aph ko’s critique of intersectionality frameworks as critical mixed race studies

At the 2024 Critical Mixed Race Studies Association Conference at The Ohio State University (June 13-15, 2024), I organized and facilitated an exploratory workshop and “think-together” space:

Aph Ko’s Critique of Intersectionality Frameworks as Critical Mixed Race Studies

This generative conversation space will consider Multidimensional Liberation Theory (a concept discussed by writer and animality/critical race theorist Aph Ko) and collectively explore it in the context of Critical Mixed Race Studies. As introduced in her book Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (2019), Ko argues that intersectionality frameworks reaffirm colonized categorical thinking as precursor to solidarity-building. Informed by Black radical thinking, feminist analysis, and the mutually constitutive relationship between interspecies oppression and white supremacy, Ko asks activists to examine how their own understanding of social categories shapes progressive social movements. We’ll explore: How can this theory be useful and kindred to Critical Mixed Race Studies, especially if we are to understand our work as disruptive to dominant conceptions of race? How can we consider questions of animality and multispecies oppression to provoke and lovingly critique our explorations of racialization and racism?