This 2014 Maitreyee E-Bulletin of the Human Development & Capability Association (HDCA) contributes to the theoretical and empirical debate within the HDCA regarding the importance of intersecting inequalities – a subject that has increasing importance to debates over a post-2015 framework, as well as broader theoretical and empirical relevance. The editors warn that inequality exacerbates the barriers and injustices faced by people because of their gender, ethinicity or geography.

This issue focuses on a new emphasis in the study of group-based inequalities – what Naila Kabeer has termed ‘intersecting inequalities’. Addressing such inequalities, she argues, is necessary for the Sustainable Development Goals framework to tackle social exclusion – and requires antidiscriminatory legislation; the collection of disaggregated data; attention to the resource base, infrastructure and social service needs of excluded groups; as well as social protection.

Frances Stewart considers the ways in which a focus on intersecting inequalities differs from horizontal inequalities (HIs). The contributions of Kabeer and Stewart consider the concept of ‘intersections’ largely as an analytical tool to understand better the diverging fortunes of particular groups and the implications of this inequality. Leah Bassel provides a different perspective in considering the roots of ‘intersectionality’ in African-American feminist thought, and the vital political potential that it affords for people who are experiencing the ‘simultaneous and interacting effects of systems of oppression on the basis of gender, race, religion, class, sexual orientation and national origin as categories of difference’.

The two remaining contributions to this newsletter consider the practicalities of taking group inequalities – and the ways in which they intersect – into the policy realm.

Finally, the editors of this volume highlight the need for the systematic collection of data on group-based inequalities to meet the ambition to ‘leave no one behind’ under a new post-2015 framework agreement. The piece points to the challenges posed by the need for data on groups facing disadvantage along one or more characteristics, and to some ways in which disaggregated data could be collected in a targeted way at a relatively low cost – in particular by exploiting new methods to link data between disparate sources, and by harnessing new technologies.

Original source: https://www.odi.org/publications/8836-group-inequality-intersectionality