This Critical Review of Lepinard Article Doing Intersectionality Repertoires of Feminist Practices - Paper Example

Lepinard, E. (2014). Doing intersectionality repertoires of feminist practices in France and Canada. Gender & Society, 0891243214542430.

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This critical review of Lepinard (2014) article will evaluate the purpose of the author, and the strengths and the weaknesses the articles content and ideas portray. Lepinard (2014) investigates how various activist groups understand and utilize intersectionality as a theory and method. The author has investigated the extent to which political and theoretical premises of intersectionality have and have not been adopted by womens rights organizations. Intersectionality has been used as a repertoire that can be used by a womens organization, and the article focuses on documenting ways in which feminist associations use this theory in reacting to challenges such as the inclusion of vulnerable women to many forms of oppression. Lepinard developed four repertoires informing her analysis with respondents. The resources used in the article have focused on the target location, France and Canada however the article lacks to involve community groups that have no regular activities and a small constituency and has only concentrated on the organizations that have a permanent structure and officers. They however represent important work on women in Canada and France who are the participants of the study.

The title of the article introduces Leinards focus on different ways womens activist groups in France and Canada facing oppression. Intersectionality according to the article is a tool that analyzes political and social practices such as feminist practices (p.879). It has enabled researchers to unveil how disparities within social relations have caused silencing of the minority groups of women and their marginalization. Lepinard has researched on the history of intersectionality that enables her to frame her argument. Various studies from other authors on intersectionality have been analyzed, and they have influenced the argument of the author. For instance, Strolovitchs argument on intersectionality deepens the authors understanding of intersectionality and inclusion through the adoption of a comparative perspective between majority and minority women and as one of the ways, a firm can represent and frame the political interests of disadvantaged intersectional groups. The author emphasizes, Strolovitch documents the mechanisms by which these organizations tend to privilege claims and issues that will benefit a majority of the constituency (p.880).

The intended audience of the article is the minority group of women and womens rights organizations who live in France and Canada and scholars in a similar field. They can be able to realize the repertoires developed by Lepinard to guide their practice. They include gender first, individual recognition, intersectionality solidarity and intersectional recognition. The author has not made definitions of the major terminologies focused on the paper. Words such as intersectionality, minority women, womens movements and recognition have not been defined in both the literature review section as well as the data collection part. A reader with poor understanding capability of the terms will therefore find it hard to understand some information from the other and may have to find the meaning of the words from external sources other than the article. Additionally, the interviews were time-consuming as they took 60-180 minutes.

The information offered is well researched. Information from secondary sources is well cited. Lepinard has reviewed scholarly articles and books to offer enough information on the topic of study based on previous studied done by other authors including European Others by El-Tayeb (2011) and the sharia law debate by Razack (2007). The data collection and analysis process has been well illustrated. Lepinard uses interviews, qualitative and quantitative methods as well as charts and tables. The conclusion offered is, therefore, authentic and precise for future studies as a reference. The methodology of the study is clearly outlined where the questions of the interviews conducted are indicated to each representative of the firms or associations and some of their responses offered. The expected results are also well outlined through the analysis of the four repertoires. For instance, the intersectionality solidarity recognizes that many structural power relations influence women in different ways while intersectional recognition assumes that women have particular needs that need to be addressed by women who have similar social position and identity.

The article is easy to follow as a reader. It would have however been better if the author subdivided the article into an introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis, results and conclusion sections for clarity. She has however divided the article into Intersectionality and Womens Movements, Data and Method, Four repertoires, Explaining the Variations and the Conclusion. The study done suits the desired audience because it has targeted the activist groups that support minority and disadvantaged women in France and Canada. The author has even included quotes from various respondents to gather enough information for the study as well as a way to provide evidence of the some of the responses gathered. One of them is Nanditas response on the approach of her organization, Gaps related to language, related to culture, related to religious practices, related to marriage, related to family life in Canada, related to the whole issue of the immigrant experience. (p. 887). There are tables within the article for easy illustration on the responses the participants gave. They make the analysis of the article easy.

Lepinards study has some weaknesses. Credible sources of research should be from 10 years before the date of publishing the document. Therefore, the references should be from 2004 to 2013. The author has however used references from 1996, 1998, and 2000, which makes some of the information outdated for use in the article. Not all information is precise especially if it is dated earlier than 2004. They include studies by Crenshaw (1991), Collins (1990) and Kymlicka (1998). Further research should be focused on documentation of the many ways people make sense of social differences, as it is not researched within the article.

In conclusion, the critical review has analyzed the purpose of the article, its strengths, and weaknesses. The author has focused on the role, which political opportunity structures play in shaping the movements of women in the literature review while the study uses interviews to assess the extent to which the citizenship regimes influence the relationship of the womens organizations to intersectionality. Lepinard has managed to meet the objectives of the study such as showing how activist groups understand and utilize intersectionality as a method and theory. It is clear that the perspective of intersetionality from an academics and social activists point of view. It is clear from the study that minority women want to have political prioroties and improve their reprsentation within their movements, want to be understood on their specific needs related to their mariral choices, religious practices, culture and languages. The women are also influenced differently by structural power relations and intersectional solidarity can be used to transform political claims of minority women to familiar ordinary feminist language.

References

Collins, Patricia Hill. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Crenshaw, Kimberle. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43:1241-99.

El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2011. European others: Queering ethnicity in post-national Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kymlicka, Will. (1998). Finding our way: Rethinking ethnocultural relations in Canada. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Lepinard, E. (2014). Doing intersectionality repertoires of feminist practices in France and Canada. Gender & Society, 0891243214542430.

Razack, Sherene H. (2007). The Sharia Law Debate in Ontario: The modernity/ premodernity distinction in legal efforts to protect women from their culture. Feminist Legal Studies 15:3-32.