Race, Gender, and Violence

In this introduction to the Special Issue on Race, Gender, and Violence, we go back to the roots of intersectionality and foreground an intersectional lens in our examination of violence against women and non-binary people of color. We argue that it is important to address the persistent “epistemic violence” resultant from silencing the most marginal, by featuring works that call attention to and examine violence against groups subjected to the “interlocking oppressions” of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The articles in the Special Issue re-directs the sociological analysis of violence to foreground scholarship that engages in the gendered and racial appraisal of violence. Studies included in the issue also foreground sexuality, which has largely been neglected in the intersectional analysis of violence. In so doing, we nod to both the past and the future of intersectionality in studies of violence.