Intersectional Feminism in the articulation of academic knowledge and political action: reflections from the experience of a feminist collective

Abstract

Intersectional feminism has been pointed out as an important theory in the understanding of how oppressions of gender, class and race, among others, are related to each other and interfere in the life of each woman, who ends up experiencing gender oppression from a unique point of view. In addition, the work of feminist groups has been fundamental in the lives of women, as spaces for empowerment and struggle for a less oppressive society. Thus, we present in this work the process of adopting intersectional feminism as a theoretical-methodological tool by a feminist collective from Bahia, Brazil. To this end, we carried out an account of the activities developed by the group between the years 2013 and 2017. It was possible to identify the strong affective bond established between the members and how the intersectional discourse has been important in this process and in the actions of the Collective as a whole. It was found, therefore, that the use of this framework can be powerful in the sense of contributing to more inclusive and thus more transformative dialogues. Corroborating, still, with the idea of ​​the extreme relevance of the articulation between academic feminism and political action, in addition to highlighting the challenges of consolidating collectives that are born in the academic sphere.