Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in a Post-Black Feminist Era

The article investigates how post-black feminist definitions of intersectionality in the social sciences have "disappeared" black women as knowledge producers and subjects of investigation. This post-black feminist turn in theorizing intersectionality is assessed in terms of the rhetorical strategies critiqued by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1990-91) in her foundational work on intersectionality, demonstrating how the very strategies she identified as hegemonic limitations to black feminism have been incorporated into social science work produced in the name of intersectional investigation, thus re-subjugating black women's knowledge. A reconstructive liberatory project in the name of intersectionality is suggested that would entail scholars across the disciplines implementing hermeneutical and/or narrative methodologies that center on black women's subjectivity.