scholarship on political representation (Christoffersen & Siow in progress) that centres intersectionality, particularly the intersections of gender and race, interrogates intersecting power structures, critically examines the role of political actors of all genders in both reproducing and resisting material and discursive inequities functioning to deny the good representation of others, and aims to make greater representative gains for all marginalised groups. We conceive of political representation as a constitutive process (Saward 2006; Siow 2023) that occurs both within and beyond parliamentary chambers (Celis & Childs, 2020;2023). Historically, scholarship on representative politics has tended to focus primarily on gender or race, but rarely both. This is despite some notable early exceptions in US studies of Black women’s representation (Darcy and Hadley 1988, Darcy et al 1993, Gay and Tate 1998, Herrick and Welch 1992, Prestage 1977) Latina and Chicana representation (Marquez 1997, Takash 1993), and Asian American women’s representation (Chu 1989). The scarcity of this work, and the continued marginalisation of racially minoritised women as subjects of political science inquiry resulted in repeated calls for the adoption of intersectional approaches to the study of representation (Alexander-Floyd 2014, Hancock 2007, Smooth 2006, 2011). Definitions of intersectionality drawing on Crenshaw (1989, 1991) are now very well-rehearsed within gender and politics literature. There has however been considerably less engagement with the wider body of Black US feminism and critical race theory preceding Crenshaw and outside of the US. This includes the work of the Combahee River Collective (1977), Hill Collins (1990), hooks (1981), Hull et al (1982), King (1988). Gender and representative politics scholarship typically engages even more rarely (if at all) with Black, Women of Colour and Afropean feminisms emerging elsewhere (Emejulu and Sobande 2019, Mirza 2003, 1997). In addition, gender and politics scholarship has too often employed intersectionality in ways detached from a Black feminist definition of ‘success’. A definition more closely aligned with Black feminism differs substantially from diversity and inclusion within liberal representation, instead aiming for the more radical and far reaching goal of “eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture” (hooks 1981: 194), including within democratic institutions. In this context, scholars have raised grave concerns about the erasure of race from European scholarship on intersectionality (Lewis 2013, Mügge et al 2018). This section will combine panels and papers with dialogue and offer broad opportunities for inclusion of early career scholars in PECHA KUCHA sessions (up to six minutes and 40 seconds per presenter). We will invite proposals for contributions that: - Centre intersecting power structures and interrogate how these shape and are shaped by processes of political representation - Interrogate the relationships among and between descriptive, substantive and constitutive representation from an intersectional perspective - Concern the perspectives and experiences of intersectionally marginalised elected and extra parliamentary (civil society) representatives (including but not limited to specific groups of women (e.g. disabled women, racially minoritised women, trans women and low income/working-class women), in diverse geographical contexts including Global South contexts - Offer intersectional institutionalist analysis (Hawkesworth 2003, Brown 2014) of elections, political parties, parliaments, cabinets, committees, media, campaigns, civil society and other political institutions - Critically examine the role of female, male and gender diverse political actors in reproducing material and discursive inequities functioning to deny the good representation of others - Explore responsiveness to representatives beyond parliaments - Engage with struggles to transform existing political structures in the pursuit of justice - Engage with key contemporary contentious politics between elected and extra parliamentary representatives (e.g. anti(trans)gender, populist, white supremacist, climate justice movements) - Engage with Black feminist theory and other theorising from the intersectional and transnational margins - Challenge binary understandings of social identities - Critically examine representation from decolonial and poststructuralist perspectives (e.g. Alcoff 1992; Spivak 2003) - Apply innovative methodologies to the study of political representation We will actively solicit contributions from early career scholars, and from scholars of diverse geographic locations including the Global South and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as racially minoritised and other underrepresented scholars.