Thinking Intersectionally about State Power and Resistance in the Breddon Women’s Center in England

Abstract While intersectional theorizing has been embraced by feminist and social science literature, it has fared less successfully within British criminology, where some have critiqued the discipline for failing to engage robustly with race. Responding to this gap and drawing on ethnographic research based in a women’s center in England, the Breddon Center, this article finds that the Breddon Center conceptualized clients predominantly as (white) victims of male oppression and centers race as an important factor shaping the Center’s care work. Further, this article links the Center’s white feminist lens to its close working relationship with the criminal legal system and argues that the Center’s care work was influenced by these larger macrostructures. As such, through a study of the operation of state power in the Breddon Center, this article contributes to building robust intersectional analyses within the field of British criminology.