Situated Intersectionality and Social Inequality

In this article1 I introduce and discuss some of the ways situated intersectional analysis can help to describe – and even explain – different kinds of social, economic, political and personal inequalities. As I have been working on intersectionality for many years – both before and after the issues discussed under this term were to be so labelled, I shall focus primarily on my own version rather than conduct a review of the literature. The paper starts by discussing the ways sociological studies traditionally describe inequality focusing on issues of class. It then introduces intersectionality as a theoretical framework that can encompass different kinds of inequalities, simultaneously (ontologically), but enmeshed (concretely). The latter part of the article examines the ways different kinds of systemic domains provide multiple grounds for the production and reproduction of these inequalities. (1An earlier version of this paper was presented at an ISA plenary in Yokohama, Summer 2014.)

The Creative Unconscious and the Pictorial Sign

Within The Creative Unconscious and Pictorial Sign I explore the dialogue that exists between social language and personal expression to understand how creativity is mediated. I consider how the involuntary inventiveness of artistic creativity and the structuring function of language come to negotiate what artists can experience and represent. My Doctoral practice attempts to question the influence of orthodox postmodernist views and allow sensual and direct experiences to be located within improvisation and spontaneous approaches to image making. I ask if it is possible for a humanistic and psychological interpretation of creativity to move beyond the copy and quotation that some postmodern theories of simulation and the hyperreal advance; but to retain the communicative function of visual expression and the model of a social form of signification instead of naïvely promoting unintelligible and personal languages.