Whilst we’re talking reading material:
I’ve been reading
Psychology, Humour and Class: A Critique of Contemporary Psychology (also available from bookshops for less than the publisher’s cover price). It goes a lot, lot broader than the topic of this thread, but it certainly includes this ground. The author divides the field of psychology into “upper class prescriptions“ (the use of psychology as ways to encourage and support society’s structures), “middle-class musings” (the use of a critical approach to psychology to question how power is embedded into psychology and sociology, but not really provide ways that this can be addressed) and “working-class stuttering” (which is the so-far embryonic notions of a ‘postpsychology’ that can support Marxist ideas rather than get in their way). The book as a whole is worth a read, if you are into that kind of thing. The first and second parts are rather better realised than the third, but there are plenty of interesting ideas generally. However, there are a number of particularly pertinent areas for identity politics.
First, he points out that, “when we have full control of our identity and have the space to develop it, an identity might be useful. However, when it becomes allied to the prescriptive work of religion, psychiatry, medicine or the law, identity becomes an imposition and a crude tactic of power.”. The point is that, as per Foucault, modern power is enabled sustained through “confessionals” — ways in which individuals weigh themselves against norms and categories, would be my interpretation — and identities are an interface for which power to manage this.
He also spends some time discussing the concept of intersectionality. He points out that Crenshaw’s original conceptualisation as well as her follow-up of it is all about legal rights, and that little of this can be extrapolated beyond the original purpose. He quotes Crenshaw herself, who said,
”[Some] often mistakenly think intersectionality is about multiple identity. I have got 3 [identities] you’ve got 6. Some colleagues in Germany undertook to count how many intersections there are. Last count there were 17 or something… there was an attempt to map intersectionality… that’s not my articulation of intersectionality. Intersectionality is not primarily about identity. It is about how structures make certain identities… the vehicle for vulnerability.“
In other words, it is not about quantifying discrimination or “double discrimination”. As Crenshaw said, ”[Black women] experience discrimination as Black women — not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women.“. Her aim (according to the book, not Crenshaw herself), was to “update and modernise bourgeois law rather than to quantify discrimination…. To advocate more effectively on behalf of those who have hitherto been ‘invisible’ within the legal system.“ He then moves on from Crenshaw to talk about the negative implications of doing the aggregation of discrimination she warned against.
Anyway, I’ve been meaning to note this book in this thread, so there it is.
