Dr Ashlee Christoffersen (BA, MA, PhD)

Honorary Fellow

Biography

Background

I am an Adjunct Professor and PI, "Unequal Opportunities to Advance Equality?" at York University (Canada). I was an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh 2023-2026. Prior to completing my PhD, I held research and practitioner roles at the Equality Challenge Unit (now Advance HE), centred (a London-based LGBTQ community development organisation), the Trades Union Congress, and the Institute for Intersectionality Research and Policy, and Health Research and Methods Training Facility, at Simon Fraser University. 

Qualifications

I hold a BA in Political Science and Women’s Studies (Simon Fraser University, Canada), an MA in Gender Studies (SOAS, University of London), and a PhD in Social Policy (University of Edinburgh).

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Past PhD students supervised

Reid Arno, 'The Rejection of Anarchism in Black American Liberation Thought, 1954-1993', MSc Intellectual History (Completed)

Research summary

My research is concerned with the historic and contemporary operationalisation of the Black feminist theory of intersectionality in equality policy and practice: its influence and possibilities, as well as the discursive and material resistance it faces. I also have a particular interest in intersectional research methodology.

For more about my current research and consultancy, see https://drashleechristoffersen.com/

Research projects

1. As Research Fellow (2021-2023) and Honorary Fellow (2023-2026) on the inter- and multidisciplinary AHRC-funded project Gender equalities at work: an interdisciplinary history of 50 years of legislation (PI Prof. Louise Jackson), I explore how UK gender equality legislation was introduced, implemented and changed, in what contexts and with what consequences. I have a particular focus on the relationship between race equality and gender equality legislation, as well as the influence (and silencing) of Black and women of colour theory and activism and intersectionality. The project employs archival research and oral history interviews.

2. My PhD thesis The politics of intersectional practice: Representation, coalition and solidarity (European Consortium for Political Research Joni Lovenduski PhD Prize in Gender and Politics 2021, SPS Outstanding Thesis Award 2020) was based on the first empirical study internationally to explore how both practitioners and policy makers themselves understand how to operationalise ‘intersectionality’, and first in-depth exploration of intersectionality’s applications in the UK. My fieldwork was conducted with three networks of equality organisations (racial justice, feminist, disability rights, LGBTI rights, refugee organisations, and intersectional combinations) in cities in England and Scotland, through case studies employing interviews, focus groups, participant observation and documentary analysis. My PhD was funded by an ESRC studentship.

I developed a typology of five competing concepts of intersectionality circulating in UK third sector equality organising and policy, each with different implications for intersectionally marginalised groups and intersectional justice. Competing concepts are at the heart of the politics of who does intersectionality, and how. The Intersectionality in Practice website shares a report, animation and videos from this project. 

Watch a video of findings presented to the First Minister of Scotland’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls Circle here.

View videos and slides of the cross-sector Equality and Intersectionality conference (2019) I organised with Leah McCabe, Cat Wayland and the Equality Network here. (SGSSS Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Competition 2020, Shortlist).

 

For an up to date list of my publications, please see my Google Scholar profile ‪Ashlee Christoffersen‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬

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