Exploring Intersectional Perspectives with the Documentary Method

1 Introduction

In this paper, we consider refugees separated from their families due to forced migration from the Global South to countries in the Global North (here France). Employing an intersectional approach (Crenshaw 1989; Brah/Phoenix 2004; Lutz 2015), we explore the hierarchies between refugees who seek to bring their family members over and state institutions that regulate family reunification. For this purpose, we draw on narrative interviews (Schütze 1983) with refugee applicants for family reunification and apply the documentary method for data evaluation (Bohnsack 2014; Nohl 2017). In doing so, we want to capture how refugees perceive their interactions with state officials and manage the administrative requirements while navigating the family reunification procedure. Our research examines how axes of inequalities — such as class, ‘race’, citizenship, legal status, and gender — potentially affect the risk of being disadvantaged or even excluded regarding access to family reunification. In our project’s larger scope, we conceive of intersectionality as both theory and method. This article, however, concentrates on intersectionality as a method and considers critically how it can be combined fruitfully with the documentary method.

We seek to contribute to the extant literature on intersectionality and the documentary method (Cremers 2020; Hilscher/Springsgut/Theuerl 2020; Hilscher 2024; Springsgut 2021) by focusing on the potentiality inherent in comparative analysis. The latter is a crucial step in data evaluation based on the documentary method (Bohnsack 2013). It is also widely used in qualitative social research, among others, in grounded theory approaches (Glaser/Strauss 1999: 101-115). We probe how comparative analysis assists in investigating the influence of different axes of inequality and enables us to control for the researcher’s point of view. In doing so, we argue that an intersectional lens is essential in reflecting on positionality (Davis 2014; Lutz 2015) and generating sensitivities for dimensions that influence inequalities concerning access to family reunification. As for the documentary method, on the other hand, it provides critical tools for reflecting on researchers’ points of view and investigating how various axes of inequality come into play.

We commence our methodological reflections by considering intersectionality in terms of a method before asking how it can be combined fruitfully with the procedural steps of the documentary method. Next, we offer an example from our research on asylum regimes and transnational refugee families.^[1] We thus demonstrate how to explore comparatively various axes of inequality and their intersection. Finally, we discuss the conditions and merits of combining an intersectional approach with the documentary method.

2 Intersectionality as Method

Concerning the US-American Black women’s struggle against multifaceted discrimination, intersectionality was suggested in the late twentieth century as an analytical approach for studying gender and racial discriminatory practices in law (Crenshaw 1989; Brah/Phoenix 2004). Since then, it has been widely used to analyze how multiple forms of structural hierarchies and power relations intersect (Davis/Lutz 2024). In our research, an intersectional lens enables us to explore refugees’ access to rights and resources as well as their risks of exclusion due to intersecting axes of inequality.

As a method, intersectionality is productive for investigating the intersecting visible and invisible components of inequality in power contexts (Lutz 2015: 39). It examines the interaction between “categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power” (Davis 2008: 68). Intersectionality is complex and seems to be open-ended (Ludvig 2006; McCall 2005) in that uncertainties are inherent to the method (Davis 2008: 69; Davis/Lutz 2024: 222). One of the ways to implement it, which several scholars have noted (Davis 2014; Lutz 2015), turns on Matsuda’s contribution, consisting mainly of “asking the other question” approach: “When I see something that looks racist, I ask, ‘Where is the patriarchy in this?’ When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, ‘Where is the heterosexism in this?’ When I see something that looks homophobic, I ask, ‘Where are the class interests in this?’” (Matsuda 1991: 1189).

For Helma Lutz (2015), Mari J. Matsuda’s contribution is a twofold call to researchers: not to adhere to one category only, and to eschew the practice of “mentioning differences without taking them into account” (Lutz 2015: 40). She suggests investigating the central categories not in an isolated manner but, instead, crossquestioning them and considering multiple levels of analysis (Lutz 2015: 40). Intersectional perspectives should therefore begin in the planning stage and continue through all further research steps (Davis/Lutz 2024: 224). In fieldwork, it is vital to ponder the situatedness among people involved in the research (Lutz 2015: 40-41). Reflecting on research participants’ perceptions and the researcher’s interactions with them is a call for scholars applying intersectionality to consider their positioning and its influence on their knowledge production (Bowleg 2008; Davis 2014).

One challenge posed by the logic of “the other question” is discerning when to stop asking other questions (Davis/Lutz 2024: 222). Logically, the list of possible inquiries linked to the previous question may be limitless (Davis 2008: 77). Another struggle relates to possible “blind spots” (Davis/Lutz 2024). To minimize the latter’s impact, the research team or the researcher’s environment in which the data and fieldwork are reflected^[2] must be as diverse as possible. It is therefore possible to analyze the data from different standpoints (Davis 2008) and thus increase the possibility of a truly intersectional perspective. No social category should be seen as primary to others or as natural (Lutz 2015: 42).

Lutz (2015: 40-41) contends that an intersectional perspective should consider three levels of analysis and, consequently, pay attention to (1) partiality and differences in the positionalities of those involved in the research; (2) the participants’ view on dimensions like gender, ethnicity, class, age, nationality, and religion in their own narratives about their life-experiences; (3) power relations that may help understand institutionalized phenomena such as institutional racism. Regarding the third level, Yuval Davis (2024: 88) distinguishes between a hierarchical order and the differing views social agents develop depending on how they are situated and perceive their positions. Similarly, Lutz asserts that an investigation on multiple levels allows researchers to shift attention away from social structures that shape peoples’ practices and place it also on how they as agents “ongoingly and flexibly negotiate their multiple and converging identities in the context of everyday life” (Lutz 2015: 41).

Transitioning to engaging with research participants as agents allows scholars to investigate how people actively manage their living conditions. In terms of intersectionality, research should see individuals as not condemned to endless vulnerability, but as agents capable of resisting inequalities; deconstructing oppressive structures; and building upon their multiple identities to develop strategies for mobilizing resources and advantages and, therefore, challenge power relations (Rebughini 2021). Additionally, individuals may be disadvantaged in some contexts while simultaneously being advantaged in others (Lutz 2015: 41-42). Intersectionality, as a method, is a call to scholars to conduct more reflexive, critical, and accountable investigations (Davis 2008: 79; Davis/Lutz 2024: 223; Yuval Davis 2024) throughout all stages of the research process. In what follows, we will ask how intersectionality as a method can complement the documentary method in specific instances.

3 Comparative Case Studies on the Reunification of Refugee Families

Comparative analysis, as part of the documentary method, ideally begins within a case (Bohnsack 2013: 251-252). A comparison of various passages from our interviews allows us to collect information relevant to our research questions. Then, further cases are considered for a cross-case comparative analysis (Bohnsack 2013: 252). At different stages of data analysis with the documentary method, “asking the other question” strategy offered by intersectionality was fruitful. This was especially the case when we conducted the reflecting interpretation during the intracase analysis and later during the cross-comparative analysis. Performing both intra- and cross-case analysis enabled us to consider different aspects while exploring comparative perspectives and searching for the tertia comparationis (Nohl 2017: 41). A common ground for comparing the cases is the refugees’ access to family reunification. Possible tertia comparationis are identified by considering the interviews on topics about challenges, practices, and strategies (e.g., searching for information, encountering authorities, and managing long-distance familial relationships) in navigating the reunification procedure.

Exploring possible inequalities in accessing family reunification with the documentary method requires thoroughly examining whether and how inequalities are empirically evident (Pfaff 2018). This open research strategy aligns with our research subject. Whereas, for instance, theories of social class were developed within national contexts, more recent debates point to transnational social class positions (Weiß 2006), habitus transformation (Seukwa 2007), and shifts in social status during migratory processes (Coe 2020). Likewise, theoretical concepts on intersectionality were developed and often employed in North America and Europe. However, they were rarely used and reflected on by researchers studying countries in the Global South (Ngeh/Pelican 2018: 175) where our participants had lived before migrating. Understanding how intersectionality appears in shifting regional, national, or transnational contexts warrants an open research strategy; this allows researchers to reconsider concepts of social positions and habitus formations. Next, we present an example of analyzing cases comparatively with the documentary method while maintaining the strategy of “ask the other question.”

Aicha Ouattara^[9] is originally from Ivory Coast. There, according to her accounts, she was forced into marriage but left her husband who had committed domestic violence against her. When she fled to France because she feared being killed or seriously harmed by him, her four children (meanwhile aged 17, 16, 13, and 10) stayed with their maternal grandmother. After the latter’s death, the children were separated and taken in by other families while awaiting reunification with their mother. After receiving protection status in France, Aicha was entitled to family reunification. At the time of the interview, her application for reunification had been submitted but was still pending.

Being a woman forced into marriage and lacking the protection of the state against domestic violence indicates, at first glance, an obvious gender dimension. However, her case becomes more differentiated upon considering her recounting of being forced to marry the son of her father’s friend: “My dad didn’t have enough money to care for us, so we- his friend took care of us. So, he said that if we grew up, he was going to give me in marriage to- he was going to give me to his friend.”

Aicha describes her father’s economic situation, implying that his unfulfilled role as breadwinner was why she was forced into this marriage. In doing so, she implicitly links the role of the breadwinner with the person deciding on her marriage. As she reports elsewhere in the interview, the agreement was that the friend would “give” her to his son, “so that he could give me to his son”.

Aicha also described a disparity between the marriage arrangement and her own will, how her father threatened to leave and abandon her mother, and her mother’s plea that she should agree to the marriage arrangement. The pressure applied by her parents ultimately led to her giving in. There is no evidence that she had incorporated any normative patterns that would legitimate the marriage arrangement. Instead, she opposed her left-behind living conditions throughout the interview, for instance, by complaining about the marriage to her father ( “every time I go to my father, I tell him that I don’t want this marriage”) or stressing that she could not stand her living conditions (“so there I was, myself seeing that I couldn’t hold on”).These circumstances did not alone culminate in her leaving her husband and fearing his revenge. They also influenced her conditions for family reunification. Other kin (not her husband) cared for the children, and she received little help regarding organizing the papers for the children to come over.

Having no formal education, Aicha could not read or understand the documents issued by the French authorities along with her refugee status. Her information about rebuilding her life with her children was based on oral sources, that is, what she heard in personal communication. She did not apply for family reunification immediately after receiving the refugee status because she did not know her rights at first. She recounts a conversation with a social worker who told her she needed appropriate housing and income to bring her children over. It took some time until she could reevaluate this information:

As soon as I told him [the social worker], he told me like this, he told me like this. So, I, I’m going, I asked people, I asked people, well it’s someone who told me that, that no, that it’s not true, that for me, that for me it must be réunification familiale, that it’s not regroupement familial, that réunification familiale, and that it’s fast. It’s the same person who gave me the number, the address from here, and then the same person did it, he brought his children here, it's the gentleman who sent me here.^[10]

Only after talking to various people Aicha learned that being recognized as a refugee meant, she had the right to family reunification—without having to meet any material conditions. Talking with people is a taken-for-granted strategy to obtain information about her rights and opportunities. Social workers or other refugees who share their experiences appear as possible informants.

Having learned about her entitlement to immediate family reunification, she approached the NGO that someone had recommended. There, people filled out the application with her. At the time of the interview, which was conducted at the NGO, Aicha was there again because she wanted to know at what stage the family reunification procedure was. At this point, however, the process was already in its fourth year. In other words, Aicha could not fully enjoy the rights provided with her protection status. Depending on oral sources she only gradually received and acted on the necessary information. However, her entitlement to family reunification was not only shaped by class and gender dimensions but also by the fact that her home country is a former French colony. Her spoken language abilities, crucial for navigating the procedure, were transferrable in the new environment because French, the colonial language, became a common language in the multilingual Ivory Coast (N’Guessan 2007).

To understand Aicha’s case from an intersectional perspective, we explored various axes of inequalities and asymmetrical power relations using “the other question” principle (Matsuda 1991). At this stage, we could reconcile the “other question” with the reflecting interpretation offered by the documentary method. We thus asked ourselves to what extent, for Aicha, being a woman could have been playing a role. At the same time, we also analyzed the intersection of gender with other dimensions, including social class, country of origin, and legal status. By employing this intersectional perspective, we explore what it could mean that Aicha is a single mother, effectively illiterate, and has a social and kinship network that provides little support for family reunification. In France, she received information about family reunification through social workers, NGOs or sporadic contact with people in similar situations.

After having comparatively analyzed passages from the interview, we started considering other cases for a cross-case comparison. At this point, Ms Ruth Makasi’s case emerged as an interesting case for comparison. Both women attempted to bring their children over as de-facto single mothers.^[11] However, they used contrasting strategies and resources. Our comparison of the cases considered the topics of ‘searching for information’ and ‘activating support from other people’ that were evident in their narrative accounts.^[12]

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruth holds a university degree in educational sciences. Because of her political activities, she had to flee. Her asylum application in France was rejected, but Ruth received a residence permit through marriage in France. Her former partner, the father of her children, had been killed before her flight. Her three daughters (aged between 7 and 12 years) stayed with their grandparents. However, they lived in a dangerous conflict zone. At this young age, with their mother as teleguide, the children moved to a neighboring country, living alone in a refugee camp while waiting to join their mother in France. Having no protection status, Ruth could bring her children over only if certain material conditions were fulfilled. Coming from a country that is a former Belgian colony, she was fluent in French. Despite this, she could not valorize her academic credentials and started working in nonskilled sectors to gain access to family reunification. Her knowledge set and skills were nevertheless helpful in organizing reunification. She intensely studied the texts providing information on different possibilities for reunification and submitted her application independently. Like Aicha, she also contacted people who could support her attempts to bring her children over. However, her strategies and the support she asked for strongly differed. When submitting her application, Ruth contacted the Prefect and remained in contact with the authorities:

When I saw that I met the conditions, I submitted my application to OFII,^[13] which was accepted, but they were also waiting for the Prefect’s reply. Before the Prefect gives his answer, he has to send it to the town hall of the town where you are, to see if everything is in order. And when the town hall came by, they saw that everything was fine. They said: “At our level, it's fine, but we’re still waiting for confirmation from OFII and the Prefect.” After this investigation by the town hall, at least on my part, things went very quickly.

Ruth was directly in contact with the relevant authorities without depending on NGOs to proceed with her case. In addition, she contacted politicians by writing letters. She had insights into the procedure and used strategies to intervene by reaching out to influential people. Among them was the French ambassador of the country in which her children were living. Notably, it would have been a matter of discretion whether the embassy took up their case because her children had not been born there. However, Ruth’s intervention, which described the situation of her minor-aged children living in a refugee camp without parents, proved successful. When the necessary conditions were nearly in place, Ruth traveled to the camp to pick up her children and returned with all three of her daughters.

The cases show similarities in the women’s struggle to organize simultaneously family reunification, caring for the children while maintaining long-distance contact, and establishing a life in France. They both started working in unskilled positions despite their language skills transferring to the new environment. However, the commonalities between the two cases were intertwined with contrasting class backgrounds in their home countries and an unequal degree of cultural and social capital. Using an intersectional lens and the comparative analysis (as a tool of the documentary method in this multi-dimensional perspective), we could account for how, for instance, differing legal statuses impact family reunification alongside other aspects (e.g., educational background and class). Using her cultural capital, Ruth worked on an alternative path for bringing her children over safely. Aicha does not have these resources, which influence interactions with migration authorities in the process of family reunification. A striking result of the comparative analysis is that the advantages of Aicha’s legal status were overruled by differences in social class and cultural capital, both of which are useful in the family reunification procedure.

At this point, it is worth asking whether and how the comparison could also be used to reflect on researchers’ positionality in ways that debates regarding the documentary method suggest (Bohnsack 2013). Considering Aicha’s case, the importance of formal education may seem obvious from the viewpoint of a middleclass academic as a pre-condition for gaining social opportunity. A comparison with the case of another single mother facing the same multiple challenges while navigating family reunification reveals that the women’s newly achieved work positions in France were similar despite contrasting educational credentials. Both found labor in low- and unskilled service sectors, which are gendered and racialized (Buckingham et al. 2020). Aicha performed housework in nursing homes and Ruth could only slightly improve her situation through further education as a secretary. Instead of reproducing their class positions in the receiving society, their knowledge, skills, and other resources help solve practical problems (Weiß/Kellmer 2018: 105) and are part of a “habitus of surviving” (“Habitus der Überlebenskunst”, Seukwa 2007). For both women, searching for information and supportive contacts was a basic step in navigating family reunification, for which they could activate different types of social and cultural capital.

Furthermore, from the middle-class researcher’s position, Aicha’s case has a continuity of disadvantaged positions. In Ruth’s case, discontinuity is demonstrated in terms of social class position, but discontinuities came into view for both cases in the comparative analysis, albeit with differing preconditions. Ruth’s status changed from being a middle-class academic in her African country of origin to being disadvantaged in a country in the Global North, which is an already known status discontinuity for this type of South-North migration (Coe 2021). Aicha, on her part, entered paid work giving her an economically independent position and leading to a shift in status within the intergenerational line to her mother. We thus used an intersectional lens and the documentary method, comparing the cases from a transnational perspective (Weiß/Kellmer 2018).

4 Concluding Remarks

Our article argues that an intersectional approach can be combined fruitfully with the documentary method. Using intersectionality as a method plays a significant role in planning research, conducting fieldwork, or gathering and interpreting data. The documentary method offers the requisite tools for data evaluation and reflecting on the research findings from a multi-dimensional perspective. In our exemplary comparative analysis of two cases, multidimensionality (Nohl 2017: 4546) can be examined both in an intra and a cross-case comparison. In doing so, an intersectional lens becomes comprehensive for our approach to raising questions and broadening our interpretations. “Asking the other question” is also productive for viewing the same case from different perspectives and considering multidimensionality in terms of possible inequalities. Including additional cases for comparative analysis in tandem with an intersectional view also supports a well-founded exploration of structural hierarchies and asymmetrical power relations that, through their intersection, affect people and institutions alike (Lutz/Davis 2005).

The salient question during the data analysis turns on the determination of dimensions that we, as researchers, take as relevant in our decision-making when choosing cases for comparison and interpreting them (Nohl 2017: 9). Likewise, whether and how we are asking “the other question” could be influenced by our positionality, just as this influence could impact our strategy for choosing cases for comparisons. As we demonstrated, an awareness of the researcher’s positionality starts during fieldwork and the observation of how participants respond to interview requests. Reflecting on interactive settings during inquiries, and how participants articulate their positionality within these settings, are further steps thoroughly examined in Hilscher’s study (2024), which also combines an intersectional lens with the documentary method.

We reflected on how the comparative analysis of Aicha and Ruth’s cases allowed us to advance our interpretation of data while reflecting on our positioning as researchers. Which dimensions become relevant and how to find the tertium comparationis constitute a decision-making process that could be negotiated in our research by accounting for multiple perspectives. We considered what, for example, our biography, origin, social status, age, and gender, could mean for our interpretation. However, we seek to avoid ‘groupism’ by assuming fixed groups (affiliations), clear influences, or differences as given impacts (Nowicka/Ryan 2015). The combination of reflections from different sides leads to the results presented here.

At this point, some questions remain open. Can the socio-economic conditions of Aicha’s growing up appropriately be addressed as ‘class matter’? How to account for experiences of socio-economic conditions in her home country if social class is considered within a global hierarchy (Coe 2020: 162)? Finally, how can we address the perspectives of middle-class academics if they reveal similarities in their current positions and considerable differences in their biographical experiences? Combining an intersectional approach and the documentary method provides tools for helping scholars reflect on various dimensions and their intersections that characterize cases. However, it cannot be claimed that they permit us to completely avoid possible blind spots.