‘Guilty as charged’: Intersectionality and accountability in lay talk on discrimination and violence

Abstract

AbstractAlthough intersectionality is gaining ground in social psychological research, most approaches fail to capture the historically and interactionally contingent nature of intersecting identities and the implications of their mobilization. This study, aiming at addressing this lacuna, focuses on the intersection of identities as lay actors' resource, used to account for the murder of Zak Kostopoulos, a young LGBTQI+ activist in Greece. Data are derived from 4 focus group discussions in which 25 young people, aged between 19 and 25 years old, participated. Using concepts provided by discursive/rhetorical psychology, analysis indicated that the rhetorical occasioning of intersecting identities is oriented to social accountability concerns and accomplishes important positioning work for the speakers. Specifically, by underscoring the intersecting (sexual/class) identities of the victim, speakers accentuated the moral charge against the perpetrators, distancing themselves from the (constructed as prototypically Greek) image of the un‐enlightened and servile bigot. However, although participants explained ZK's murder through recourse to his intersecting identities, they grounded claims for justice on a common human identity (independent of class and sexuality). Findings are discussed in relation to the need to advance a critical agenda for social psychology research on intersectionality and to processes of ideological reproduction in the context of LGBTQΙ+ politics.