Intersectional Accountability: Multiple Identities in Justice

Sor Juana navigated simultaneous marginalization as a woman, a person of mixed descent, and a religious subject in colonial Mexico. Her writings reveal how justice must account for these intersecting dimensions of identity and power. Restorative approaches that ignore intersectionality risk reproducing harm. A woman harmed by domestic violence cannot be served by accountability processes that ignore sexism; a person of color harmed by police cannot achieve restoration through systems embedded in racial hierarchy. Similarly, accountability for those responsible must recognize how their social position—privilege or marginalization—shapes their capacity to harm and their capacity to change. Sor Juana's intellectual work demonstrates that justice requires naming these structures explicitly. In contemporary practice, this means restorative processes must be designed with explicit awareness of how gender, race, class, sexuality, and other dimensions shape participants' positions. Facilitators must be trained to recognize and interrupt patterns where dominant groups' voices overshadow marginalized ones, and where systemic oppressions are treated as personal rather than structural. True restoration accounts for the full complexity of identity in harm and healing.