Advancing Equity and Applying Intersectionality in Europe: Challenges and Contradictions with Dr. Ashlee Chistoffersen, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow

Organized by the Department of Politics Seminar Series and the Graduate Diploma in European Studies with the advertising support of the Centre for Feminist Research

Date: Thursday, March 14
Time: 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Location: S638 Ross Building (hybrid event)
RSVP here.

2025 will mark half a century since the first European directives prohibiting identity-based discrimination; however, social inequities are increasing. Moreover, equity policy remains hugely “siloed,” predominantly focused around single issues/identities, best serving intersectionally privileged groups (e.g. white women). Yet, intersectionality, the Black feminist theory that inequalities are indivisible from one another, is increasingly difficult for those with influence on equity policy to ignore or explicitly resist. This presentation will give an overview of intersectionality, identify barriers to its operationalization in Europe, examine the U.K. in more detail as a case study, and reflect on contemporary challenges and contradictions for advancing equity and applying intersectionality.

Ashlee Christoffersen is a Banting Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Politics and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Her research is about the operationalization of intersectionality in policy and practice. She is the author of The Politics of Intersectional Practice: Representation, Coalition and Solidarity in UK NGOs (forthcoming 2024, Bristol University Press) and articles about equity policy and intersectionality in the European Journal of Politics and Gender, Social Politics, Canadian Public Administration & Policy & Politics.