She has written a book on black feminist thought that combines the theory with the most immediate in feminist practice. The signature contribution of black feminism, intersectionality, is explored in some detail. Before connecting our work to collinss articulation of black feminist thought bft, we describe the emergence of our group and. An inheritance map attempts to take stock of what one has been given in a particular project and what one inherits as work yet to do. Barbara smiths black feminist consciousness developed the intersectional nature of race and gender 1 982. Along similar lines, i propose that sociology demands a distinct theory of how black. The social construction of black feminist thought patricia.
Feminist standpoint epistemology has been criticized for implying there is an essential woman collins 2000, for giving epistemic pri vile ge to gender oppres. Inheriting patricia hill collinss black feminist epistemology. Apr 14, 2016 afrocentricity, sisterhood and african feminisms. Traditionally, the suppression of black womens ideas within whitemalecontrolled social institutions led africanamerican women to use music, literature, daily conversations, and everyday behavior as important locations for 11 black feminist epistemology 11. Defining black feminist thought by catori labad on prezi. For example, in the feminist standpoint theory reader harding 2004, different chapters offer perspectives including black feminism patricia hill collins, maternal thinking as a standpoint sara ruddick, women from the third world in the us feminist movement chela sandoval, and nonwestern feminism uma narayan, to name just a few. Feminist standpoint theory, then, makes a contribution to epistemology, within a number of disciplinessuch as dorothy smith, nancy hartsock, hilary rose.
For instance, in the 1970s, a group of black women formed the combahee river collective. Pdf on jan 1, 2006, joey sprague and others published a feminist epistemology find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. The relevance of feminist epistemology and feminist ethics athene noctua. Feminist social epistemology stanford encyclopedia of. Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science stanford. Black feminist thought in the matrix of domination campus. Should experiences of black women be the grounds for knowledge claims when studying and theorising about black women. Goredema 34 african feminism african feminism is a feminist epistemology and a form of rhetoric. Centering lived experiences and the use of dialog imply that knowledge is built around ethics of caring, collins third characteristic of black feminist knowledge. This feminist postmodernist epistemology eg, weedon, 1987.
Every year, time magazine publishes its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. A phenomenological study of black girls talking with an attitude. Expressing an independent black feminist consciousness, therefore, becomes problematic, as it is a threat to the established interpretation of reality. Apr 21, 2016 feminist epistemology refers to the feminist engagement with questions of truth, objectivity, method, and the knowing subject. The major contributors to black feminism s are noted, and the key ideas are interrogated. Although various explanations for its tardiness might be advanced, central among them must surely be the intransigence of a conviction that, while ethics and politics might well be shaped by gender relations and other human differences, knowledge worthy of the. Epistemology was a latecomer to feminist analysis and critique. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Located in african american womens everyday and historical experiences of oppression and resistance, black feminist epistemology and critical social theory, patricia hill collins raises the intellectual level in all these arenas. Collins first presented this fieldshaping perspective in black feminist thought in 1990. Black twitter and black feminist epistemology springerlink. She not only provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent black feminist thinkers as angela davis, alice walker, and audre lorde, but she shows the importance. Sage reference black feminist epistemology sage knowledge. Patricia hill collinss book black feminist thought.
What are the four tenets of black feminist epistemology 1 is. Black feminist epistemology black feminist thought. Nov 09, 2016 this dominant, white male controlled knowledge validation process, which collins closely associates with positivist epistemology, suppresses black feminist thought on the grounds that it is not credible research for new knowledge claims must be consistent with existing bodies of knowledge that the dominant group accepts true. Sex, and power changed the landscape of feminist theo. Thus, although feminist ethical and political theory were rapidly growing areas of inquiry during the 1960s and 1970s, only in the 1980s was a set of questions and proposals articulated to address the possibility that there could, after all, be so seemingly oxymoronic an area of inquiry as feminist epistemology. Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. Feminist epistemology has both critical and constructive dimensions.
She not only provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent black feminist thinkers as angela davis, alice walker, and audre lorde, but she shows the importance of selfdefined knowledge for. However, a new feminist epistemology of feminist postmodernism, apparently rejecting foundationalism in all its forms, is being constituted. In this paper, i begin to construct an inheritance map for the epistemological insights in patricia hill collinss book black feminist thought. An african womans standpoint in black feminist thought everyone thats ever been to africa writes about african women, but rarely do we see. As caretakers of socialscientific knowledge, white elite males not only control the limits of. A significant aspect of black feminism is intersectionality. Gender, black feminism, and black political economy. Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. What are the four tenets of black feminist epistemology.
Feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge. More recently, higher education and the news media have emerged as increasingly important sites for black feminist intellectual activity. This is not because of essential differences between black and white women, but because white women have historically been privileged racially while black women have been dominated through race and gender. Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science pp. For example, many commentators take feminist epistemology to be a species of naturalized and social epistem ology, but just as there are ways of naturalizing and ways of socializing epistemology, so there are ways of doing feminist epistemology. Tracing the origin and diffusion of black feminist thought or any comparable body of specialized knowledge reveals its affinity to the power of.
Intersectionality refers to the way gender, race, and other social categories interact to influence an individual life outcomes. Chapters explore and discuss the following question. Oct 23, 2012 black feminist knowledge is important to black womens empowerment because it helps create dialogue to form communities where the black feminist epistemology can challenge the dominant ideologies, as well as has their lived experiences represent new meanings. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things. In black feminist epistemology, the story is told and preserved in narrative form and not torn apart in analysis collins, 2000, p. Lather, 1991 rejects all grand narratives, including feminist grand theory explanations of womens condition and oppression. Black feminist epistemology duke sociology department. The relevance of feminist epistemology and feminist ethics. Feminist philosophers have, nevertheless, struggled with many of the problems that have vexed traditional epistemology, among them the nature of knowledge itself, epistemic agency, justification, objectivity and whether and how epistemology should be naturalized. Anderson describes feminist epistemology as being concerned with the way in which gender influences our concept of knowledge and practices of inquiry and justification. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not.
They must navigate between two conflicting epistemologies. As the purpose of this paper is to articulate an endarkened feminist. Feminist standpoint theory has done the most to articulate the importance of perspectival differences stemming from social location. Within these new social locations, black feminist thought has. Black feminism and intersectionality international. We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. By portraying africanamerican women as selfdefined, seltreliant individuals confronting race, gender, and class oppression, afrocentric feminist thought speaks. Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment is a 1990 book by patricia hill collins. An inheritance map attempts to take stock of what one has been given in a particular project and what one. Black women speak back, up, and out, authors use an endarkened feminist lens to share the ways in which they have learned to resist, adapt, and reconceptualize education research, teaching, and learning in ways that serve the individual, community, nation, and all of humanity. The social construction of black feminist thought patricia hill collins signs, vol. Journal of language and literacy education online, 82, 2646. In the contours of an afrocentric feminist epistemology, she argues that while a black womans standpoint and its accompanying epistemology stem from black womens consciousness of race and gender oppression, they are not simply the result of combining afrocentric and female valuesstandpoints are rooted in real material.
Signs patricia hill collins has done the impossible. It has the aim of understanding problems facing black women along with. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen5 thus, a more useful research metaphor arising from an endarkened feminist epistemology is research as a responsibility, answerable and obligated to the very persons and communities being engaged in the inquiry. The use of an afrocentric feminist epistemology in traditional black church services illustrates the interactive nature of all four dimensions and also serves as a metaphor for the distinguishing features of an afrocentric feminist way of knowing. Email philosophy of science, values in science, science in society, responsible research, and science policy. Inheriting patricia hill collinss black feminist epistemology taylor. Sandra harding organized feminist epistemology into three categories. Several assumptions underlie this working definition.
Feminist epistemologists examine social, political, and ethical aspects of knowing using a wide range of approaches. Black feminist philosophy is a version of feminism whose primary focus concerns, at least to some degree, black women from within african diasporic contexts. Connection defining black feminist thought patricia hill collins defining black feminist thought coincides with the poem queer theory. Black womens ways of knowing as distinctive and significant for developing theories of the. In black feminist thought, patricia hill collins explores the words and ideas of black feminist intellectuals as well as those africanamerican women outside academe. Black feminist thought the flame by unite youth dublin.
This dominant, white male controlled knowledge validation process, which collins closely associates with positivist epistemology, suppresses black feminist thought on the grounds that it is not credible research for new knowledge claims must be consistent with existing bodies of knowledge that the dominant group accepts true. Show how pornography, prostitution, and rape as a tool of sexual. Here i outline that black feminist thought demonstrates that knowledge has no proper subject, while leaving. Centering lived experiences and the use of dialogue imply that knowledge is built around ethics of caring. Black women who achieve academic credentials face pressure from multiple sides. Moreover, many of the key works in feminist epistemology draw on and contribute to more than one approach to epistemology making any straightforward cataloging of key works deceptive.
Donna haraway s situated knowledges highlights feminist epistemology in social science research 1988. Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment, 2nd ed. Situating feminist epistemology episteme cambridge core. Feminist standpoint epistemology is a unique philosophy of knowledge building that challenges us to 1 see and understand the world through the eyes and experiences of oppressed women and 2 apply the vision and knowl. While potentially a limited set of categories, postmodern feminism was a transitional ideology that denounced absolute objectivity and asserted the death of the metanarrative. Although black women may be denigrated within whitemalecontrolled academic institutions, other institutions, such as black families and churches, which encourage the expression of black female power, seem to do so, in part, by way of their support for an afrocentric feminist epistemology.
This article uses two dimensions of black feminist standpoint epistemology to investigate black political economy. Tracing the origin and diffusion of black feminist thought or any comparable body of specialized knowledge reveals its affinity to the power of the group that created it mannheim 1936. Black feminist thought consists of ideas produced by black women that clarify a standpoint of and for black women. Viewing these texts from an analytical perspective, one can observe that the personas. In chapters eleven and twelve of the book black feminist thought by patricia hill collins, collins argues that the dominant epistemology in the united states has been defined by the elite white men. Through the selected excerpt, the iconic oprah winfrey, one of the most influential black women on television, wrote the entry on shonda rhimes, a black woman who has impacted television in different yet similarly powerful ways. Developed through a dynamic interaction with black womens everyday struggles, black feminist thought is important. Feminist ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies, and. Like other subordinate groups, africanamerican women not only have developed distinctive interpretations of black womens oppression but have done so by using alternative ways of producing and. These black feminists saw intersectionality as integral to the. What are the four tenets of black feminist epistemology 1.
Black feminist thought as methodology departures in critical. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent black feminist thinkers as angela davis, bell hooks, alice walker, and audre lorde. In black feminist thought, patricia hill collins explores the words and ideas of black feminist intellectuals, as well as those africanamerican women outside academe. Black feminist thought reflects the interests and stand point of. In this paper, i begin to construct an inheritance map for the epistemological insights in. It suggests that centering on black womens experiences and analyzing those experiences via intersectional paradigms fosters rethinking the significance of family within gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation. Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology the study of knowledge from a feminist standpoint. Black feminist thought reflects the interests and standpoint of its creators. African women prior to colonisation can be interpreted as feminist action. In order for black feminist epistemology to challenge those dominant ideologies, they must share their own lived experiences to represent new meanings. Using patricia hill collins explain what is meant by s ex, gender, and sexual pol itics. Black feminist epistemology requires personal accountability.