Rita Kaur Dhamoon

Considerations on Mainstreaming Intersectionality

This article identifies five key considerations for adopting and mainstreaming intersectionality: the language and concepts that are used; the complexities of difference and how to navigate this complexity; the choice of focusing on identities, categories, processes, and/or systems; the model that is used to explain and describe mutually constituted differences; and the principles that determine which interactions are analyzed. The author argues that in the process of mainstreaming intersectionality, it is crucial to frame it as a form of social critique so as to foreground its radical capacity to attend to and disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.

Dangerous (Internal) Foreigners and Nation-Building: The Case of Canada

In this article we develop a theoretical framework attuned to the relationship between discourses of security, race/racialization, and foreignness. Applying this framework to three historic instances of Canadian national insecurity (Japanese-Canadian internment, the Front de libération du Québec crisis, and the Kanehsatake/Oka crisis), we argue that “foreignness” is produced and regulated in historically specific ways with consequences for how “the nation” is viewed. We demonstrate how this is especially evident in relation to racialized constructions of “internal dangerous foreigners.” Our framework and findings invite larger disciplinary consideration of the post-September 11 security environment both in and outside Canada.

EXCLUSION AND REGULATED INCLUSION

This article examines the ways in which the Sikh kirpan has been imagined and re-imagined by the Canadian state, as a signifier of exclusion from the public sphere, and regulated inclusion within the public sphere. The focus on Sikh cultural and religious practices provides a way to examine recent cases of an ethno-racial group that has long-tested and challenged the boundaries of multicultural accommodation in Canada. Through a critical race lens, I examine the 2006 Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys Supreme Court decision to permit kirpans in schools, and the 2011 ban of the kirpan by the Quebec legislature, in order to identify the function of kirpan debates for Canadian nation-building. In particular, I contend, kirpan debates in Canada serve to re-perform the myth of multiculturalism and the legitimacy of settler-colonialism, secure white hegemonies, and consolidate cultural and gender norms. To counter these hegemonies of power, I conclude by signaling a political praxis that can potentially complement the democratic impulse of inclusion while also countering the hegemonic effects of regulated inclusion, one that is grounded in a politics of disruption.

Intersectionality and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

In this commentary, we propose that an intersectionality perspective can transform understandings of the contentious content of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR). Our use of an intersectionality perspective starts from the position that such discourses as racialization, gendering, capitalism, and ableism are mutually coconstituting, at all levels of society, including cultural institutions such as the CMHR. We choose to forefront CMHR content to demonstrate its inextricable link to setting the terms of debates and discussion among groups who are competing with one another to have their human rights abuses represented and commemorated in the museum’s content. Through three key CMHR examples, we show how intersectionality can help reframe theories and practices around traumatic histories and violent pasts—including curatorial and pedagogical decisions—by paying attention to the production and effects of intersecting discourses.

Comments on Ange-Marie Hancock's Solidarity Politics for Millennials

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