Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Intersectional Vulnerabilities and the Banality of Harm: The Dangerous Desires of Women of Color Activists
Prof. Akwugo Emejulu examines how 'intersectional vulnerabilities' are experienced and made sense of by women of color activists in Europe. She names intersectional vulnerabilities as a broad, sometimes contradictory, set of emotions, all tied to activists’ complex experiences of insecurity and community. Intersectional vulnerabilities are those risks and rewards, derived from women of color activists’ positioning in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and legal status, which shape the possibilities of women of color’s activist labor. These vulnerabilities are Janus-faced, in that they are experienced as social harms that oftentimes lead to community. Prof. Emejulu attempts to grapple with the bittersweetness of vulnerability and how the banality of harms meted out to women of color nevertheless contains the seeds of resistance, solidarity and self-love.
Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and women of color's grassroots activism in Europe and the United States. She is the author of several books including Fugitive Feminism (Silver Press, forthcoming) and Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (Policy Press, 2017). She is co-editor of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019).
This lecture series is jointly curated by faculty involved in Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice, a new project that offers a sustainable platform for students and professors from OSUN colleges to engage in rigorous academic work, express themselves freely, inspire each other through art, and work closely with local and international initiatives to further the feminist agenda for social justice.
Intersectional Vulnerabilities and the Banality of Harm: The Dangerous Desires of Women of Color Activists
Prof. Akwugo Emejulu examines how 'intersectional vulnerabilities' are experienced and made sense of by women of color activists in Europe. She names intersectional vulnerabilities as a broad, sometimes contradictory, set of emotions, all tied to activists’ complex experiences of insecurity and community. Intersectional vulnerabilities are those risks and rewards, derived from women of color activists’ positioning in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and legal status, which shape the possibilities of women of color’s activist labor. These vulnerabilities are Janus-faced, in that they are experienced as social harms that oftentimes lead to community. Prof. Emejulu attempts to grapple with the bittersweetness of vulnerability and how the banality of harms meted out to women of color nevertheless contains the seeds of resistance, solidarity and self-love.
Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and women of color's grassroots activism in Europe and the United States. She is the author of several books including Fugitive Feminism (Silver Press, forthcoming) and Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (Policy Press, 2017). She is co-editor of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019).
This lecture series is jointly curated by faculty involved in Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice, a new project that offers a sustainable platform for students and professors from OSUN colleges to engage in rigorous academic work, express themselves freely, inspire each other through art, and work closely with local and international initiatives to further the feminist agenda for social justice.
