This special section is based on a series of reading seminars, workshops and lectures on the concept of intersectionality held at the VUB Centre of Expertise on Gender, Diversity, and Intersectionality (RHEA) in 2013 and 2014. The focus of these events was on the question of whether and in what way, the concept of intersectionality should inform both policy-oriented research and equality laws and policies. Myra Marx Ferree claims that the travel of intersectionality from the highly racialized context of the United States to the European context implies that feminist scholars should be much more attentive to their proper white (and other) privileges. Power, she says, is a relationship, and intersectionality can therefore only be understood in a dynamic fashion: relations and power struggles - with varying and simultaneous winners and losers - need to put in place stable categories and antipodal positions. Helma Lutz conceives of intersectionality as a heuristic device or a method that allows for uncobring both visible and invisible strands of inequality and processes that underpin privilege and disadvantage. Mieke Verloo addresses the issue of whether positive action is still desirable. By highlighting the impact of positive actions on multiple intersectional categories Verloo shows that specific effects is needed to establish equality. Policy-makers need to be very careful in defining intersectional categories, since they are always contextualized. Dagmar Schiek discusses the field of the feminist and intersectional battle: the EU non-discrimination law. These are some of the essays and articles that shows a wide variety of methods and analyse a diverse set of country cases and intersecting identiy markers and show that intersectionality is a fruitful research area feeding into policy and law-making.