Intersectionality and Decolonial Perspectives
| Nour | One of the main things we need to consider when thinking about studies of migration and displacement is that, as a field, it needs to be decolonized. What we mean by decolonizing that field in particular is that, rather than just describing people's lives, we need to shift the attention to something else. |
| Nof | Yes, we need to look at the experiences of different refugees from an intersectional feminist and decolonial perspective—this means that we should stop thinking about the personalized, individualized experiences of people, but rather look at the system or systems of oppression that make our struggles much more unified. |
| Nour | We need to start producing knowledge that actually points out these intersecting and interlocking systems of oppression, systems that create these differential experiences in the first place. We need to also interrogate the reason why some destinations are considered safer than others, and in what ways global North countries and governments are themselves involved in creating forced migration and displacement. |
| Nof | The problem with intersectionality nowadays, and the way it has been used, is that it singles out experiences—we put the refugee woman who comes from a specific place in one box, and we put the gay person in another box—rather than looking at how, regardless of our sexualities or color or race or gender identities, we, as people, share the same struggles, and how the same structures of oppression are affecting us. The structures of oppression are affecting us differently, but we are trying to fight against these structures of oppression, and that's how we should approach intersectionality. That's a problem nowadays we are seeing in academia … |
| Nour | We see people say “this is intersectional research,” but when you actually sit down and read the research itself you find that it's only intersectional in the way it compartmentalizes people into specific identities, it does not move beyond identities. We know that people have different experiences by now, we do not need those descriptions about people's lives. |
| Nof | Yes, it also singles out our experiences, rather than … |
| Nour | … Coming together to fight the system. |
| Nof | Exactly. As women, as women of color, as women coming from different sexualities, or non-normative people, we actually start fighting each other rather than fighting the structures that actually separate us. |
| Nour | Exactly. |
| Nof | Intersectionality can be used to “divide and rule” in a way, it can divide us as people sharing the same experiences. As Nour said, it's compartmentalizing our experiences. And that's how we need to … |
| Nour | … Nuance it a bit better. And we also need to create a discourse around it that is different, that does not satisfy an outsider's gaze into people's lives, that does not satisfy governmental agendas, we need to start working against the system itself. |
| Nof | Yes, the way intersectionality is being used now, it's actually serving the Eurocentric global North paradigm, when we talk about the refugee crisis because … |
| Nour | … And surely this is not what Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) meant when she came up with the term intersectionality, it has been appropriated … |
| Nof | It has been appropriated by Western hegemonic discourses when it comes to refugeehood, women, sexualities, and gender. Even if we look at the queer concept—queerness and queer as a concept, it's against borders, it's anything which is not normative. |
| Nour | Outside of normative identities. |
| Nof | Outside of the norm, outside of the boxes that have been imposed on us by governments, by the state system, by laws, by patriarchy and capitalism, and now unfortunately this has been hijacked and it's only used as a label for queerness and sexual orientation. |
| Nour | So the next question is “How, if at all, do you engage with constructs such as the global North and the global South and the West in your own work?” This is a very interesting question, and we often interrogate our usage of these terms, because they do not necessarily reflect the world we live in. These binaries, let's call them spatial binaries, the spaces people occupy, no longer hold truth because the majority of societies are actually mixed … In fact, we've always had hybrid identities, and it's the failure of the nation-states, for example, that makes us think … |
| Nof | … With these terms, with these terminologies. We need to be really careful when using certain language and terms such as the global North, the global South … We used to use “the West” and “the East” and now we're using the terms “global North” and “global South,” but we have to be careful because we don't want to replicate and reinforce binaries. Because now, if we use the West, it is as if we are conceptualizing something as one West … but the West is not one thing—you have people within the West who are underprivileged, so the West is not one thing, the East is not one thing. I am concerned that if we overuse the global North and the global South they would be used as a cliché, because we would be using these terms as a binary as well, as if there is only one global North and there is only one global South—what about the global East? What about the global West? We need to be careful about these terms and ask where these terms come from. We need to keep changing them as we go, we need to be critical of the usage of these terms over and over and over again. |
Against Binaries
| Nour | Yes, we need to refrain from re-creating spatial geographical binaries. And, of course, our work has developed over time and the terminologies we use have also changed. Now we often use the global North and the global South, but at the same time, we are using them more as ideological terms rather than geographical ones. |
| Nof | Exactly. I am concerned about those terms, so we cannot really separate geography from politics, we always have to think about these terms from a geopolitical perspective. |
| Nour | Absolutely. Often disadvantage, oppression, etcetera, are associated with the global South, and in both popular and hegemonic discourse people rarely talk about … |
| Nof | … Poverty in the West, for example. |
| Nour | Poverty in the West. People in Arabic-speaking countries—and this is how bad the colonial agenda is—think there is no poverty in the West, and this is very problematic. And this shows us that this must have been purposeful, on multiple levels, so that we believe that in the global South, or in our communities, we need to advance in a particular way, in a liberal Western way—and this makes people in the West believe that they're superior and that their countries are the destination that people are dying to get to. |
| Nof | And that they're the saviors as well. So we have to think about these layers of inequalities that are prevalent in the global North if we look at class differences, racial differences, gender … We have to look at these structures from a very classed, gendered, sexed, racialized perspective, even within the global North. |
| Nour | Absolutely. |
| Nof | Also, this idea that the global South is the misery—it's a very colonial perspective, and that's why we need a decolonial lens to unlearn what has been learned throughout history. |
| Nour | This is a struggle sometimes. Working with people and movements in Arabic-speaking countries, it's such a struggle to get people just to recognize that there is poverty in the UK, for example. It's such a struggle to recognize that in fact traditional politics in the UK is a puppet show. |
| Nof | That's a very good point, Nour, and also it's a struggle for us to unlearn that our standards are not those of the West or the global North. I think about colonialism and colonialist processes, and I still use the term “colonialism,” not “neocolonialism,” because in certain countries, in Arabic-speaking countries, we still are colonized, materially colonized. We have to think about how we can unlearn all of these processes without thinking that the white man is superior and is the savior. |
| Nour | Or thinking that we want our countries to be at the same level as the West or operate in the same way, for example. |
| Nof | Copying state systems, copying laws and … |
| Nour | Yes, exactly. And Palestine seems like a dream too far away, but at the same time I do not want a Palestine that is prosperous because of the arms trade. I do not want a Palestine that could prosper because somewhere in the world we're oppressing and taking the resources of other people. |
| Nof | Yes, or it has the same nationalist sentiments. |
| Nour | Exactly. |
| Nof | Okay. The next question is: “You have written on the importance of decolonial approaches to research—why is this approach important to scholars, policy makers, and practitioners working on migration and displacement?” This is a very important approach because it makes us unlearn what we have learned and what we have been taught throughout history, because it's intergenerational. It's very important because it's about historicization. And what we mean by historicization is going back in history to reclaim what has been going on in these places. |
| Nour | So why is this approach important to policy makers, scholars, practitioners? I think the answer is in the fact that even Theresa May [prime minister of the UK, 2016–2019] acknowledged the impact of colonization on laws related to sexuality in previously colonized countries (BBC 2018), and stated that homosexuality, for instance, has to be decriminalized to undo the harm they have done. I am not saying this because we're endorsing what Theresa May said, but because we need to put an end to the appropriation of such terms. Because while Theresa May's move has been welcomed by some activists as a call to decolonize, it was a mere cliché and had nothing to do with an actual process of restorative justice, for example, in the places that were colonized—it had nothing to do with improving the material living conditions of those people. No, her approach is one that suggests: “Ah, we need to remove this bit of law that we imposed on these countries, blah, blah, blah.” But not an actual action to change people's material realities. |
| Nof | I also believe that decolonial and decoloniality as a project is important for colonized people because when you have had years of colonialism in these countries, as we mentioned earlier, people start to think that our standard is to abide by Western hegemonic discourses or to follow the West. But I think we need to decolonize our minds, our bodies, and our spirits from these processes, to make clear that we have agency and we are agents of change for our people, for our nations, and for our struggles. We don't need anyone to help us with that process. I talk to so many people in Palestine, for example, to so many friends where they feel so helpless because they ask how they can change these realities. But decolonial projects help us heal from that process, if I may say, or makes us think that we can change our realities. |
| Nour | Absolutely. When we think about decolonizing research—because you can also decolonize in praxis, not just through research—we really need to start producing knowledge that addresses the causes of oppression, that addresses the main routes of the problems. |
| Nof | It's about finding solidarity with each other rather than saying that I want to help you and save you. What you said, Nour, about the production of knowledge, is a very good point when you look at all of the knowledge that we depend on, like gender theories or class theories: we need to start thinking to produce knowledge about our struggles, about our ways of doing things in our language. Decolonizing is also reclaiming our language, reclaiming our knowledge, and reclaiming our experiences. We need to look at the structures of oppression rather than the symptoms, because what's happening now when people speak of decoloniality is they use it as a cliché, it just looks at the symptoms—“Yes, let's change the laws”—but we don't change the structures of oppression that put these laws there in the first place. |
| Nour | That is why we need a decolonial approach, but also we need an intersectional decolonial approach that looks at the intersection of interlocking structural oppression. |
| Nof | Absolutely. When we think about decolonizing, it needs to be accompanied by a process of decanonizing: we need to stop looking at the canon that is hegemonically Western or global Northern … You want to say something, Nour? |
| Nour | Yes! That's where our feminist consciousness comes into play. It's about looking at the experiences of people, it's about raising the voices of these people who are at the receiving end of colonialism or who are the colonized. Rather than describing their lives and their experiences, it's more about how they themselves describe their experiences and their lives from their material experiences. That's how we also look at decolonial approaches. I don't like this term “giving voice,” but it's about voicing the experiences of these people, and that is a decolonial approach. |
| Nof | Yes, with people producing knowledge about their experiences themselves, describing or talking about their own realities in their own terms and their own terminologies. It's more than about their experience, it's about their voice being acknowledged as a valid source of knowledge, the knowledge of indigenous populations. |
| Nour | We need to understand systems of oppression the way people understand them, which is very important. The majority of refugees know what caused their distress, they recognize it, and it's important to put it out there to policy makers so they see it again and again and again. There is no harm in saying to policy makers: You're doing the wrong things … So let's return to the importance of decolonial approaches to policy makers, scholars, and practitioners working on migration and displacement. We started by saying that there is a great importance to it, but at the same time I think what the majority of people often struggle with is how to operationalize this. It sounds like a theory to many, but how to make it work in practice is … |
| Nof | … The challenge. |
| Nour | … This is the challenge. One of the things that we talk about often in our own work is that we cannot decolonize without processes of self-reflection, self-critique, and also … |
| Nof | … Taking responsibility. And that part of self-reflection I really agree with, it's very important because it also gives responsibility and agency to us as people who were colonized and who are still colonized. Decolonialism and decoloniality makes us think about us as part of that process, that we need to liberate ourselves and we need to take responsibility for what we're doing. When we liberate ourselves, as Angela Davis famously said, “we have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society”—and that's part of decoloniality, and decolonialism, where we are not seen in that binary. There isn't a savior-victim paradigm. |
| Nour | Absolutely. |
| Nof | That also pushes us not to abide by NGOs and practitioner and academic institutions that impose a certain Western hegemonic discourse that is very masculine actually, where they look at us and see women of the global South, or queers of the global South who need saving—it creates that binary and that victimhood narrative. |
| Nour | Absolutely, the savior-victim binary makes the process of doing programs or projects around refugees very commercial and capitalist, whether we like that or not. One of the main problems of what's being done around refugees and migration and displacement is that it does not take many aspects into account; rather, it's just based on this framing of the victim and savior. Many people in NGOs would actually tell you they're “saving” or “helping” people, they would not acknowledge the processes of learning that they themselves also go through. To actually create a decolonial approach within policy or within the NGO sector or within academia we need to start thinking about our positionalities, we need to start really positioning ourselves within the research rather than merely saying we're doing this research “for” this group of people or that group of people. Because our personalities and stories as researchers, as people doing nongovernmental or charitable work, our personal stories are the reasons that push us in the first place to do the work we do. And it's really important to acknowledge that as a process of learning, rather than a process of saving. |
| Nof | And unlearning too. |
| Nour | And unlearning, of course. |
| Nof | Another reason that decolonialism is really important is because it allows us to define ourselves, it allows us to find the terminologies that we feel comfortable with. I can give you an example from our work with CTDC. We have worked on a research project in relation to non-normative sexualities and gender, well, LGBT bodies and subjects, and this research was in Arabic-speaking countries where people were asked about how they defined themselves. Of course, this research was funded by an organization in the global North. Now, one of the main findings of our research is that people couldn't identify within the LGBTQ+ letters, and we were building our research and our theories and our conceptualization of gender and sexuality based on that finding. |
| Nour | We even reframed our project to match that finding. |
| Nof | Exactly. But, of course, the global North funder didn't like that. And actually, not only the global North funder, but also the research partners in the Arabic-speaking countries that are complicit with the hegemonic masculine discourses, Western discourses. In the end they didn't like that finding, that data, and they took it out of the report: it didn't match their policies, it didn't match their agendas, because people didn't identify. Decolonialism allows people to define themselves, it allows people to find their own terms and terminologies. |
| Nour | Absolutely. Within CTDC or with our work in general, we think that in order to decolonize any project that you are embarking on—because it's really difficult to decolonize projects that already exist, which is something that we need to be aware of—when we really want to decolonize we need to think about five major points: |
| (1) We need to think about historicizing the issue: to ask what's the history of that phenomena we're studying, what's the history of that oppression we want to tackle, where did it come from, how did it emerge in that specific context? | |
| (2) The next part would be politicizing the topic, thinking about all of the political agendas that are involved in it. When we think about refugees, there are also political, in a traditional sense, stakeholders that are involved in that process, involved in the process of creating the reasons for migration, creating the reasons for refugeehood, and so on. | |
| Nof | And creating discourses around refugees and migration. |
| Nour | Absolutely. |
| Nof | So we cannot just talk about gender and sexuality without criticizing gender and sexualities. |
| Nof | (3) The third point is about contextualizing: we have interlocking and intersecting structures of oppression that we are fighting against and we are trying to unify our struggles, but at the same time, each context is different. So we cannot, for example, appropriate causes. That brings me to an example of Palestine where in some demonstrations in Palestine they use the slogan “black Palestine lives matter,” but that is appropriating other causes. It doesn't mean that we cannot go together in the same protest and we cannot protest against the same structures of oppression, but we cannot appropriate and hijack other causes. At the same time, we get really angry when people start saying that Palestine is an apartheid state like what happened in South Africa. No, it might be one example, but we cannot say Palestine is like South Africa, Palestinian life is like black lives in the States—this is about appropriation, and appropriating other causes. |
| Nour | Yes, and I think this also happens when people become fixated on describing lives or describing things, rather than talking about the reasons that have created them. |
| Nof | The reasons, exactly. Just to be clear, we're not saying that we cannot protest against the same structures of oppression. We are saying that we cannot hijack each other's causes, as people from the global South. Because when we hijack and appropriate, we are reinforcing a monolithic way of looking at the global South, when we need to be really careful not to put the global South or global South struggles in one box. |
| Nour | (4) The fourth important element is globalizing: thinking about the global structures that create the specific phenomena that we're trying to address. I think globalizing might be very relevant to the politics of care and also politics of consciousness, because when we globalize we can also understand more. For instance, when we buy cashews at the store, we understand where these cashews came from. |
| Nof | It pushes us to think about our consumption, our choices. |
| Nour | Yes, and our positionality within a global context is important. The system that governs us all, all over the world—and I will allow myself to say that because it is the same system—disconnects us from our practices and behaviors in a way. We stop interrogating, for example, how am I, by eating quinoa in the UK, somehow affecting people who produce it elsewhere? How about the rice industry in South Asia, how about … |
| Nof | … Avocado production … |
| Nour | … Avocado production. It's like a puzzle and we need to put all the pieces together—this would make good research, this would create good policies … |
| Nof | We always get asked in talks, especially, to be honest, from people who are white: How can we help? And I say: You cannot ask this question, you're part of that structure. |
| Nour | Exactly. |
| Nof | Don't disconnect from the structure that gives you privilege, or maybe sometimes it doesn't give you privilege; instead, think about how you are part of that structure, because positionality is a key. |
| Nour | Yes. Understanding that race is an issue, not only for black people: race is an issue for white people as well. Sexuality is not only an issue for queers: it's an issue for heterosexual people who, for instance, are expected to get married, which is itself oppressive. This is how we think about tools for decolonizing within these spaces. |
| (5) Finally, language is an important tool, the history of the language, especially when research is being done within a context where we are unfamiliar with the language. Nof, do you want to give an example? | |
| Nof | Yes, when we think about language we think about context, we think about history and we think about politics or politicizing. For example, in our work we struggle with the word “gender” because people cannot relate to the word “gender.” If we think about gender, when did it appear really? I will just speak about Arabic-speaking countries here—when did this word appear? It appeared through NGOs in the 1990s. |
| Nour | Yes, in the 1980s, 1990s it started becoming a thing. |
| Nof | The UN agency that used to be UNIFEM and is now UN Women, UNDP, international NGOs, and other stakeholders started to use the word “gender” and asserted that we want to mainstream gender. But people didn't relate with that word, it didn't resonate with people. |
| Nour | And it creates knowledge gaps. |
| Nof | Of course. An additional problem is that gender has often really only been related to women, and that's a misconception … And now we need to add the men into the equation. It's the same with the way that race has also only been associated with people of color and black people; gender has only been associated with women; sexuality has only been associated with queers and non-normative people. That creates gaps in knowledge, it creates, again, a disconnect with people and it creates the compartmentalization of people's experiences. |
Queer Theories and Decolonial Approaches
References
BBC. 2018. “Theresa May ‘Deeply Regrets’ UK's Colonial Anti-Gay Laws.” 17 April. https://bbc.in/2Rg01kb.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1): 139–167.