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23 Wis. J. L. Gender, & Soc'y 249 (2008)
Intersectionality and Posthumanist Visions of Equality

handle is hein.journals/wiswo23 and id is 255 raw text is: INTERSECTIONALITY AND POSTHUMANIST VISIONS OF EQUALITY Maneesha Deckha* PART I. INTRODUCTION The turn toward intersectionality has spread across critical theory scholarship in a relatively short amount of time.' While the practical challenges of implementing intersectionality persist, the theoretical commitment to recognizing how multiple axes of differences coalesce to shape human experiences of injustice (and otherwise) is well established in feminist legal theory and other critical thinking.2 Critiques of intersectionality today center not so much on resisting calls for inclusion of marginalized experiences and subaltern identities, but on exploring possible limitations of the theory to fully understand differences and their operation.3 With this paper, I seek to add to these discussions by excavating a difference that is still only marginally discussed in critical theory and infrequently included when intersectionality is discussed.4 The difference is species. Our identities and experiences are not just gendered or racialized, but are also determined by our species status and the fact that we are culturally marked as human. More importantly - and this is the point I wish to stress - experiences of gender, race, sexuality, ability, etc., are often based on and take shape through speciesist ideas of humanness vis-A-vis animality. Elsewhere, I have discussed the salience of species difference for feminist theory in a paper of the same title.' There, drawing on the formative work of * Maneesha Deckha, Associate Professor, University of Victoria Faculty of Law. I would like to thank Rashida Usman for research assistance and the University of Victoria for research support. 1. Kathy Davis, Intersectionality as Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes A Feminist Theory Successful, 9 FEMINIST THEORY 67, 67-68 (2008); Ange- Marie Hancock, Intersectionality, Multiple Messages, and Complex Causality: Commentary on Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins, 9 STUD. GENDER & SEXUALITY 14, 15-16 (2008). 2. Laura Gillman, Beyond the Shadow: Re-scripting Race in Women's Studies, 7 MERIDIANS 117, 118-20 (2007). See generally Devon W. Carbado & Mitu Gulati, The Fifth Black Woman, 11 J. CONTEMP. LEGAL ISSUES 701 (2001) (discussing the concept of intersectionality). 3. Carbado & Gulati, supra note 2, at 703. 4. ZOONTOLOGIES: THE QUESTION OF THE ANIMAL I (Cary Wolfe ed., 2003). 5. Maneesha Deckha, The Salience of Species Difference for Feminist Theory, 17 HASTINGS WOMEN'S L.J. 1 (2006).

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