We Aren't the World: Intersectional Symbolic Boundaries in a Black Evangelical Women's Group

Abstract: Religion is a key institution through which Black women can make sense of their intersecting identities in community. One way that collective identity formation takes place in religious spaces is through the construction and negotiation of symbolic boundaries. Using eighteen months of participant observation in a Black evangelical women's group, this article examines how a specific symbolic boundary, "us versus the world," is constructed in interaction to help the group make sense of their collective, intersectional identity. Because a symbolic boundary takes on different contextual meanings, it creates bonds within the group that buffer against oppression in some ways, while reifying it in others. By examining this process, the author addresses a previously noted ambiguity in the literature on intersectionality: the link between identity and oppression. From these findings, she argues that forming an intersectional collective identity generates complex responses to systemic oppression, through symbolic boundaries with multiple, contextual meanings. This opens the door for future intersectional research to examine how this complex link between collective identity and oppression operates at different levels of society.