“A New Spelling of My Name”: Becoming a (Black, Feminist, Immigrant) Autoethnographer Through Zami

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-133
Author(s):  
Tanja Burkhard
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Marginalized Communities

In this article, I provide the historical context for the reception of Audre Lorde’s biomythography Zami’s by Black women across the African diaspora as a backdrop for my own autoethnographic engagement of the book. I narrate my journey to claiming space within the field of autoethnography by anchoring my discussion in Zami and its themes. The goal of this work is to illustrate the crucial nature of autoethnographic work to transnational Black feminism, and its ongoing importance to women from and in marginalized communities.

scholarly journals Black feminist intersectionality is vital to group analysis: Can group analysis allow outsider ideas in?

2021 ◽  
pp. 053331642199776
Author(s):  
Suryia Nayak
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Online Platform ◽  
Large Group ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Analytical Structure ◽  
The Relationship

This is the transcript of a speech I gave at an Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) event on the 28th November 2020 about intersectionality and groups analysis. This was momentous for group analysis because it was the first IGA event to focus on black feminist intersectionality. Noteworthy, because it is so rare, the large group was convened by two black women, qualified members of the IGA—a deliberate intervention in keeping with my questioning of the relationship between group analysis and power, privilege, and position. This event took place during the Covid-19 pandemic via an online platform called ‘Zoom’. Whilst holding the event online had implications for the embodied visceral experience of the audience, it enabled an international attendance, including members of Group Analysis India. Invitation to the event: ‘Why the black feminist idea of intersectionality is vital to group analysis’ Using black feminist intersectionality, this workshop explores two interconnected issues: • Group analysis is about integration of parts, but how do we do this across difference in power, privilege, and position? • Can group analysis allow outsider ideas in? This question goes to the heart of who/ what we include in group analytic practice—what about black feminism? If there ‘cannot possibly be one single version of the truth so we need to hear as many different versions of it as we can’ (Blackwell, 2003: 462), we need to include as many different situated standpoints as possible. Here is where and why the black feminist idea of intersectionality is vital to group analysis. On equality, diversity and inclusion, intersectionality says that the ‘problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including black [people] within an already established analytical structure’ (Crenshaw, 1989: 140). Can group analysis allow the outsider idea of intersectionality in?

Replaying Video Game History as a Mixtape of Black Feminist Thought

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-118
Author(s):  
TreaAndrea M. Russworm ◽  
Samantha Blackmon
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Women Performers ◽  
Women's Labor ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Combahee River Collective ◽  
Game Industry

This article, a Black feminist mixtape, blends music, interviews, and critical analysis in order to demonstrate some of the ways in which Black women have impactfully engaged with the video game industry. Organized as musical “tracks,” it uses lyrics by Black women performers as a critical and cultural frame for understanding some of the work Black women have done with video games. In prioritizing the personal as not only political but also instructive for how we might think about digital media histories and feminism, each mixtape track focuses on Black women's lived experiences with games. As it argues throughout, Black feminism as defined and experienced by the Combahee River Collective of the 1970s has been an active and meaningful part of Black women's labor and play practices with video games.

Maori Sovereignty, Black Feminism, and the New Zealand Trade Union Movement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cybèle Locke
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Radical Ideas

In 1982, an incident occurred at the Auckland Trade Union Centre in New Zealand. A small group of Maori radicals, called Black Unity, who ran the Polynesian Resource Centre were accused of antitrade unionism and racism and, consequently, were evicted from the Auckland Trade Union Centre with the assistance of the New Zealand police. This chapter explores the radical ideas of Maori sovereignty and Black feminism propagated by Black Unity that inflamed Auckland trade unionists, focusing on the writings of the group's spokeswomen, Ripeka Evans and Donna Awatere. It chapter examines the philosophical position that Maori nationalist members of Black Unity espoused. It explores the historical context for the demand for Maori sovereignty first articulated by Black Unity in 1981; explains why the Maori sovereignty position was also a Black feminist position; and asks what led Maori women to turn with such anger on the radical Left in the early 1980s Finally, it analyzes the longer-term affect of Maori sovereignty demands on the Maori protest movement, the women's movement, the sectarian Left, and the trade union movement.

scholarly journals Black feminist methods of activism are the tool for global social justice and peace

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-257
Author(s):  
Chris Sheehy ◽  
Suryia Nayak
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Political Warfare ◽  
Feminist Methods ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

We use the method of conversation as a tool of living activist struggles to end social injustice. We draw on Black feminism to create an intersectionality of diverse activist voices across time and space. We insist on an intersectional acuity to analyse Global alienation, subjugation and exploitation. We use examples from activist contexts such as the Trade Union and Rape Crisis movements. Our conversation speaks of the tensions and risks of solidarity and organizing across difference. We use Gramsci’s idea of the ‘interregnum’ to look at the in-between space of protest and transformation. We argue that the ‘interregnum’ is an opportunity to build solidarity for Global justice. In the context of intersectional racism, we ask, can the racial grief of Black women speak? We like Lorde’s idea that ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare’ (Lorde, 1988: 332). We argue that the relationship of Black feminism to oppression, constitutes its revolutionary potential, and this distinguishes Black feminist activist methodologies from other methodologies as the tool for Global social justice and peace.

scholarly journals Awkward Black girls and post-feminist possibilities: Representing millennial Black women on television in Chewing Gum and Insecure

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Sobande
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Chewing Gum ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Contemporary Context

Focusing on television depictions of ‘millennial’ Black women, this article explores how such on-screen identities are crafted through entwined issues concerning race, gender, sexuality and feminism. Theorising post-feminism in this contemporary context necessitates discussion of post-feminism’s (dis)connection to and from Black feminism and the politics of intersectionality. Thus, this article examines how Black feminist and post-feminist media sentiments push against each other in ways that may indicate a form of Black post-feminist television. It considers how ‘millennial’ Black women are depicted in Chewing Gum (2015–2017) and Insecure (2016–present) and analyses how feminist media discourse is implicated in these representations.

I Need You to Tell My Story: Qualitative Inquiry for/With Transnational Black Women

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-192
Author(s):  
Tanja Burkhard
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Black Feminist Theory ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Dominant Ideologies

Drawing on a yearlong qualitative research project with seven Black transnational women, this article employs a transnational Black feminist approach. It is guided by the following questions: What does it look like to conduct qualitative research rooted in a transnational Black feminist framework? What implications related to storytelling, reciprocity, and the relationships with participants emerge from this work? In exploring these questions, I consider some of the ways transnational Black feminist theory can be operationalized to counter re-inscriptions of dominant ideologies onto the research process with marginalized communities, particularly under consideration of contemporary national and transnational processes and discourses.

scholarly journals Representation of Women Power in Beyoncé Knowless’ song “Run The World (Girls)”

E-Structural ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (01) ◽  
pp. 68-79
Author(s):  
Neni Kurniawati
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Video Clip ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
The World ◽  
Song Lyrics

Song is one of the propaganda media for ideolgy. Beyonce Knowless's song “Run the World (girls)” is an example of a song that raises the issue of Black Feminism Thought. This paper will discuss how textual and discursive practices through the signs in the text of the song lyrics and video clips of the song in constructing the paradigm of black women power or black feminism thought. By interpreting the structure of the text in the lyrics of the song and the visual signs in the video clip of the song "Run the World (girls)" to find meaning and ideology reproduced in the song. The results show that the dialectic of verbal and visual signs represents black women power and to bolster black women to become well-respected women especially by black men. The presence of this song is also related to the black feminist movement which propagates their ideology through song media. The independence of black women in the economic and educational aspectss, as well as the ability to bare children are discourses that are reproduced by the singer to make social changes in black women’s live.Keywords: Black woman, discourse, hermeneutics, ideology, Paul Ricouer

Black Feminist Thought as Methodology

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Patterson ◽  
Valerie Kinloch ◽  
Tanja Burkhard ◽  
Ryann Randall ◽  
Arianna Howard
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
Rigorous Research ◽  
Gathering Place

In this essay, we rely on a black feminist lens to challenge and extend what is appraised as rigorous research methodology. Inspired by a diverse, intergenerational group of black women referred to as the Black Women's Gathering Place, we employ black feminist thought (BFT) as critical social theory and embrace a more expansive understanding of BFT as critical methodology to analyze the experiences black women share through narrative. Our theoretical and methodological approach offers a pathway for education and research communities to account for the expansive possibilities that black feminism has for theorizing the lives of black women.

Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-291
Author(s):  
Mitzi J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black People ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Class I ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Culture Of Fear ◽  
Howard Thurman

This essay examines Howard Thurman’s interpretation of the historical Jesus and the religion of Jesus in his 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited (jatd). Thurman interprets Jesus within his first century CE socio-historical context and from the perspective of disinherited African Americans. He articulates the significance of the religion of Jesus, versus religion about Jesus, for the disinherited and how it can ensure their survival. Since jatd addresses race/racism and class/classism but not the intersection of race, gender, and class, I place jatd in conversation with black feminist Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, womanist theologian Delores Williams’ Sisters in the Wilderness, and Angela Sim’s Lynched, who focus on the survival of black women (Lorde and Williams) and the resilience of black people living in a culture of fear.

Women’s Activism in the Modern Movement for Black Liberation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisha A. Upton ◽  
Joyce M. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black Feminism ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Black Power Movement ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Modern Movement

This chapter examines women’s activism in the modern movement for Black liberation. It examines women’s roles across three phases of mobilization. Starting with an exploration of women’s participation in the direct action phase of the U.S. civil rights movement (1954–1966), the chapter discusses the key roles that women played in the fight for legal equality for African Americans. Next it examines women’s central role in the Black Power movement of 1966–1974. The authors argue that Black women found new roles in new struggles during this period. The chapter ends with a look at the rise of radical Black feminism between 1974 and 1980, examining the codification of intersectional politics and discussing the continuation of issues of race, privilege, and diversity in contemporary feminism.

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