Intersectionality in Knowledge Organization Revisited

Identity characteristics such as race, gender, class, national origin, and disability status mutually construct each other and thus cannot be separated orcompartmentalized. This multidimensional system of interconnected oppression is known as intersectionality. Intersectionality, because it relates to thecategorization of human groups, is of great concern to knowledge organization and more broadly to Library and Information Science. Although the recognition ofthese multiple oppressions enriches a sense of inclusivity of marginalized populations, they still end up perpetuating some problems endemic to thecategorization of groups of people: essentialism, the shifting boundaries of social groups, the definition groups as a whole, and identity versus biology (manifestedin the knowledge organization literature as the minoritization vs. universalization debate). Knowledge uniquely realizes intersectionality through subject headingsand classification. Because of the principle of mutual exclusivity, classification treats intersectional oppressions additively rather than transformatively.According to research these questions can be addressed from the categorical level or from the structural level, which requires different theoretical mindsets and canyield different results. In any case, the space for intersectional identities must be examined to ensure further oppression does not occur.