A Methodological Strategy for Exploring Intersecting Inequalities: An Example from Sweden

Abstract

Susanna Öhman – PhD, Associate professor in Sociology, Risk and Crisis Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, Sweden. Email: susanna.ohman@miun.se

Anna Olofsson – PhD, Professor in Sociology, Risk and Crisis Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, Sweden. Email: anna.olofsson@miun.se

Katarina Giritli Nygren – PhD, Associate professor in Sociology, Forum for Gender Studies, Mid Sweden University, Sweden. Email: Katarina.giritli-nygren@miun.se

The article explores the complex patterns of inequality in Sweden from an intersectional standpoint by developing a methodological strategy using data from quantitative national survey material. Intersectionality stands in contrast to the inductive and hypothesis-testing approaches, which tend to reproduce categories as having an essential and stable meaning. It is generally acknowledged that quantitative approaches to intersectionality are rare or in development. Quantitative analyses tend to disregard some of the theoretical cornerstones of intersectionality: in particular, the relational and fluid character of categories. This may be why intersectionality researchers tend to reject quantitative approaches altogether. To address this dilemma, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) is applied as a means of linking objective structures to subjective experiences, and it is argued that this methodology is well suited to detecting and capturing social spaces of privilege and oppression. The result shows that this kind of quantitative approach to intersectional analysis can facilitate the exploration of inequalities and positions of privilege across populations and globally at particular times, as well as contributing to ontological and epistemological perspectives on intersectionality. By exploring what the category is said to describe and how these parts relate to other sub-categories, especially about time and place settings and their intersections, we were able to identify relationships between structures of oppression and subjective experiences at a particular time and in a particular place, which is important in understanding both inequalities and positions of privilege. These analyses not only illuminate the hegemonic structures of power that create subordinated and privileged positions but also help us to theorize the non-linear and stochastic relations between and within these positions. This methodological advance also has important implications for social policy.