The Possibilities and Constraints for Intersectional Practice in Gender Budgeting Activism

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how gender budgeting (GB) activists in the United Kingdom have sought to practice intersectionality. It draws on Black feminists’ critiques of white feminists’ tendency to deploy intersectionality as a “cooled out buzz word” that relies on modernist, Western feminist epistemology. Results highlight the limitations of modernist positivist epistemologies, which are often used in economic policy and GB, and the importance of knowledge creation practices and explicit engagement with white women’s privilege in intersectional practice. These findings aim to inform European feminists’ responses to Black feminists’ critiques.