Representing the intersection in France and America: theories of intersectionality meet social science

Forged in the United States in the 1980s, the notion of intersectionality sought to provide an umbrella term for the strategic and identity dilemmas faced by categories of persons suffering from combined forms of domination. This article retraces the comparative genealogy of the notion in the United States and in France since the 1970s, and describes how its appropriation in social scientific inquiry allowed the reformulation of what were normative problems specific to the politico-juridical sphere into principles of empirical investigation. Increasingly used in France since the mid-2000s, the notion of intersectionality has led to the exploration of new objects and the development of new research agendas, especially within political science.