Marta Jorba

Maria Rodó-Zárate

Beyond Mutual Constitution: The Properties Framework

for Intersectionality Studies

W ithin feminist theory and a wide range of social sciences, intersection-

ality is a relevant focus of research and perhaps the most important
theoretical contribution of feminism to date (McCall 2005, 1771). Inter-
sectionality, as a concept that apprehends the multiplicity of social catego-
ries and their interactions, has been seen as a theory or framework that is
able to recognize the complex ways in which inequalities are enmeshed. Po-
litically, it has appeared as a sound theory to displace the standard subject of
feminism, and it has been used to analyze several dimensions of inequality
in lived experience. There has been a huge amount of work that has high-
lighted its potential, shown its limitations, and analyzed the theoretical and
empirical work on it (Bilge 2010; Garry 2011; Carastathis 2014). Hae-Yeon
Choo and Myra Marx Feree (2010, 131) define intersectionality as “an an-
alytic shift from addition of multiple independent strands of inequality to-
ward a multiplication and thus transformation of their main effects into in-
teraction” (emphasis added). Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and
Leslie McCall (2013, 787) mention the discussion between “the additive
and autonomous versus interactive and mutually constituting nature of the
race/gender/class/sexuality/nation nexus” as one of the main questions that
has been raised within intersectionality studies. As we see it, this shift from

Versions of this essay were presented at the Gender, Race, and Sexuality Conference in Bar-
celona: Issues in Metaphysics (Barcelona, 2014), the Feminist Philosophy Workshop (Hamburg,
2015), the Seminario Geografia e Gênero (Ponta Grossa, 2015), the III Jornades de Recerca
Institut Interuniversitari de Dones i Gènere (Barcelona, 2015), the International Conference on
Feminist Geographies and Intersectionality: Places, Identities, Knowledges (Barcelona, 2016),
the LOGOS Research group Seminar (Barcelona, 2017), the Metaphysics Seminar (Barcelona,
2018), and the Seminario abierto de filosofía (Donosti, 2018). We are grateful to the audiences
at these meetings. Many thanks are also due to the three anonymous referees of Signs, as well
as to Suzanna Danuta Walters for her insightful indications and Miranda Outman for her excel-
lent editing work. We also want to thank previous referees of others journals where previous
versions of this article were submitted. Financial support for this work was provided by MINECO,
Spanish Government, research projects FFI2013-47948-P, FFI2014-52196-P and FFI2016-
80588-R (M. J.) and postdoctoral fellowships FJCI-2015-23620, IJCI-2017-34112 (M. J.) and
FJCI-2014-19743, IJCI-2016-27422 (M. R. Z).

[Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2019, vol. 45, no. 1]
© 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/2019/4501-0008$10.00

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 176 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

the additive to a more complex understanding of intersectionality (see also

Collins 1990; hooks 2000) has led most authors to assume mutual consti-
tution as the proposal that best exemplifies this analytic shift.
Mutual constitution has become a central concept in intersectionality,
but from our point of view, the expression itself, its meanings and meta-
physical underpinnings, has not yet been carefully and systematically exam-
ined. As we will see, there are multiple meanings of mutual constitution,
with different implications, which lead to there being diverse kinds of rela-
tions being assumed under the same label. This contributes to confusion
and vagueness in intersectionality theory. We analyze and critically examine
the different uses and conceptualizations, trying to disentangle the different
meanings and implications. In doing so, we present a new way of under-
standing the ontological character of systems and social categories, one that
goes beyond the debates on mutual constitution. We argue that there is a
problematic assumption that underlies most of the conceptualizations that
materialize this analytic shift, namely the reification of the related elements.
As an alternative, we propose to conceptualize social categories and social
systems as properties, in a way to be specified below. This proposal has rel-
evant implications for the question of the relationship between categories
and for intersectionality theory in general, as it allows the maintenance of
the ontological specificity of each category or social system while simulta-
neously allowing for their being deeply affected or “constituted” by each
other.

From additive to mutual constitution models

The term “intersectionality” is generally attributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw
(1991), as she was the first to publicly coin it. However, it is important to
note that ideas on intersectionality, or what Ange-Marie Hancock (2016,
24) calls “intersectionality-like thought,” were already present in the United
States as part of Black feminism’s political and intellectual tradition before
Crenshaw coined the term (see May 2015; Collins and Bilge 2016; Hancock
2016) and also in other contexts besides the United States, both in acade-
mia and social movements (see Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1983, 1992; Mor-
aga and Anzaldúa 1983; Viveros Vigoya 2016; Rodó-Zárate 2019).1

1
Numerous works (see Alexander-Floyd 2012; Carastathis 2016; Hancock 2016) have
identified a movement attempting to marginalize race-related discrimination and to silence
Black women’s voices in works dealing with intersectionality. Hancock (2016, 18) engages
with the debate on “whether intersectionality is an intellectual property in need of conservation

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 177

Situating the debate in the United States, though, Black feminists put
forward the need to account for the experiences of Black women, given that
single accounts of gender and race were not able to accommodate them:
“The intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in
ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the race or gender di-
mensions of those experiences separately” (Crenshaw 1991, 1244). “Intersec-
tionality” was coined, then, to show how different oppressions couldn’t be
analyzed as being mutually exclusive nor as separate from each other: “[These]
problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women
within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional
experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does
not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the partic-
ular manner in which Black women are subordinated” (Crenshaw 1989, 140;
emphasis added). Moreover, the idea is that sexism and racism are not prop-
erly conceptualized if one assumes their mutual exclusion. In general, then,
additive models were rejected for not being able to account for the experi-
ences of those who suffer from multiple systems of oppression. The additive
model has also been said to advocate a view that ranks difference, making some
oppressions more relevant than others, thus producing primary and second-
ary struggles. The categories “added” would tend to be viewed as a second-
ary forms of oppression compared to the main one. Moreover, this model
precludes the analysis of privilege at the same level as oppression (Choo and
Feree 2010): any model of intersectionality must be able to take into account
privilege as well as oppression, following a majority-inclusive approach (Staunæs
2003) where unmarked categories are also considered. As Patricia Hill Col-
lins argues, there are no pure victims or oppressors, but rather “each indi-
vidual derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple sys-
tems of oppression which frame everyone’s lives” (Collins 1990, 229).
Black feminist perspectives, in their willingness to move away from the
additive model, developed several concepts to show that different systems of
oppression do not act independently of each other but are parts of a more
general system of oppression, the “matrix of domination” (Collins 1990, 21)
or the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (hooks 2000, xiv). The au-
thors see different systems of oppression as “interrelated” (hooks 2000, 41),
“interlocking” (Collins 1990, 295), and “intersect[ed]” (Crenshaw 1991). The

or a meme that has gone viral,” noting that, on one side, there are authors who argue that the
roots of intersectionality must be situated in Black feminism (May 2015) and focused on the
experiences of US Black women; otherwise, it loses its analytical and rhetorical power (Jordan-
Zachery 2007). And, on the other side, authors such as Jasbir Puar (2012) suggest that women
of color who are not Black or American are “othered” when the genealogy of intersectional-
ity is only focused on US Black women.

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 178 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

relation that is established between systems can be interpreted as different

systems being interconnected parts of other systems. While “interrelated” sim-
ply seems to be a way of expressing the complex interaction of categories,
“interlocked” and “intersecting” have more specific implications. “Interlock-
ing” systems entails a view in which the “nature” of each system is not changed
by this interrelation (Garry 2011, 838), and “intersect[ed]” suggests a view
in which there is a meeting point between different oppressions. All of these
approaches have been criticized for the danger of (empirically and conceptu-
ally) separating categories, resulting in “an unhelpful additive notion of op-
pression” (Brown 2011, 543).2 The metaphor of an intersection (or cross-
roads) may lead to a view in which identities or social categories are seen
as involving a set of separate features, which then are crossed with others,
with the risk of building the image of an additive nature (Yuval-Davis 2006;
Rodó-Zárate and Jorba 2018). Even if these conceptualizations point
toward a relevant feature of the relations—the fact that they are intercon-
nected parts—and lay the groundwork for future development in intersec-
tionality theory, the nature of such relations is not further specified.
The interconnected parts approach paved the way for what can be seen
as the current paradigm of intersectionality theory: the model of mutual con-
stitution. The idea behind this kind of relation is that intersecting catego-
ries constitute each other.3 Kathy Davis (2008, 71), for example, says that
“intersectionality seemed ideally suited to the task of exploring how cate-
gories of race, class and gender are intertwined and mutually constitutive,
giving centrality to questions like how race is ‘gendered’ and how gender
is ‘racialized,’ and how both are linked to the continuities and transforma-
tions of social class”; Ann Garry (2011, 837) states that “mutually constituted
and fused oppressions explain the inseparability of oppressions”; and Anna
Carastathis (2014, 307) claims that “in contrast to unitary or additive ap-
proaches to theorizing oppression, which privilege a foundational category
and either ignore or merely ‘add’ others to it, intersectionality insists that
multiple, co-constituting analytic categories are operative and equally salient
in constructing institutionalized practices and lived experiences.” Therefore,
as can be seen, most theorists view the model of mutual constitution as the
alternative (and the definite article is relevant here) to the additive model when
it comes to characterizing intersectional relations.
The problem, however, is that the mutually constitutive relation is sim-
ply assumed in most cases, after acknowledging that the additive model must
2
See Sayer (1997), Nash (2008), and Choo and Feree (2010).
3
See Crenshaw (1991), Brah and Phoenix (2004), McCall (2005), Phoenix and Patty-
nama (2006), Davis (2008), Garry (2011), Lutz, Herrera Vivar, and Supik (2011), Yuval-Davis
(2011), and Carastathis (2014).

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 179

be abandoned. As Sirma Bilge notes, “a good number of texts make do

with a statement in principle, reducing intersectionality and the idea of co-
constitutive difference categories to a simple formula bereft of substance”
(2010, 63). Disentangling what mutual constitution means and how it is used
may avoid mere repetitions and the danger of building intersectional stud-
ies on fuzzy grounds.

Uses of mutual constitution

A first important point we want to note is that under the label “mutual con-
stitution” we find several distinct uses and meanings that move in a gradation
from recognizing that different categories have a separate, specific ontolog-
ical character to recognizing that they are changed by the interaction and
that they can even fuse one with another.4 One use of mutual constitution is
that categories are “affected by and affect each other” (Anthias 2012, 13; em-
phasis added). Floya Anthias interprets this in a dialogical way, retaining the
existence of the categories themselves without being reductionist or engag-
ing in deconstructionist approaches. “Dialogical” is defined as follows: “in
concrete or embodied social practices, social categories operate in the con-
text of each other and articulate in terms of their constitution and effects in
relation to given places (i.e. in terms of their spatiality) and times (in terms
of their temporality) but in a variable way” (Anthias 2012, 9–10). And im-
portantly for our purposes here, she continues, stating that “whereas social
categories themselves can be seen as analytically distinct, . . . concrete social
divisions are constitutive in relation to each other and broader social pro-
cesses but not in an a priori fashion or in the same way” (2012, 10).5

4
The expression “mutual constitution” has been widely used in different scientific fields
to understand different social processes of discrimination and oppression. For relations between
race and law, see Harris (1993) and Gómez (2010); for the mutual constitution of identity and
difference, see Ludvig (2006), among others. Here, though, we are specifically interested in ex-
amining the uses of mutual constitution that appear in the context of the relation among social
categories within intersectionality studies.
5
Under the general concept of affecting each other, we could also place the work of Ivy
Ken (2008) and her metaphor of sugar, in which the most widely used expressions are “trans-
form each other,” “change,” “shape,” “affect,” and “intermingle.” In our interpretation, one
fundamental sense of mutual constitution would fall under the “affecting” category, which
sometimes refers to mutually shaping and at other times to changing nature, as we explain be-
low. “The ingredients affect each other,” Ken writes. “And when these ingredients come to-
gether, they transform each other. No ingredient in the resultant cookie has the same smell, the
same texture, the same look or feel as it did before it went into the bowl. This illustrates very
nicely the race-class-gender theory premise of ‘mutual constitution’” (2008, 162).

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 180 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

Curiously enough, Anthias’s sense of mutual constitution is very close to

a proposal Sylvia Walby, Jo Armstrong, and Sofia Strid (2012) have for the
intersectional relation and one that they see as an alternative to the mutual
constitution model. In Walby, Armstrong, and Strid’s words, “‘Mutual shap-
ing’ is a better concept than that of ‘mutual constitution’ since it enables
the retention of naming of each relevant inequality or project while simul-
taneously recognizing that it is affected by engagement with the others. It
acknowledges the way that systems of social relations change each other at
the point of intersection, but do not become something totally different”
(2012, 235). It is important to note here that what shapes each other in this
account is a whole system of social relations, not categories themselves or
concrete social divisions.
A third use of mutual constitution that we find in the literature claims that
the interaction among categories changes the nature of the categories, so that
when, for example, we consider gender and race, their interaction changes
the nature of gender and also of race. This is congenial with Crenshaw’s idea
that racism and sexism cannot be properly theorized if their nonintersection is
assumed. It is endorsed by Garry (2011) and also by Ken (2008), who pres-
ents intersectionality through the metaphor of sugar mixing with different
other ingredients (meant to refer to categories): “Sugar’s structure is changed
by the context of butter. These ingredients, like sugar and butter, change each
other” (2008, 162; emphasis added).
After reviewing these three uses, we find it useful to consider affecting
as a broader kind of relation that encompasses both mutually shaping and
changing nature, both of which are ways of generally affecting each other.
As far as we can see, the affecting relation is more unspecific and general than
the other two. With respect to mutually shaping, it should be noted that it
is the result of Walby, Armstrong, and Strid’s (2012) interpreting mutual
constitution in a way that implies the formation or creation of new catego-
ries, which is why they prefer “mutually shaping.” However, mutual consti-
tution allows for interpretations in which there is no new formation, as when
it only affects or changes the nature of categories. With respect to the chang-
ing nature sense, we can say that changing each other is a way of affecting
each other, but not all effects involve changing the nature of categories. Sim-
ilarly, to say that categories mutually shape each other does not imply that
they change their nature in this process. Thus, we think we have good rea-
sons for clearly distinguishing mutually shaping and changing nature and for
placing them under the broader notion of affecting.
Yet a fourth characterization of mutual constitution involves the idea that
the interaction between, say, gender and race entails the creation of a new
category: “Black women” cannot be understood as the mere addition of

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 181

“women” and “Black” but is instead a distinctive category. As Walby, Arm-

strong, and Strid (2012, 234) interpret Hancock, “approaches that adopt
‘mutual constitution’ treat the original entities that intersect as transformed
into something new, which is not the same as either of the originating forms.”
According to this reading, Hancock (2007)—who also argues that the re-
lation between categories is an open empirical question—would focus on
the result of the interaction rather than on the prior components, overcom-
ing additive models through the production of new categories. Notice that
the creation of a new category was not something that the first two uses of
“mutually constitution” assumed: categories can change their nature, affect
each other, or shape each other when they interact without creating new
categories in the process.
A fifth kind of relation that has been claimed to hold among categories
is the sense of mutual constitution as fusion. Maria Lugones (2007) is one
of the main defenders of this view, which is rooted in an analysis of the in-
teraction between colonialism and patriarchy. Lugones sees their interaction
as a fusion, with the consequence that there are several genders—the gen-
der of colonized women is different from the gender of colonizing women:
“Colonialism did not impose precolonial, European gender arrangements
on the colonized. It imposed a new gender system that created very differ-
ent arrangements for colonized males and females than for white bourgeois
colonizers. Thus, it introduced many genders and gender itself as a colonial
concept and mode of organization of relations of production, property re-
lations, of cosmologies and ways of knowing” (2007, 186).6 The definition
of mutual constitution that has been attributed to Hancock would have in
common with Lugones’s (2007) notion of fusion the fact that something is
created from the interaction, and thus both would fall under the general cat-
egory of new formation within mutual constitution. The difference, though,
is that Hancock (2007) would see Black woman as a distinctive category while
Lugones (2007) believes that the interaction between patriarchy and colo-
nialism creates several genders.
In summary, there seems to be two different underpinning intersectional
relations at stake when “mutual constitution” is used, as visualized in table 1:
first, constitution as affecting, and, second, constitution as new formation. For
the constitution as affecting interpretation, categories are affected by and af-

6
It should be noted that Lugones develops a much more complex view on the interaction
of social categories than the one presented here—see, for instance, her account on Yoruba so-
ciety and the new gender categories imposed by colonizers (Lugones 2010). The author also
draws on the mestiza tradition of Gloria Anzaldúa and others (see Anzaldúa 1987). Anzaldúa’s
notion of mestiza consciousness could be interpreted as an instance of the category fusion.

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 182 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

Table 1. Meanings of Mutual Constitution

Affecting New Formation

Mutually Shaping Changing Nature New Category Fusion

Concrete social Interaction between Relations between Interaction between

relations and/or categories changes categories involve categories involves
systems are affected the nature of categories the creation of a proliferation
by each other themselves new category (“several genders”)
(“Black woman”)

Ken (2008); Anthias Ken (2008); Hancock (2007), in Lugones (2007)

(2012); Walby, Garry (2011) Walby, Armstrong,
Armstrong and and Strid (2012)
Strid (2012)

fect each other (Anthias 2012) without creating new categories and with-
out fusing or disappearing. Within this category, we find two subgroups: cat-
egories are shaped by and shape each other (Walby, Armstrong, and Strid
2012), and the interrelation of categories changes the nature of them (Garry
2011). In the constitution as new formation interpretation, we also find two
subgroups: when categories interrelate, new categories are formed (Black
women; Hancock 2007) or categories are fused (Lugones 2007).7

Questioning mutual constitution models

As we have seen, mutual constitution is used in different ways and with dif-
ferent meanings. Besides these concrete interpretations, what does mutual
constitution mean in general terms? If we take one standard interpretation
of “constitution” in philosophy, its meaning conveys “what something is
made of,” normally asking about the nature of the object or the relation be-
tween the parts it is made of. In this sense, a statue is constituted by a chunk
of marble. But what is it, in particular, to say that race, for instance, is con-
stituted by age? Or vice versa? It would imply that the nature of race is (also)
“made of ” age: namely, what it is to be Black is “partly made of ” being old
or young. It is clear that a young Black person might have different expe-
riences of oppression/privilege than an old Black person, so different con-
figurations of race and age produce different experiences. But does this fact
mean that the specific experience of Blackness itself “is made of ” the age
this person is? Looking at it from another side, is whiteness differently con-
7
Although “mutual constitution” is in wide usage, we only refer to the authors who as-
sociate a specific meaning with the expression in the context of the relation among categories
in intersectionality theory.

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 183

stituted by age? And is whiteness for every age constituted at the same time
by sexuality and by every other category? It is not clear how the mutual con-
stitution model can give answers to these questions.
Focusing on the affecting interpretation clarified above, could we say
that white privilege is constituted by age so that white privilege “changes
its nature because of ” or “is shaped by” age, sexuality, gender, class? And
what about race, if its nature is constituted by all other categories and in
all possible configurations? While the affecting sense has intuitive relevance
when it comes to certain categories, it doesn’t seem to be applicable to all
categories in different contexts, and it doesn’t give us more specific infor-
mation about how the affecting relation works or what exactly is shaped or
changed in the interaction.
In relation to constitution as new formation, we distinguished between
new category and fusion. The notion of a new category seems to involve a
proliferation of categories each time there is an interaction. It can be in-
tuitive when we consider gender and race and the particular case of Black
women, but consider sexuality and age: Is there a new category for old les-
bians separate from young lesbians? And are there other new categories for
every configuration with race and class? Similarly, the fusion reading im-
plies a proliferation of categories, in this case of genders, as there can be
an infinite number of interactions with other categories. Moreover, to our
mind, constitution as new formation tends to pose more questions than it
solves. As Garry (2008, 107) notes, “the individual axes must have at least
a minimal degree of stable meaning for the analysis to work. If every inter-
section produced a new gender or a new race (or both!), there would be
no way to make sense of the ways in which ethnicity affects one’s gendered
experience.” In this sense, fusion prevents us from accounting for the cases
in which women who do not share other identities may suffer similar gender-
oppressive effects in certain circumstances, and this would have politically
relevant implications. The fusion relation would be difficult to apply to all
other categories, as Lugones’s view seems to be specifically formulated for
the functioning of gender in the process of colonization. If it only applies
to this case, fusion cannot be suitable for a general account of intersection-
ality. And if it applies to all other categories, how could fusion possibly op-
erate in different directions?
In this section we have critically assessed the prospects of using the dif-
ferent senses of mutual constitution. We have first noted that “constitution”
in the general sense of “being made of ” is quite difficult to apply to many
interactions among social categories and may in fact not be what inter-
sectionality theorists are after. The affecting sense seems to find resistance
in applications to certain social categories and interactions, and it isn’t very

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 184 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

specific. And the new formation and fusion senses are difficult to apply gen-
erally as a kind of relation at work in the interaction between different cate-
gories; they are also problematic if we understand that keeping a distinctive
ontological character for every category is a desirable requirement (more
on this below).
In the next section we will identify a possible common problem among
the uses of mutual constitution, namely the reification of categories, and
will present the properties framework as more suitable for conceptualizing
intersectional relations.

The problem of reification

The analytic shift from additive to mutual constitutive models and the dif-
ferent senses of mutual constitution used in the literature make visible the
fact that the question of the relations among categories is one of the cen-
tral issues in intersectionality. In Marcel Stoetzler’s (2017, 457) words,
the question is “whether the intersecting divisions are ‘mutually constitu-
tive’ or ontologically independent from each other.” These two aspects can
be expressed in a slightly different manner (avoiding the mutual constitu-
tion expression) in the following way: first, acknowledging the complex and
deep interaction among categories; and second, maintaining the ontolog-
ical specificity of each category. The first requirement is precisely what mod-
els of mutual constitution aim to accomplish. The second requirement—
the preservation of the ontological specificity or character—is a contested
desideratum within intersectionality research.8 The two requirements men-
tioned here are presented by Walby, Armstrong, and Strid (2012, 237)
in the form of a dilemma: “how to address the preference for the visibility
of each inequality in the context of an emerging hegemonic conceptuali-
zation of intersectionality as ‘mutual constitution’” (see also Anthias 2012,

8
Some scholars (Lugones 2007, 2010; Carastathis 2016) regard intersectionality as a cri-
tique of received categories and adopt what McCall (2005, 1773) calls the “anticategorical ap-
proach” to complexity. This perspective rejects the use of social categories on the grounds that
they originated out of relations of dominance and oppression and their use would maintain
such genealogy. Although this is a general discussion and an in-depth treatment goes beyond
the scope of this work, we acknowledge the risks in using categories. However, we think it is
important to maintain them, as they continue to affect oppressed people in their everyday ex-
istence (Ludvig 2006; Yuval-Davis 2006), and so it may be necessary to use them to detect
their functioning and their interrelations and to be able to subsequently address inequalities.
We concur with Hancock (2007, 66) when she says that “intersectionality argues for new con-
ceptualizations of categories and their role in politics, rather than seeking an abolition of cat-
egories themselves.” Our contribution is precisely to conceptualize categories in such a way
that some problems related to their use (essentialization, nonchangeability) can be avoided while
allowing us to detect them in their everyday function in oppressing (and privileging) people.

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 185

13, for a similar framing). There thus seems to be two main driving forces in
the debate on intersectional relations. The different views presented take dif-
ferent stances toward them, so we can classify the specifications of mutual
constitution according to the degree to which they can accommodate com-
plex and deep interaction as well as ontological specificity.
Additive models deny complex and deep interaction while preserving
ontological specificity, and strong senses of mutual constitution preserve com-
plex and deep interaction but can’t allow ontological specificity. Specifically,
on the one hand, mutual constitution as affecting has a different behavior
depending on the subgroup we focus on: the mutually shaping relation pre-
serves ontological specificity and dilutes deep interaction into mutual shap-
ing, thus making the requirement for complex and deep interaction difficult
to assess.9 The changing nature sense of affecting, on the other hand, ac-
commodates complex and deep interaction such that it is not entirely clear
that the need for ontological specificity is satisfied, given that the nature of
each category is changed.
With respect to the sense in which mutual constitution involves new for-
mation, its position regarding complex, deep interaction and ontological
specificity also differs. In the case of the formation of a distinct new category
(Black woman), it seems that the requirement for complex and deep inter-
action is satisfied, given that the interaction between categories produces
a new category, although what is involved in this process is not further de-
veloped. Similarly, it appears that this also accomplishes ontological specific-
ity, because at least superficially both Black and woman are present in the
new category Black woman, but it is not entirely clear whether this new cat-
egory preserves the ontological specificity of each of them or whether it is
rather a distinct construct that dilutes their previous respective specificities.
In the fusion sense, the requirement for complex and deep interaction is
satisfied at the expense of abandoning ontological specificity: the fused cat-
egories are not ontologically specific any more. In this way, we see how
these two requirements help to structure the positions in the current liter-
ature and may eventually help to situate other proposals to come.
All in all, none of the extant proposals seems to easily satisfy both re-
quirements, and thus they are presented as competing or contradictory.10

9
Mutually shaping recognizes a certain influence among categories, but the kind of rela-
tion itself is not further specified, so it is not clear what is in fact the interaction between cat-
egories that it proposes.
10
In Walby, Armstrong, and Strid’s (2012, 234) words: “Writers that appear to prioritize
the ‘mutual constitution’ approach to intersectionality nevertheless often also argue for sepa-
rate naming; which might appear somewhat inconsistent” (Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2007). Of
course there is no tension between the two requirements for those who think that one of them

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 186 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

We argue that the reason behind this fact is that there’s an implicit con-
ceptual feature that makes these two requirements opposed to each other:
the reification of the social categories or systems; that is, considering sys-
tems and socials relations as objects that intersect. “Reification” has already
been used in the literature on intersectionality in two ways: reification as giv-
ing priority to objects or things over relations, and reification as rendering
processes invisible (see Gunnarsson 2017, 119–21). Regarding the former,
Lena Gunnarsson considers Karen Barad’s “thingification” problem, the
“turning of relations into ‘things’ ” (Barad 2003, 812), stressing the onto-
logical priority of relations over the entities they produce. With respect to
the latter, Gunnarsson claims that “intersectional theorists often take issue
with more conventional modes of discrimination analysis, which tend to reify
categories like ‘Black’ and ‘woman’ in a way that ignores how they are (co-)con-
stituted through historically formed processes of power” (2017, 122). Be-
yond intersectionality, the problem of reification can still refer to a third fact,
namely, the process of making structures made by human beings resistant to
change (Young 1994).
While acknowledging that all these senses of reification shed light on rel-
evant dynamics in intersectionality theory (and beyond), we want to high-
light another sense of reification that, in our view, is taking place around
the debates on the relation between categories. There is thus a fourth kind
of reification in the sense of being an object versus a property—the fact that
categories are thought of as (physical) objects and not as properties of ob-
jects. Objects have to be understood formally and broadly—as encompass-
ing processes, events, or relations but crucially in contrast with properties
(note that processes, events, and relations also have properties). The rele-
vant point is that the reification of categories seems to be implicitly as-
sumed when trying to relate categories as if they were things that need to
mix in complex ways. This implicit tendency can be seen when examining
the kinds of metaphors of intersectionality that have been proposed: a cross-
roads (Crenshaw 1989), gels under different lights (Haslanger 2012), a mar-
ble cake (Jordan-Zachery 2007), egg yolk and egg whites (Lugones 2007),
and a Rubik’s cube (Romero 2018), to mention a few. The proposed met-
aphors try to visualize in complex ways how the different things relate to
each other, but after all, in the visual imaginary, they remain things (see
Rodó-Zárate and Jorba 2018 for a development).11

should not be met: e.g., the deep interaction among categories in the case of additive models and
ontological specificity in the case of anticategorical approaches.
11
Moreover, intersectionality is generally visualized as different lines that intersect or fig-
ures that overlap (see Dhamoon 2011), reinforcing the reification problem. In Devon Carbado

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 187

In sum, the reification problem gives rise to the tension of either mix-
ing categories in such strong ways as to make their ontological specificity
difficult to maintain or separating them to maintain their ontological spec-
ificity on pain of not recognizing the complexity of their interaction. In what
follows, we will argue that if we get rid of reification in this sense, we find a
way to preserve the two requirements presented for a theory of intersectionality.

The properties framework

Objects versus properties

The properties framework proposes to conceptualize categories as proper-
ties of something, not as objects by themselves. Think about an apple. It’s
sweet, red, hard, and cold. Flavor, toughness, color, and temperature would
be the properties that are mentioned in this characterization, and they all
have their own ontological specificity—we measure them through differ-
ent elements and make classifications based on different features. But if we
focus on the apple, these properties are related one to another in a way that
may enable them to change the nature of the apple or deeply affect each
other. If we introduce the apple into the oven, a higher temperature will
make the apple become softer and sweeter. In this sense, we can say that
the temperature “affects” and “changes the nature” of the apple’s tough-
ness. The color of the apple might be closely related to its ripeness, such
that the ripeness changes the color of the apple from green to brown. And
all these characteristics constitute the apple. Analogously, we propose to
conceive of social categories as properties of individuals: being a woman,
white, and lesbian are three different properties of someone. These prop-
erties have certain effects in the person’s experience when placed in certain
contexts in such a way that they contribute to her overall experience. It is
important to note that the analogy holds between the apple’s properties
and the effects of social categories on people’s experience.
The object to which we can attribute different properties can be differ-
ently defined depending on the level we focus on, as we will see. In fact,

and Mitu Gulati’s (2013, 71) words: “The notion that two things ‘intersect’ brings readily to
mind a Venn diagram within which each thing exists both inside and outside of the intersec-
tion. . . . Although the metaphor of intersectionality conveys this idea, the fuller theory of
intersectionality, and Crenshaw’s conceptualization of this theory, rejects it. Fundamental to
Intersectionality Theory is the understanding that race and gender are interconnected, and
as a result they do not exist as disaggregated identities. In other words, there are no noninter-
secting areas in the diagram.”

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 188 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

the question of the different levels of analysis that should be differentiated

to explain social phenomena has also been a focus of research in inter-
sectionality theory: “what is at the heart of the debate is conflation or sep-
aration of the different analytic levels in which intersectionality is located,
rather than just a debate on the relationship of the divisions themselves”
(Yuval-Davis 2006, 195). Different proposals have been made that distin-
guish or define different levels. Patricia Hill Collins (1990) distinguishes be-
tween personal biography, group or community, and systemic-level social
institutions; Gabriele Winkler and Nina Degele (2011) distinguish between
constructions of identity, symbolic representations, and power structures; and
Floya Anthias (2012) differentiates among concrete social relations, discur-
sive practices, and social ontologies. In these different approaches to the ques-
tion of levels of analysis, we can note that, apart from a symbolic aspect of
representation and the discursive element, there are at least two main levels
that most authors mention, which could be simplified by referring to a level
of individual experience and a level of social structures or systems (Young 1990;
Haslanger 2015). It is on these two levels that we will focus here, under-
standing that this is not an exhaustive map but rather a simplification.
At the first level, as we have already mentioned, social categories are seen
as properties of individuals, and the interactions of these properties produce
experiences of a certain sort. In this sense, experience would be regarded as
being constituted by the effects of gender, race, or class.12 Following this
line, being Black may deeply affect the way one experiences gender oppres-
sion, for instance, and vice versa. However, what gender is as a social cate-
gory is something that is not affected. That is, gender and race as criteria
of social differentiation maintain their ontological specificity as single cate-
gories. The criteria for defining the property do not change in the interac-
tion (they can change throughout time); what is changed is the object that
is constituted by them (the individual’s experience).
The second level where the object should be identified is that of systems.
In the literature, we find a debate around the question of whether social sys-
tems have to be understood as several interacting systems or as just one sys-
tem with different subdivisions (Stoetzler 2017). We contend that with the
properties framework, this debate appears under a new light. Patriarchy, rac-

12
Conceiving of categories as properties and being a woman, Black, etc., as positions
within those criteria does not imply a static conception of categories but can recognize “his-
torically formed processes of power” (Gunnarsson 2017, 122) in which a category can cease
to be relevant to take into account certain purposes and another may become salient and im-
portant. In this sense, the proposal here can encompass both a certain stability and a certain
fluidity that may allow for empirical analysis as well as for the recognition of change (Walby,
Armstrong, and Strid 2012, 228).

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 189

ism and white supremacy, capitalism, ageism, and so on, would be seen as
properties of a whole system, which can be construed as the system of power.
The shift in conceptualization proposed here presents a framework that
considers systems as “adjectives” and not as “nouns.” That is, the whole
system of power is patriarchal, capitalist, and racist—these three properties
are its features. So far the proposal resembles Collins’s and bell hooks’s con-
ceptualization of a whole system that contains the others, but we add an
important specification of how we can understand their ontological char-
acter more concretely: that is, as an object that is a whole system with its
different properties or characteristics (capitalism, heterosexism, racism, etc.).
In this sense, it would be not adequate to say that it is a system with differ-
ent subdivisions, but rather it is one system with different properties or char-
acteristics.13 Through this framework, social systems can maintain their dis-
tinctiveness (patriarchy would be a hierarchical organization based on gender
constructs and capitalism on social class)14 without denying that they are
related and that their effects constitute the whole system of power.15 Similarly
for the individual level, categories are conceived as properties of individuals,
and as such they are not separable from those individuals, even if they can
be distinguished in thought and theory and named separately. From this
perspective, the framework maintains ontological specificity, which just
involves characterizing social categories independently of each other. As
Nira Yuval-Davis (2006, 201; our emphasis) explains:
Class divisions are grounded in relation to the economic processes of
production and consumption; gender should be understood not as a
“real” social difference between men and women, but as a mode of
discourse that relates to groups of subjects whose social roles are de-
fined by their sexual/biological difference while sexuality is yet an-
other related discourse, relating to constructions of the body, sexual
pleasure and sexual intercourse. Ethnic and racial divisions relate to
discourses of collectivities constructed around exclusionary/inclusionary
boundaries . . . that can be constructed as permeable and mutable to
different extents and that divide people into “us” and “them. . . .”
“Ability” or, rather, “disability” involves . . . discourses of “normality”

13
Our proposal does not make an a priori hierarchy among systems but rather regards
them all as contributing to the whole system of power.
14
We acknowledge that our definitions are simplistic and that there are important debates
on how to conceptualize them, but this goes beyond the scope of this essay.
15
For reasons of exposition, from now on we will focus on the level of the experience/in-
dividual, although as we have seen, the proposal applies to the systemic level as well.

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 190 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

from which all disabled people are excluded. Age represents the dimen-
sion of time and the life cycle.16

Obviously this is only one possible way of characterizing social divisions or

categories, as one could also conceive of gender as a set of reiterative acts
within a rigid heterosexual regulatory frame (Butler 1990) or as the “socially
imposed division of the sexes” (Rubin 1975, 179), among other proposals.17
Each of these divisions could be seen as criteria for social differentiation and
hierarchical organzation that amounts to a property of someone (such as fla-
vor or color in the apple).18 In this new ontological perspective, social cate-
gories as properties maintain their ontological specificity and thus satisfy the
second requirement. As we see it, the properties framework paves the way for
an approach to the relations among categories that also satisfies the need for
complex and deep interaction. We explain how this is so in the next section.

The relation question

Once the properties framework has been presented both for the level of
the individual’s experience and social systems, we should note that the ques-
tion of intersectional relations doesn’t lose its meaning by being situated
in the properties framework. Rather, it needs to be redefined. Through this
framework, the central constitutive relation is among properties and a sub-
ject. However, as we have already mentioned, properties have effects on in-
dividuals’ experiences. We will claim that these effects can relate to each other
in a variety of ways. Before that, though, we propose to understand the re-
lation between the properties and the whole experience as a relation of emer-
gence: the whole experience is an emergent entity that results from the inter-
action among the properties. The emergent entity has emergent properties
that are produced out of the interaction and configuration of certain prop-
erties (gender, race, sexuality, etc.). Examples of an emergent property might
be being discriminated against in a certain way or having an overall privileged

16
We believe Yuval-Davis conceives of social divisions as a kind of criteria of social differ-
entiation without reifying them, but it is still the case that many authors who speak of mutual
constitution implicitly conceptualize these criteria as things. This fact is manifest in their strug-
gle to find complex ways and terms to express the relations among them. Once we think of
categories as properties, we see that they are already together in a certain configuration from
the start.
17
It is important to note that the specific content of those indicators is not predetermined
by the model proposed here, so the framework is compatible with various accounts of what
gender, race, etc., are.
18
The properties framework can include as many categories as needed in the analysis—
which ones will be relevant is an empirical question to be determined differently in different
research (see also Hancock 2013).

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 191

character. Interestingly, what emerges from the interaction cannot always

be predicted knowing the behavior of each category alone. In this sense, un-
derstanding certain behavior of single categories (gender, race, etc.) is not
sufficient to capture the properties of the emergent experience. In our view,
this claim substantiates and is in accord with one main general tenet of inter-
sectionality theory, namely, the idea that “intersectional experience is greater
than the sum of sexism and racism” (Crenshaw 1989, 140). Emergence has
also been used in the context of examining intersectional approaches to psy-
chology (Warner 2008) and in critical realist approaches to intersectionality
(Martínez Dy, Martin, and Marlow 2014). Leah Warner’s account consid-
ers white lesbian as an emergent property, whereas Angela Martínez Dy, Lee
Martin, and Susan Marlow consider mysogynoir (hatred of Black women and
girls) as an emergent property (see also Bailey 2013). In our proposal, these
wouldn’t be emergent properties as they are not properties of the whole emer-
gent entity, the place where we propose to examine the effects of the inter-
action among properties.
Within this framework, we are in a position to give an answer to the ques-
tion of the relation among categories in a way that satisfies the need for com-
plex and deep interaction: categories relate to each other through their effects
on emergent experiences in multiple ways. To say that gender oppression is
intensified by class in the case of abortion (see also below) means that the
overall experience of oppression is intensified when one is both a woman and
poor in the context of the right to abortion in countries where it is illegal.
It is not gender, per se, that changes but the whole experience when gender
and class interact in specific ways. If we want to know the specific kind of
relation between certain categories, we will have to look at the given context
or situation, as different relations might be described for different contexts.19
In this way, several of the senses of mutual constitution described could be
taken as relevant (even if partial) and understood through their joint contri-
bution to experience. The mutually shaping and changing nature sense could
fit our proposal, even if understood against the background of the whole ex-
perience. However, with the sense of new formation, we are inclined to deny
that this is a viable way to conceptualize a relation among categories, given
that in our proposal properties maintain their ontological specificity. More-
over, we argue that categories may affect each other, but there is the pos-
sibility of them not affecting each other at all. In this sense, our proposal
is a plural approach—because it recognizes a variety of possible relations
among categories—and a contextual one—because it recognizes the impor-

19
See Yuval-Davis (2006), Valentine (2007), Anthias (2012), and Rodó-Zárate (2014) for
the importance of context in intersectionality.

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 192 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

tance of context in order to identify the kind of relation, which we also see as
an empirical matter (see also Hancock 2007, 2013).
From this plural perspective we argue that there is a wide range of other
possible relations that might provide a more nuanced examination of cases.
We will provide some specific examples. One interesting relation is that of
intensity, in the sense of intensification and mitigation. In the case of in-
tensification (Verloo 2009; Khader 2013; Rodó-Zárate 2015), the idea is
that when there are (at least) two oppressive categories, one intensifies the
effects of the other. As already mentioned, we could say that being poor in-
tensifies the oppression for women in the case of the right to abortion. That
is, in countries in which abortion is illegal or restricted, women with the eco-
nomic resources to travel to another country would be better positioned than
women with fewer economic resources to undergo such a process.20
If we look in the other direction, we find a less examined kind of rela-
tion, namely, that of mitigation between two oppressive positions (Rodó-
de-Zárate 2015).21 As Joseli Maria Silva and Marcio Ornat argue in their
article on travesti prostitution networks and their transnational mobility be-
tween Brazil and Spain, “the meanings that surround Brazilian nationality/
raciality are used by travestis, who mobilize elements of Brazilianness to their
advantage in the Spanish sex market” (2015, 1082). Even if the represen-
tations of Brazilian women are loaded with elements of colonial subordina-
tion, Brazilian travesti women negotiate with their (oppressive) cultural and
racial identity in Spain to mitigate their class and sexual oppression, as they
gain erotic capital with their ethnicity, which improves their economic situ-
ation. Moreover, we regard the extreme case of mitigation as the possibil-
ity of cancellation of the oppressive effects of a category (Verloo 2009). In
fact, Mieke Verloo (2009) presents strengthening and weakening as two pos-
sible kinds of the broader notion of interference.22

20
Serene Khader (2013, 68), focusing on the particular case of the moral acceptability of
transnational commercial surrogacy, problematizes the notion of intensification because “the
intensification thesis supposes that gender oppression subjects all women to qualitatively sim-
ilar harms and that race and class oppression increase the severity of those harms.” Nancy
Ehrenreich (2004) also develops a conceptualization of intersectionality based on symbiosis,
one aspect of which is the mutually supportive character between discriminations where one
system would enforce another one. This, too, would be a case of intensification.
21
As Khader (2013, 68) writes, “the intensification thesis supposes that gender oppression
subjects all women to qualitatively similar harms and that race and class oppression increase
the severity of those harms.”
22
This concept is not restricted to these two notions. As Verloo (2009) states, interfer-
ence should be regarded as an umbrella concept between inequalities under which different
forms of relations among categories are possible. However, no further specification is provided
as to what relations fall under this umbrella concept.

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 193

Notice, too, that neither intensification nor mitigation can explain all ex-
isting interrelations among categories. Consider, for instance, the specific case
of the right to vote in the United States for African Americans and women.
Even if we acknowledge that African American women had to deal with sex-
ism, racism, and the combination of both when struggling for their right
to vote, they did not have “less” or “more” right to vote because it was de-
nied twice (intensified). As a result of the double discrimination, they just
couldn’t vote. How being a Black woman differs from being a white woman
or a Black man in the case of the materialization of the right to vote cannot
be approached here as an intensification or mitigation relation.
Actually, the additive effect could also be possible in the properties and
emergent experience frameworks. The effects of different categories may be
related in an additive way in some cases. For instance, Lisa Bowleg (2008,
313) notes that the household income of Black lesbians is relevantly lower
than that of both Black married heterosexual couples and Black male same-
sex couples.23 Actually, the author uses this example with the aim of show-
ing how social hierarchies are mutually constructed in the lives of Black les-
bians. However, as we see it, the annual median household income seems
to decrease with every oppression position added. This is not to say that
Black lesbians’ identity is additive but that the effects of their social position
in relation to a specific indicator may be the result of an additive relation.
We believe one could recognize this additive function in particular cases with-
out endorsing an additive model of intersectionality, given that in our view
there is a variety of possible kinds of relations with respect to the effects of
categories of experience. With this plural approach, the proposal is thus able
to satisfy the requirement for complex and deep interaction among catego-
ries, always understood in their relation to the whole experience.
As we have seen through the examples above, the properties framework
and the emergent experience view in intersectionality may have some rele-
vant implications for social science research. First, the properties framework
allows the consideration that all categories configure the experience but at
the same time that every category may be individuated for a specific analysis,

23
“According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s analysis of Black same-sex
household data from the 2000 US Census Bureau, Black same-sex couples reported an annual
median household income ($49,000) of $2,000 lower than that of their Black married hetero-
sexual counterparts ($51,000). Black female same-sex couples, however, reported a median in-
come of $9,000 less than Black married heterosexual couples, $7,000 less than Black male
same-sex couples, and a stunning $21,000 and $29,000 less than White female and male same
sex couples respectively, illustrating clearly how structural inequalities grounded in intersec-
tions of race, sex, and sexual orientation affect Black female same-sex couples adversely” (Bow-
leg 2008, 313).

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 194 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

in research or for political purposes. Any study that focuses on discrimina-

tion should acknowledge that different power structures are taking place
in the configuration of the situation analyzed, in the forms of both oppres-
sion and privilege. The implication of this is that it is only at an analytical
level that properties can be distinguished. Research on the discrimination
faced by lesbians in the medical system, for example, should take into ac-
count that the situation for an eighteen-year-old lesbian might not be the
same as for a seventy-year-old lesbian. It would also be different if she has
access to the public health system or not, due to, for instance, her legal sta-
tus. Being deaf, white, rich, or a doctor herself may also have an impact on
how she faces discrimination. So, it is only at the analytical level that one can
point to how homophobia specifically causes discrimination, but any lesbian
in the medical system will face discrimination as an integral experience based
on her specific configuration of age, origin, social class, and so on. Not taking
into account these other positions may imply a bias, as there is no “neutral”
situation where only sexual orientation or gender is at stake. The same would
apply when designing and implementing a political campaign against the
discrimination lesbians suffer in the medical system. Making visible only a cer-
tain situation may obscure the situation of Black, old, disabled, or migrant
lesbians.
Second, in order to understand the relation between different catego-
ries and their effects, context should be conceived as playing a central role
in the configuration of a particular situation. This means that the kind of dis-
crimination lesbians may face in the medical system could be very different
in relation to housing, working conditions, or access to public space. Spe-
cific power relations are situated in time and space, and this configures the
interactions among categories in a certain way. So being a lesbian could be
seen as mitigating the effects of the gender division of labor in relation to
care work, as many times there are no gender-predetermined roles between
members of a lesbian couple. A home, a prison, a cinema, or a forest (and
social relations in them) may condition the way categories interact, so the
role of place is not the only scenario where intersectionality occurs. The
emergent experience view shows that by considering only one category
(sexual orientation), or categories separately (sexual orientation 1 age 1 gen-
der), one cannot predict their effects in a particular situation. Their inter-
action and the specific context where they materialize are central elements
for understanding, predicting, and therefore transforming a particular situ-
ation. As the properties framework shows, empirical work is thus necessary
to identify particular interactions among categories and, as we have seen,
the possibilities for finding multiple types of relations are endless. It is im-
portant to note that multiple positions and the role of context have been

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 S I G N S Autumn 2019 y 195

considered in various disciplines—here we have just provided a theoretical

framework that may help systematize isolated claims, understand their im-
portance, and open up the possibilities for empirical research that identifies
particular relations in particular contexts.
As Collins and Bilge (2016, 192) note, “intersectionality is best served
by sustaining a creative tension that joins inquiry and praxis as distinctive,
yet interdependent, dimensions.” Thus, it is important to highlight the im-
plications that our view has for political intersectionality and intersectional
praxis. Through the properties framework and the emergent experience view,
it becomes clear that power dynamics and political struggles should be seen
not in terms of opposition but rather compatibility. hooks (2000, 40) devel-
ops this idea in the following way: “The struggle to end sexist oppression
that focuses on destroying the cultural basis for such domination strength-
ens other liberation struggles. Individuals who fight for the eradication of
sexism without struggles to end racism or classism undermine their own
efforts. Individuals who fight for the eradication of racism or classism while
supporting sexist oppression are helping to maintain the cultural basis of all
forms of group oppression.” In this sense, looking at specific oppressions
as properties that constitute one whole system (or experience) and not as
separate objects or fused elements allows the articulation of particular strug-
gles, acknowledging that they are only a particular aspect of inequality in
a more holistic system. It also implies that an action in response to one as-
pect of oppression might relevantly influence other aspects and the whole
system of power: feminism, as well as other struggles, can be seen as directed
to the whole oppression and not just as an appendix to another more fun-
damental cause. Moreover, our theoretical framework encourages a kind
of political action that recognizes the variability of experiences that emerge
from the configuration of certain categories in a person or group of people,
as well as maintaining an open mind regarding potential new harms and op-
pressions that might emerge from new configurations of categories’ effects
in contexts that have not yet been named or explored.

Concluding remarks
The question of the relation among social categories lies at the heart of
intersectionality theory. The shift from additive to mutual constitutive mod-
els resulted in the adoption of the latter model without much scrutiny, lead-
ing to different conceptions and senses of mutual constitution. We have
reviewed the main uses of mutual constitution in the literature and have
classified them into two groups (see table 1)—constitution as affecting and
constitution as new formation. On the one hand, constitution as affecting

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 196 y Jorba and Rodó-Zárate

includes two subtypes: mutually shaping and changing nature. On the other
hand, constitution as new formation includes new category and fusion. Be-
sides some particular problematic aspects of these kinds of relations, we have
mainly argued that these proposals face the dilemma of not being able to
clearly and adequately accommodate two main desiderata for intersectional-
ity theory: the need to account for complex and deep ways in which social
categories interact, and the need to maintain ontological specificity. We have
argued that these proposals cannot accommodate both desiderata because
of an implicit conceptualization common to additive and mutual constitu-
tive models: the reification problem. This problem rests on the fact that au-
thors tend to implicitly conceive of categories as objects (broadly construed)
and not as properties. Once we reject reification in this sense, we can concep-
tualize categories as properties—of an individual and of a system. The prop-
erties framework paves the way for us to see the interaction among catego-
ries as producing the emergence of a new entity (the experience or system,
respectively) with a certain overall character, which cannot be predicted a
priori from the behavior of the single categories involved. Within this frame-
work, we have proposed a plural and contextual model that also follows from
the partiality critiques previously raised.
In conclusion, we argue that the properties model is more suitable for
conceptualizing intersectional relations in such a way that categories and so-
cial systems can maintain their own ontological character while allowing their
effects to be in complex relations. Shifting from conceiving categories as ob-
jects that intersect to conceiving them as properties that, arranged in a certain
configuration, produce an emergent experience (or system) may contribute
to a better understanding of intersectional relations and may provide a fruit-
ful framework for feminism and social sciences as well as for political action.

Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (Jorba)

Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) (Rodó-Zárate)

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