Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wtssw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T20:32:29.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Building on “the Edge of Each Other's Battles”: A Feminist of Color Multidimensional Lens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

The Santa Cruz Feminist Of Color Collective
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, the authors set forth an articulation of women of color feminisms through a multidimensional conceptual lens comprised of three interconnected components: processes of identity‐formation, assertion of intellectual political projects, and creating alternative methodological practices. The thinking together of these components offers a critique of Western, male‐centered, and heteronormative dominant forms of philosophical knowledge that restrict scholarly interventions by women, people of color, and queers. The authors, through their collective, creative, and collaborative writing process, build on María Lugones's work to argue that early women of color feminist formations offer foundational elements of decolonial forms of feminism (Lugones 2010). Implicit within this article is a recognition and tracing of intergenerational relations of “women of color” feminists and philosophers who have historically critiqued normative, colonial, and modern understandings of knowledge while constructing interdisciplinary and alternative spaces for theorizing and sustaining communities of resistance across constructed borders. Central goals of this article are to: 1. emphasize the complexities and contradictions of women of color feminisms; 2. highlight the three components of women of color feminisms along with their productive tensions; and 3. document the importance of creative collectivity in theorizing, building solidarity, and working toward sustaining struggles of radical transformation.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 29 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Interstices: Inheriting Women of Color Feminist Philosophy , Winter 2014 , pp. 23 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank, agradecemos a, Elisa Diana Huerta for being a visionary force during the first years of our collaborative work. We thank Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Jacqui Alexander, Osa Hidalgo de la Riva, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Macarena Gómez‐Barris, our anonymous reviewers at Hypatia, and others for engaging our work over the years.

Our title cites Lorde 1984, 123 and purposefully echoes Abod 2002.

References

Abod, Jennifer, director, writer, producer. 2002. The edge of each other's battles: The vision of Audre Lorde. Profile Productions: Videorecording. California.Google Scholar
Alexander, M. Jacqui, and Mohanty, Chandra Talpade eds. 1997. Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Alexander, M. Jacqui. 2005. Remembering this bridge, remembering ourselves. In Pedagogies of crossing: Meditations on feminism, sexual politics, memory, and the sacred. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, M. Jacqui. 2009. Working the conjunctions: Angela Davis and the radicalization of oppositional praxis. Paper given at Angela Davis: Legacies in the Making: Building on the Academic, Activist, and Cultural Interventions of a Contemporary Visionary Symposium. Santa Cruz, California.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria ed. 1990. Making face, making soul haciendo caras: Creative and critical perspectives by feminists of color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2007. Borderlands/la frontera: The new mestiza, 3rd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Bambara, Toni Cade. 2002. Foreword. In This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color, ed. Moraga, Cherríe L. and Anzaldúa, Gloria E.Berkeley: Third Woman Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Frances. 2005. Double jeopardy: To be black and female. In The black woman: An anthology, ed. Cade Bambara, Toni. New York: Washington Square Press.Google Scholar
Blackwell, Maylei. 2003. Contested histories: Las hijas de Cuauhtémoc, Chicana feminisms, and print culture in the Chicano movement, 1968–1973. In Chicana feminisms: A critical reader, ed. Arredondo, Gabriela, Hurtado, Aida, Klahn, Norma, Nájera‐Ramirez, Olga and Zavella, Patricia. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Blackwell, Maylei. 2011. ¡Chicana power! Contested histories of feminism in the Chicano movement. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Cantú, Lionel. 2000. Entre hombres/between men: Latino masculinities and homosexualities. In Gay masculinities, ed. Nardi, Peter. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Combahee River, Collective. 2002. A black feminist statement. In This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color, ed. Moraga, Cherríe L. and Anzaldúa, Gloria E.Berkeley: Third Woman Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Angela Y. 2004. Legacies of women of color feminism. Cultural Studies Colloquium: Institute for Humanities Research, University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela Y., and Martínez, Elizabeth. 1994. Coalition building among people of color: A discussion with Angela Y. Davis and Elizabeth Martínez. In Enunciating our terms: Women of color in collaboration and conflict, ed. Ochoa, Maria and Teaiwa, Teresia. Inscriptions 7. Center for Cultural Studies: University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela Y., and Tadiar, X. M. Neferti, eds. 2005. Beyond the frame: Women of color and visual representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 2006. Dusk of dawn: An essay toward an autobiography of a race concept. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Zillah R. ed. 1978. Capitalist patriarchy and the case for socialist feminism. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Frankenberg, Ruth. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fregoso, Rosa Linda. 2003. Mexicana encounters: The making of social identities on the borderlands. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garry, Ann. 2011. Intersectionality, metaphors, and the multiplicity of gender. Hypatia 26 (4): 826–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. 2010. Salsa soul audio documentary. http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/salsa-soul-audio-documentary.mp3 (accessed May 13, 2010).Google Scholar
Harris, Cheryl I. 1993. Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review 106 (8): 1701–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, Daisy, Rehman, Bushra, eds. 2002. Colonize this! Young women of color on today's feminism. Emeryville, Calif.: Seal Press.Google Scholar
Hull, Gloria, Bell‐Scott, Patricia, and Smith, Barbara eds. 1982. All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave: Black women's studies. New York: Feminist Press.Google Scholar
INCITE! Women of Color against Violence. 2006. Color of violence: The INCITE! anthology. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
INCITE! Women of Color against Violence. 2007. The revolution will not be funded: Beyond the non‐profit industrial complex. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Keating, Ana Louise. 2008. “I'm a citizen of the universe”: Gloria Anzaldúa's spiritual activism as catalyst for social change. Feminist Studies 34 (1/2): 53–69.Google Scholar
Latina Feminist Group. 2001. Telling to live: Latina feminist testimonios. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Rachel. 2002. Notes from the (non)field: Teaching and theorizing women of color. In Women's studies on its own: A next wave reader in institutional change, ed. Wiegman, Robyn. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1978. Litany for survival. In The Black unicorn: Poems. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Age, race, class, and sex: Women redefining difference. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Lowe, Lisa. 1997. Interview with Angela Davis: Reflections on race, class, gender in the USA. In The politics of culture in the shadow of capital, ed. Lowe, Lisa and Lloyd, David. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugones, María. 1994. Purity, impurity, and separation. Signs 19 (2): 458–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugones, María. 2007. Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia 22 (1): 186–209.Google Scholar
Lugones, María. 2010. Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia 25 (4): 742–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maldonado‐Torres, Nelson. 2011. Thinking through the decolonial turn: Post‐continental interventions in theory, philosophy, and critique. Transmodernity (Fall): 1–15.Google Scholar
May, Vivian. 2007. Anna Julia Cooper, visionary black feminist: A critical introduction. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mind if I call you sir? 2004. DVD. Rosales, USA: Directed by Mary Guzman. Produced by Karla E.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Russo, Ann, and Torres, Lourdes eds. 1991. Third world women and the politics of feminism. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Sisterhood, coalition, and the politics of experience. In Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moraga, Cherríe L., and Anzaldúa, Gloria E. eds. 2002. This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color. Berkeley: Third Woman Press.Google Scholar
Ochoa, Maria, and Teaiwa, Teresia, eds. 1994. Enunciating our terms: Women of color in collaboration and conflict. Inscriptions 7. Center for Cultural Studies: University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Omi, Michael, and Winant, Howard. 1994. Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pandora's, 2008. Theater & Video. Directed by Elisha Miranda and produced by Sister Outsider Entertainment, LLC, Theater Row Studios, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Pérez, Emma. 2003. Queering the borderlands: The challenges of excavating the invisible and unheard. Frontiers 24 (2 & 3): 122–31.Google Scholar
QWOCMAP: Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project. 2010. About film. http://www.qwocmap.org/ (accessed July 10, 2010).Google Scholar
Sandoval, Chela. 1990. Feminism and racism: A report on the 1981 national women's studies association conference. In Making face, making soul haciendo caras: Creative and critical perspectives by feminists of color, ed. Anzaldúa, Gloria. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Schutte, Ofelia. 1998. Cultural alterity: Cross‐cultural communication and feminist theory in north–south context. Hypatia 13 (2): 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shohat, Ella, ed. 1998. Talking visions: Multicultural feminism in transnational age. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sister Outsider Entertainment, LLC. 2009. http://www.feministing.com/archives/008070.html (accessed August 18, 2009).Google Scholar
Smith, Andrea. 2006. Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of white supremacy: Rethinking women of color organizing. In Color of violence: The INCITE! anthology, ed. INCITE! Women of Color against Violence Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Andrea. 2008. Native Americans and the Christian right: The gendered politics of unlikely alliances. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Andrea. 2009. The color of violence: Angela Davis and the radicalization of the anti‐violence movement. Paper given at Angela Davis: Legacies in the Making: Building on the Academic, Activist, and Cultural Interventions of a Contemporary Visionary Symposium. Santa Cruz, California.Google Scholar
Smith, Barbara ed. 1983. Home girls: A Black feminist anthology. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Soto, Sandra. 2005. Where in the transnational world are U.S. women of color? In Women's studies for the future: Foundations, interrogations, politics, ed. Lapovsky Kennedy, Elizabeth and Beins, Agatha. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Torres, Lourdes. 2011. Becoming Joaquin and Mind If I Call You Sir?: Exploring Latino masculinities. Biography 34 (3): 447–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zack, Naomi, ed. 2000. Women of color and philosophy. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Zepeda, Susy, and Alvarez, Sandra. 2006. Interview with Womyn Image Makers. Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism 26 (1): 127–34.Google Scholar
Zinn, Maxine Baca, Cannon, Lynn Weber, Higginbotham, Elizabeth, and Dill, Bonnie Thornton. 1990. The costs of exclusionary practices in women's studies. In Making face, making soul haciendo caras: Creative and critical perspectives by feminists of color, ed. Anzaldúa, Gloria. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar