What happens to people when they live these structures and institutions? There’s a level that cuts across them all – classification of people. Histories of inequality create the classificatory systems of race, gender, class and sexuality that we live in the present.  They the interests of those with power (e.g. theories of eugenics and racism, madness and misogyny, sexuality and contagion). These classifications coalesce: we know how racism and misogyny manifest through institutionalisation (being built into the organisation of) the police system in the US and UK. They kill people. We see the same extreme consequences through sexuality hate crime which is also the result of histories of legal person classification, where some groups of people are de-legitimated (not recognised in law) and in the case of lesbians and gay in history are made illegal. In many places in the world homosexuality and trans is illegal. My ethnographic and media research show how important representations – of classifications – are in the way people understand the value of themselves and others and how they inhabit the category. If you are surrounded by negative representations of who you are this will affect your whole identity. I’d always add a layer of representation into any analysis which aims to understand inequality. Representation mediates the effects of structures and institutions. But rarely is this straightforward: class, race, gender and sexuality both constitute and disrupt each other, over space and over time. Hence the debates about intersectionality as a nexus of power and powerlessness. But we must remember that things do change. The value and legitimacy that is attached to classifications can change over time eg Black is beautiful, Black lives matter, We’re here we’re Queer etc.

Beverly Skeggs, 2024