Conference Agenda

This paper presents intra-sectionality as re-imagining of intersectionality’s theoretical possibilities. Building on insights from a larger arts-based embodied inquiry using body-mapping, which explored how asylum practices in the UK shape the lived and embodied experiences of asylum-seeking young women aged 16 to 21 from Global South, this paper develops the concept of intra-sectionality. Rooted in Feminist New Materialism and informed by posthumanist thought, embodiment in this work emerges as a dynamic relational process, continually shaped through exposure to policy, artistic practice, environment, and affective encounters. Through iterative intra-actions between policy, theory, and body-mapped narratives; asylum-seeking bodies are understood always in state of becoming. This recognition led to articulation of intra-sectional becoming, which highlights the endurance, adaptability, and resilience of asylum-seeking young women whose lives are continually reconfigured through material and affective entanglements. Their artistic expressions, read through a Feminist New Materialist lens, reveal how marginalised bodies are not fixed within static grids of intersectional categories but move through shifting relations of power, policy, and affect. Recognising the intellectual labour of foremothers such as Frances Beal, Deborah King, Patricia Hill Collins, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, this work honours intersectionality’s foundations while opening grounds for extending its analytical possibilities. Following Nash’s encouragement to expand intersectionality by honouring its roots while simultaneously recognising epistemological defensiveness of Black feminist thought, and engaging Puar’s insistence on assemblage to unsettle fixity around intersectionality; intra-sectionality emerges as both a continuation and expansion of intersectional thinking. It begins with relations: the ongoing entanglements of policies, bodies, affects, and histories through which categories do not pre-exist relations but continuously re-made. Body-maps, in this work emerged as intra-ventions that unsettled fixity and made uncertainty visible, materialising asylum-seeking bodies as both enduring sedimented weight of exclusion and control, and remaining in motion, adapting to shifting socio-political conditions to claim recognition and liveability.

This paper is drawn from a 9-year international qualitative research partnership between three scholars of Education at three institutions (1 in Brazil; 2 in the U.S.). By bringing Anzaldua’s notions of borderlands and Nepantla (1987) into conversation with Simpson’s theory of water (2025), we toil with our purpose as scholars and members of our local and global communities. Our goal was to explore how critical theories, philosophies of learning, and qualitative research methods viewed through an international lens might help us and our students open new possibilities for how we teach, learn and conduct research. Over time, we became frustrated by our discipline’s pragmatist, technorationalist tendencies to frame research as a means toward solutions to technical problems. We found ourselves creating a third space within the borderlands of our respective nations and cities in addition to the borders of our discipline and the methodological traditions of social science. We became “other,” increasingly aware of the dangers of being living proof of the fallacy of the material and ideological borders people construct and police. As Nepantleras we were disobedient; we let go into an epistemological freefall. We were supposed to “collect data” while engaging with the complex realities of day-to-day lives shaped by centuries of settler colonialism, racism, and oppression. We dialogued, observed, made notes, listened, photographed, and collected mementos, but we refused to refine or confine our “take withs” inside the Ivory Tower. We sought escape routes, dreaming of freedom, flowing like water, rushing through, seeping under, evaporating above and raining down upon borders that create so much pain. We moved with topographies of the current historical moment, reaching with our bodies and hearts, not only our minds, for that which we do not know. Our “research” is lifegiving, life-sustaining amidst local and global crises. This is our story.

This study presents a feminist, intersectional, and participatory methodology for co-producing knowledge with young women from marginalised communities. In intersecting global crises, such as social inequality, political instability, and gendered violence, qualitative researchers are called to engage collaboratively with those most affected by structural injustice. Grounded in feminist intersectional theory and inspired by Nancy Fraser’s notions of socioeconomic and symbolic injustice and misframing, this research situates methodological innovation as a vehicle for inquiry and transformation.

The study sought to understand how young women experience their encounters with the welfare system and social workers, and how participatory action research (PAR) can open dialogical and empowering spaces that reframe these relationships. Conducted in Israel, the project unfolded in three iterative phases: (1) in-depth interviews with 25 young women aged 18–29 from marginalized groups, exploring their lived experiences of distress and professional intervention; (2) collective analysis sessions in which participants discussed, refined, and reinterpreted the findings; and (3) participant-led initiatives that translated insights into social and professional action.

Methodologically, the research demonstrates four interrelated practices of participatory inquiry: (1) coalescing into a group, (2) fostering shared ownership of the research process and outcomes, (3) creating multiple centres of power and interpretation, and (4) cultivating interdependency as an ethical stance. These practices illustrate how PAR can bridge micro-level experiences with macro-level critique, producing actionable knowledge grounded in care, reflexivity, and solidarity.

This presentation contributes to global dialogues on feminist and participatory methodologies in challenging times. It offers an example of how action research can move beyond representation toward co-creation, reshaping the research encounter and social work practice.

Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, George Floyd. These are not just hashtags but actual people who have been sacrificed to maintain White supremacy. After every death, Black women have led the charge in fighting police brutality in the streets, often putting their lives on the line in the process. While Black women are often stereotyped as “strong,” they still have mental health needs that must be addressed (Brown & Keith, 2003). Their role as community leaders often results in feelings of isolation and exasperation as they are less likely to receive formal support (Atkins & Rollings, 1996) The confluence of race and gender presents a dynamic that must be explored in counseling (Heath, 2006). Using Womanism as an analytic lens, the authors intereviewed several Black women to understand their views on activism, mental health, and therapy. Two primary tenets of Womanism are using everyday people to solve problems and ending all forms of oppression (Lindsay-Dennis, 2015). While this may seem akin to Feminism, Womanism uses a lens that focuses on the social location of Black women, specifically. This allows for a full exploration of the issues of Black women outside of what has been deemed “Women’s issues” by White women (Taylor, 1998; Williams, 1989, pp. 181–182) Black Women activists align with those in their community to fight racial oppression as it presents itself in the system. This paper will present findings of this research and suggestions for practitioners regarding how to best work with this unique confluence of identities.

This presentation is based on ‘Breadline Utopias’, a research project exploring currents and futures of charitable food aid in Finland. Through individual interviews, workshops, and other facilitated events, the project seeks to facilitate more equal food futures for all. This visioning is done together with various stakeholders from the field: food aid recipients, higher education students, and a diversity of professionals working in the business of food waste, food surplus, or current charity economy in European (post-)welfare affluent society. Theoretically and methodologically, our study draws from utopias as a method (Levitas, 2013) rooted in everyday life (Cooper, 2013) and from utopias as a political imagination tool (Eskelinen et al., 2020). Thus, the focus here does not lie solely in the ‘utopias’, but rather in the facilitation of imagining that reaches beyond past and present. Following our theoretical-methodological roots, we see that the starting point for ‘utopianizing’ is both rooted in and shapes our everyday lives here and now. The utopian vision, then again, seeks to break through the boundaries of our experience-based ways of knowing. However, the process of reaching beyond the known and imagining a better future is often considered difficult and challenging (Salmenniemi et al., 2024). In this presentation, we explore opportunities and challenges of ‘utopianizing’ that we have faced in our empirical work with students vis-à-vis professionals. Through these explorations, we seek to develop in-depth understandings of ‘utopianizing’ as a process. Such understanding can help both researchers and practitioners to better engage and facilitate political imagination among varying groups of research participants and stakeholders.