Pitfalls and Promises of an Intercategorical Intersectional Analysis for Identifying Invisible Bangladeshi Women Experiencing Male Intimate Partner Physical Violence

Abstract

Intersectionality, a critical social theory, is no longer a buzzword. However, this theory is yet to reach its full potential, mostly because the methods of intersectional analysis are still in a flux. Luckily, Leslie McCall’s intercategorical intersectional approach has allowed quantitative researchers to get into the weeds of this complex theory. In my doctoral dissertation project, I have used McCall’s intercategorical intersectional approach to explicate Bangladeshi currently married women’s dual locations in intersections of their four individual-level locations—age, education, income, and poverty—on their experiencing male intimate partner physical violence. This method, thus, allowed me to use existing social categories to unpack women’s different invisible intersectional locations. The hardest part was, then, to connect these locations to social structures that produce and sustain them. In this case study, I engage in a dialogue with readers to show them the pitfalls that I overcame in analyzing a secondary data set, then the steps that I took to analyze the data, and finally, the dots that I connected between these locations and social structures. This journey, ultimately, led me to finding the promises of using an intersectional lens by making the invisible intersectional locations visible to the center.

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