Intersectionality and Comparative Antidiscrimination Law: The Tale of Two Citadels (Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law)

This volume in the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law addresses intersectionality from the lens of comparative antidiscrimination law. The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. As a field, intersectionality has a longer history, of nearly two hundred years. Meanwhile, comparative antidiscrimination law as a field may be just over a few decades old. Thus, intersectionality’s tryst with antidiscrimination law is a fairly recent one. Developed as a critique of antidiscrimination law, intersectionality has had a significant influence on it. Yet, intersectionality’s logic does not seem to have infiltrated the logic of antidiscrimination law completely. Comparative antidiscrimination law continues to develop with intersectionality in sight, but rarely, in step. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Crenshaw’s seminal article that coined the term in the context of antidiscrimination law, Shreya Atrey explores this irony. Her article provides a meta-narrative of the development of the two fields with the purpose of showing what appear to be orthogonal trajectories.

Shreya Atrey is an Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law at the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law, at the University of Oxford. Her research is on discrimination law, feminist theory, poverty and disability law. Previously, she was based at the University of Bristol Law School (2017–19) where she taught on Constitutional Rights, Public Law and International Human Rights Law courses. She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence in 2016–17 and a Hauser Postdoctoral Global Fellow at the NYU School of Law, New York in 2015–16. She completed BCL with distinction and DPhil in Law on the Rhodes Scholarship from Magdalen College, University of Oxford. She has served as the Chairperson of the Oxford Pro Bono Publico (2013–14) and is currently an associate member of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. Shreya is also an Official Fellow of Kellogg College and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.