Contingent Intersectionality and Politics of the Possible

Abstract

Mainstream feminist movements in India are confronting questions around the feasibility of the category “woman” as a subject of feminist politics. Among the most vibrant and radicalizing critiques around the intersections of caste and gender have been the interventions of Dalit feminists, who have argued that the feminist conceptualization of gender in India has not reckoned with the foundational role of caste adequately, leading to an impasse in movement activism. While this critique is relevant even today, almost thirty years after it was first articulated, the author argues that there are discernible shifts in the field of feminist organizing, particularly left feminist organizing. By documenting, contextualizing, and analyzing the political actions and coalitions of a leftist feminist organization in a particular regional political field with vibrant histories of anti-caste politics, the author argues for a politics of the possible, which works with contingent intersectionality as a way of thinking beyond the impasse. The article foregrounds the importance of the region as analytical axis in doing so, which allows us to think of movements not as having succeeded or “arrived” at correct positionalities, but in a more fundamental sense as “movement” in terms of flows, progressions, and hope.