Intersectionality and kyriarchy: A framework for approaching power and social justice in planning and climate change adaptation

Abstract

To better understand injustice in our cities, and to understand how vulnerability to impacts of climate change is constructed, scholars have noted that we need to incorporate multiple factors that shape identity and power in our analyses, including race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. Less widely acknowledged is the intersectionality of these factors; that specific combinations of factors shape their own social position and thus affect experiences of power, oppression and vulnerability. To address emerging issues like climate change, it is vital to find a way to understand and approach multiple, intersecting axes of identity that shape how impacts will be distributed and experienced. This article introduces intersectionality, a concept for understanding multiple, co-constituting axes of difference and identity, and kyriarchy, a theory of power that describes the power structures intersectionality produces, and offers researchers a fresh way of approaching the interactions of power in planning research and practice.