Intersectionality’s contestations – deepening engagement within the field

In Disability and the Problem of Lazy Intersectionality, Watermeyer and Swartz attempt to address the growing incorporation of intersectionality within the field of disability studies. Yet, Watermeyer and Swartz’s critique feeds into the very issues they seek to refute, including through centring disability above the interlocking systems of power that intersectionality necessitates. In this paper, we engage with their core arguments, illustrating their critical limitations. We conclude by suggesting that only foregrounding disability, as the authors propose, legitimises the non-reflexive co-optation of Black politicised epistemic strategies of justice for global disability scholars and lends other categories of analysis to erasure.