Intersectionality, British criminology and race: Are we there yet?

Intersectionality is the study of overlapping social identities and related systems of oppression, discrimination and domination. From an intersectional perspective, aspects of a person’s identity, for example race, class and gender are understood to be enmeshed. To understand how systemic injustice operates and is produced, a multi-dimensional framework which captures how forms of oppression intersect and are shaped by one another, is necessary. Although the merits of an intersectional approach in criminology have been widely shown and discussed in US scholarship, within British criminology, there have been few analyses that have implemented an intersectional lens – either explicitly or implicitly. Correspondingly, close examination of the social construction of race within the criminal justice system has been largely absent in British criminology. In the following paper, I suggest that these two developments are co-constitutive – that British criminology’s unwillingness to engage with race has resulted in the reticence towards an intersectional approach and vice versa. This is both problematic and a missed opportunity. At a time when much criminological research convenes around the intersection of race, class, religion and gender, the absence of intersectional approaches and the lack of discussion about the racializing consequences of the criminal justice system serve to stymie meaningful debate and advancement of the field.