Intersectional studies are expanding and generating vital and much-needed theoretical debate in the discipline of feminist/gender studies. The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate through a critical reflection over the process of translation through which the concept has been introduced, interpreted and acted upon in Swedish gender studies. The purpose is also to bridge the concept of intersectionality and the notion of scholarships of hope, searching for forms of scholarly production that will fruitfully articulate academic knowledge with a political vision. The analysis acknowledges the relevance of an intersectional approach to understanding (and acting upon) the operations of power and the precarisation of life in these dangerous times of global exploitation and the multiplication of borders.