Beyond the Sole Category of Race: Using a CRT Intersectional Framework to Map Identity Projects

Abstract

Using student narratives, we argue for a heuristic tool, the identity project, claiming that identity projects are artifacts of identity as both process and category. Identity projects can offer teachers, researchers, and students insights into socio-historical structures and contexts and the individual's existential relationship to these contexts. Kimberlé Crenshaw's Critical Race Theory (CRT) intersectional framework allows us to map the terrain of identity projects. Identity projects may incorporate features of CRT counterstories, but they also act as context

stories, reinscribing oppressive discourses. Understanding identity projects serves research and practice by invigorating critical multiculturalism and by opening spaces for affirmation, solidarity, and critique.

About the Authors

Nikola Hobbel serves as Assistant Professor of English Education at Humboldt State University in Northern California. She researches literacies, multicultural teacher education, and the standards movement.

Thandeka K. Chapman is an Associate Professor in Urban Education at UW-Milwaukee. Her research interests include desegregation policy outcomes, multicultural education curricula, and charter schools in urban districts.