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Sex Roles (2008) 59:312325 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9400-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
When Black + Lesbian + Woman Black Lesbian Woman: The Methodological Challenges of Qualitative and Quantitative Intersectionality Research
Lisa Bowleg
Published online: 21 March 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract The notion that social identities and social inequality based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, and sex/ gender are intersectional rather than additive poses a variety of thorny methodological challenges. Using research with Black lesbians (Bowleg, manuscripts in preparation; Bowleg et al., Journal of Lesbian Studies, 2008; Bowleg et al., Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology 10:229240, 2004; Bowleg et al., Journal of Lesbian Studies, 7:87108, 2003) as a foundation, I examine how these challenges shape measurement, analysis, and interpretation. I argue that a key dilemma for intersectionality researchers is that the additive (e.g., Black + Lesbian + Woman) versus intersectional (e.g., Black Lesbian Woman) assumption inherent in measurement and qualitative and quantitative data analyses contradicts the central tenet of intersectionality: social identities and inequality are interdependent for groups such as Black lesbians, not mutually exclusive. In light of this, interpretation becomes one of the most substantial tools in the intersectionality researchers methodological toolbox.
Keywords Intersectionality research methods . Black lesbians
Introduction
Black lesbian poet Audre Lordes(1984) description of ... constantly being encouraged to pluck out some aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing and denying the other parts of the self (p. 120) highlights eloquently the complexity of intersectionality. For Lorde and other Black lesbians, ones identity as a Black lesbian is the meaningful whole; it is not a mere addition of ethnicity, sexual orientation, and sex/gender. For researchers interested in designing and conducting intersectionality research, the notion that social identities and social inequality based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex/gender (and one could add a host of other identities such as class, disability status, etc.) are interdependent and mutually constitutive (i.e., intersectional; Collins 1995, 1998; Crenshaw 1989, 1991; Weber and Parra-Medina 2003), rather than independent and uni-dimensional poses a variety of thorny methodological challenges. These challenges shape key aspects of the research process such as measurement, data analysis, and interpretation. Using research with Black lesbians as a foundation (Bowleg, manuscripts in preparation; Bowleg et al. 2008, 2004, 2003), I focus...