Shortlisted for the 2020 Deutscher Prize
What does the development of a truly robust contemporary theory of domination require? A. J. Bohrer argues that it is only by considering all of the dimensions of race, gender, sexuality, and ability within the structures of capitalism and imperialism that we can understand power relations as we find them nowadays. Bohrer explains how many of the purported incompatibilities between Marxism and intersectionality arise more from miscommunication rather than a fundamental conceptual antagonism. As the first monograph entirely devoted to this issue, Marxism and Intersectionality serves as a tool for activists and academics working against multiple systems of domination, exploitation, and oppression.
What people are saying.
“In a world of multiple and in some cases worsening oppressions, the challenge of understanding—and strategizing how best to overcome—social domination and social injustice has become more acute than ever. Ashley Bohrer’s striking intervention in current debates, informed not merely by an impressive familiarity with multiple literatures but her deep engagement with activist communities, makes a boldly contrarian case for the reconciliation of Marxism and intersectionality theory. Whatever side you are on in this debate, this is a book very much worth reading.”
— Charles W. Mills, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, The CUNY Graduate Center, author of The Racial Contract
“This is a necessary and crucial intellectual and political intervention that will change the terms of Left conversation.”
— Jennifer C. Nash, Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Duke University, author of Black Feminism Reimagined
“In this highly readable book, Ashley Bohrer brings two critical formations that have often —despite their obvious and historic overlaps—been opposed to one another. Arguing that Marxism and intersectionality must be thought together, Bohrer’s book carefully demonstrates that any plan aimed at real and holistic social transformation must hold both traditions in critical awareness.”
— Roderick Ferguson, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies, Yale University, author of Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique
“Putting to rest caricatures of 'identity politics' and reductionist views of power, Bohrer demonstrates how thoroughly race, gender, and sexuality permeate capitalist exploitation and oppression.”
— Iyko Day, Associate Professor of English, Mt. Holyoke College, author of Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism
Reviews of Marxism and Intersectionality
Sandro Mezzadra in Euronomade
“Bohrer rilegge la “tradizione intersezionale” dal punto di vista delle critiche che le sono state rivolte dal marxismo, accogliendone alcune ma soprattutto proponendo una lettura in chiave intersezionale di essenziali categorie marxiane. Più in generale, il libro è sostenuto da una forte tensione politica, che conduce l’autrice a riformulare in modo molto interessante nell’ultimo capitolo i principi di fondo di una politica della solidarietà e della coalizione.”
Peter Drucker in Rampant Magazine
“Ashley Bohrer’s Marxism and Intersectionality is indispensable reading for socialists trying to understand how class, race and gender mesh.”
Read the full review and Neila Sanco’s translation into Portuguese
Jules Joanne Gleeson in The New Socialist
“Marxism and Intersectionality serves as a groundbreaking and regrettably unprecedented critical examination of two traditions which are often all too crudely cast as competing rivals. Marxism and Intersectionality is commendable both for its legwork compiling a much wider range of scholarship than any one book would usually allow, and carefully demonstrating the commensurate features without dismissing differences.”
Jesse McLaren in Monthly Review and Spring Magazine
“Fortunately there is now a rising level of struggle. There are movements, from Black Lives Matter to climate justice and decent work, using intersectional frameworks to centre those who are multiply oppressed and exploited. And there is a renewed interest in socialist politics that can address economic exploitation, multiple oppressions and the climate crisis. The current context offers the opportunity to rediscover intersectional politics applied to class struggle, and Marxism rooted in anti-oppression. Marxism and Intersectionality provides a helpful guide for the ongoing dialogue that can build movements of solidarity by bringing these two traditions back into convergence.”
Read the full article in Monthly Review and Spring Magazine
Elizabeth Kovacs in Kult
“Bohrer ambitiously maps – through detailed historical and nuanced theoretical analyses – how seeming incompatibilities and critiques are more often than not erroneous, based on overly simplistic understandings of and miscommunications between sides. She pinpoints the ways in which these two traditions can be mobilized to work towards their shared ultimate aim of overthrowing oppressive and exploitative structures of racism, sexism, classism, and sexual discrimination under capitalism.”
Read the full article in Kult
Christian Lotz at the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books and Revista Filosofia Costa Rica
“Bohrer’s book achieves the impossible, insofar as it considers a vast amount of contemporary literature on Marxism, intersectionality and the relation between the two….Bohrer’s book is an impeccable achievement in terms of clarity and complexity that should be read by everyone interested in the relation between Marxism and intersectional theorizing”
Read the full review and the Spanish translation.
Guy Lancaster in Capital & Class
“Thus is a book like Bohrer’s Marxism and Intersectionality desperately needed at this moment. She expertly cuts through the accumulated caricature and stereotype of both traditions, going back to their roots to demonstrate their shared worlds of concern and tracing their histories to illustrate how these traditions have evolved, through praxis, more closely to each other than some of their respective diehard adherents would care to believe. And likewise, she offers a guide to going forward, one that may well reframe the conversations and debates we will be having in the future”
Stephen Campbell in Dialectical Anthropology
“[Marxism and Intersectionality] make[s] important contributions to pushing Marxist debates beyond a dichotomizing critique of intersectionality theory.”
Carlos L. Garrido in Midwestern Marx and The Hampton Institute.
“Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and Intersectionality are incompatible”
Read the full review in Midwestern Marx and The Hampton Institute.
Susan Ferguson in Critical Social Policy.
“The Left has needed this book for a while now….Bohrer does a huge service in distilling a wide-ranging corpus of non-reductive, radical critique in each tradition with exceptionally clear and engaged prose. Her contribution performs, therefore, a valuable service for those seeking to deepen critical social policy analysis. By laying to rest the weak criticisms issuing from both the Marxist and Intersectionality camps, she more than proves her point that the traditions have much to talk about and would benefit from a more respectful and productive dialogue”
Read the full review in Critical Social Policy.
Hester Eisenstein in Science and Society.
“I cannot do justice in a brief review to the richness, complexity and sophistication of this analysis. Bohrer has read everything on this subject! And the attention she brings to so many different philosophical concepts (such as dialectics, for example) is dazzling.”
Read the full review in Science and Society.
Josefina L. Martínez for Revolution Permenante.
“Le livre de Bohrer…a le mérite de mettre en perspective intersectionnalité et marxisme, en soulignant plusieurs points de convergence et de divergence.”
Read the full review in Revolution Permenante (in French).
Jean-Pierre Reed and Carlos Garrido for Critical Sociology.
“Ashley Bohrer’s Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism attempts rather successfully to overcome the chasm between these two key critical modes of theorizing that are often stereotyped as being, if not incompatible, incongruous to each other….Marxism and Intersectionality is a long overdue book”
Read the full review in Critical Sociology.
Janneke Toonders for Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy.
“Marxism and Intersectionality provides an insightful and varied overview of texts, concepts, and thinkers…Bohrer accurately examines the two traditions, and successfully undermines a number of caricatures, which certainly invites further discussion. In doing so the book succeeds in clearing a path that begins to move beyond the stalemate”
Read the full review in Krisis.
Arnaud Theurillat-Cloutier for Innovation Sociale
“En général, cet ouvrage a le grand mérite de clarifier les positions respectives en faisant de l’ordre dans les arguments valables et fallacieux des deux côtés, à partir d’une littérature vaste et très variée. Sa générosité herméneutique en fait un ouvrage rigoureux d’un point de vue intellectuel et donne au lectorat un accès direct et précis aux principales idées en jeu. Il a également l’avantage de faire ressortir la complexité et la diversité des positions qui animent les deux traditions, en évitant de les réduire à leur version caricaturale.”
Read the full review in Innovation Sociale (in French).
Ollie Douglas for Weekly Worker UK
“[Marxism and Intersectionality] does provide an extremely useful footing for a Marxist critique of intersectionality and modern identity politics”
Read the full review in Weekly Worker UK.