Institutional Critique from Within

Sor Juana worked within the Catholic Church and colonial systems while critiquing them through theology, philosophy, and poetry. She used the convent's library, the Church's intellectual traditions, and the forms of religious writing to produce subversive arguments. This was neither cooptation nor collaboration; it was strategic positioning. In intersectionality practice, institutional critique from within recognizes that many people must work inside institutions that harm them—schools, nonprofits, government agencies, corporations—and that this positioning offers unique analytical capacity. Those inside can document institutional logic, identify resistance points, access resources, and build credibility with institutional audiences. Importantly, this approach distinguishes itself from institutional loyalty; the goal is not to improve the system but to undermine it using its own tools. Those with this positioning have responsibility to share analysis with those outside and to resist the pressures toward assimilation. Institutional critique from within becomes an intersectional strategy when practitioners remain accountable to marginalized communities outside the institution.