Bordering, belonging, beyond surviving: Critical readings of intersectionality in the nexus of gender-based violence and migration in Ireland

In this article, we examine the experiences of migrant women attempting to settle into Ireland as a host society, while navigating various forms of gender-based violence (GBV). It is based on the Irish study of an international research project to analyse, from an intersectional perspective, the causes of and effective policy responses to GBV against women migrants and refugees. Specifically, this project aimed to understand what factors increase migrant women's exposure to GBV and what resources are available to them in Ireland to access the supports they need to survive and recover on their own terms. Our analysis is informed by critical readings and deployments of intersectionality, notably the concepts of ‘situated intersectionality' (Yuval-Davis) and ‘decolonial feminism' (Lugones). We affirm the value of intersectionality as a critical analytical approach to reveal and challenge inequalities at the intersections of identity categories. We also recognise that contrary to the hoped for transformative impact of the concept of intersectionality, in its mainstream applications, it tends to reconstitute the ‘otherness' of ‘women of colour' in particular (Puar), who are rendered into ‘fragmented beings' without agency (Lugones) or a sense of belonging to any category. Taking account of these and other critiques, we adapt a situated intersectionality approach, along lines elaborated by Nira Yuval-Davis as ‘the development of feminist standpoint theory', which centres migrant women’s perspectives and experiences.