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Convenor(s): Barbara Giovanna Bello (Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo); Luisa De Vita (Sapienza, Italy); Alessandra Romano (Università di Siena)
Presentation 2
Operationalising Intersectionality through Transdisciplinary Research: Methodological Reflections from the INTERGEN Project
Mariella Nocenzi1, Raffaella Monia Calia2
1: LUMSA University of Rome, Italy; 2: Sapienza University of Rome
Intersectionality is widely recognised as a key framework for analysing complex and overlapping inequalities, yet its methodological operationalisation in educational and organisational research remains contested. This paper contributes to the debate on intersectional methodologies by reflecting on the transdisciplinary research design developed within the INTERGEN project, funded under the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which focuses on women’s empowerment and sustainable entrepreneurship in marginal and inner areas. Using the INTERGEN Transdisciplinarity Report as a reflexive case study, the paper conceptualises intersectionality not as a predefined set of additive categories, but as a relational and situated analytical process. Gender, generation, territorial marginality, socio-economic conditions, and - where empirically relevant - migration background and care responsibilities are treated as intersecting axes whose salience emerges through the research process rather than being hierarchically fixed ex ante. This approach requires a transdisciplinary framework capable of integrating sociological, gender, economic, territorial and policy-oriented knowledge with experiential and practice-based forms of expertise. Methodologically, INTERGEN combines multiple, interdependent tools: (1) the mapping and analysis of good practices, conceptualised as situated learning environments in which organisational, educational and community-based knowledge intersect; (2) a Delphi study involving scholars, practitioners and institutional actors, explicitly designed to surface disagreements, policy blind spots and divergent positionalities rather than forcing artificial consensus; and (3) participatory co-design and co-creation processes with women and local stakeholders. Intersectionality is operationalised through iterative analytical strategies, including reflexive positionality work, cross-dimensional analytical matrices and feedback loops with participants, aimed at avoiding essentialisation and tokenistic representations. The paper discusses key methodological and ethical dilemmas encountered in the research process, such as power asymmetries between academic and non-academic actors, the tension between contextual specificity and transferability of practices, and the risk of flattening diversity through policy-driven categories. From an educational perspective, INTERGEN conceptualises learning not merely as skills acquisition, but as a democratic process of mutual recognition, translation and reflexivity across different forms of knowledge and levels of governance. By linking intersectionality and transdisciplinarity, the paper argues that methodological pluralism is not a neutral technical choice but a democratic one. Intersectional transdisciplinary research can function as a form of learning democracy, fostering epistemic justice in knowledge production, while simultaneously supporting democracy for learning by informing more inclusive, context- sensitive educational and organisational practices. The INTERGEN experience thus offers transferable methodological insights for researchers seeking to operationalise intersectionality in rigorous, reflexive and socially transformative ways.
