ABSTRACT
In anthropological work that seeks to understand oppression and domination, the term itself is often invoked in an empty fashion: “intersectional analysis” is deployed as self-evident, and taken for granted. It is difficult to maintain the separation between the original texts through which intersectionality was posited as a theory, and the drift that has occurred in its many applications and citations. These uses of intersectionality can be productive whether they are close readings of the texts through which intersectionality has become a meaningful approach or whether they are based on looser interpretations. In this chapter, the author own ethnographic projects have focused on sexual assault interventions in both clinical and legal contexts. She have studied sexual assault interventions in Baltimore emergency rooms and sexual assault adjudication in Milwaukee courtrooms, two modes of responding to sexual violence that are heavily, though never adequately, resourced by the US state, and which are bitterly entangled with questions of race and subordination.
