Whisker's 'Mapping The Margins'

Nestled at the feet of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, those symbolic pillars of industry and colonialism, the Resort Municipality of Whistler is indebted to an entrenched whiteness and masculinity that structures the town, its citizens, and its history. I grew up, like most white Canadians, entirely oblivious of my posture as a settler on this land that I called home. Specifically, I had no knowledge of the indigenous histories and bodies erased by my presence; I knew nothing of the Líl̓wat and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) peoples displaced and disenfranchised so that I could live comfortably in the mountains, in whiteness. While I was attending elementary school, portrayals of Whistler’s history were markedly reliant on depictions of and pride …show more content…
In “Mapping the Margins,” Crenshaw provides insight into the intersecting identities and experiences of marginal women—namely women of colour, poor women, immigrant women, and undocumented women, among others—stressing the reciprocal ways in which these social positions interact with and shape one another. Although not explicitly stated, these concepts of intersectionality are also well-suited to map identities of power, particularly to help understand and abolish the power and authority assumed by white women through our whiteness. It is only in an examination of these multiple, contextual, and dynamic points of intersection that the complete realities of social hierarchy may be observed and …show more content…
Collins argues that “intersectionality faces a particular definitional dilemma—it participates in the very power relations that it seeks to examine” (2015, p. 3). Essentially, Collins is referring to the paradox of analyzing relationships between knowledge and power within conditions that undoubtedly “reflect and reproduce the power relations that house [those relationships]” (2015, p. 3). In institutions like UBC, attempts to foster inclusive, intersectional feminist scholarship along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class are crucial; however, those inclusions must also undertake an intimate and radical confrontation of whiteness—not only as an identity of power, but also as it interacts with marginal identities—in order to fully resign white supremacy and its reaches in the academy. Further, any interpretation of whiteness through the lens of intersectionality must only be pursued insofar as it advances the abolition of whiteness (Ignatiev). As I live and work, learn and unlearn in violence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, an active commitment to the eradication of whiteness should underpin and drive all of those