Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry

A Mosaic for Writing Our Daughter's Body

Venus E. Evans-Winters

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351046053
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psychology
• Categoría: Research & Methodology in Psychology

Recently, Black women have taken the world stage in national politics, popular culture, professional sports, and bringing attention to racial injustice in policing and the judicial system. However, rarely are Black women acknowledged and highlighted for their efforts to understand the social problems confronting our generation and those generations that came before us. In the post-civil rights era, research faculty and theoreticians must acknowledge the marginalization of Black women scholars' voices in contemporary qualitative scholarship and debates.

Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry: A Mosaic for Writing our Daughter's Body engages qualitative inquiry to center the issues and concerns of Black women as researcher(s) and the researched while simultaneously questioning the ostensible innocence of qualitative inquiry, including methods of data collection, processes of data analysis, and representations of human experiences and identities. The text centers "daughtering" as the onto-epistemological tool for approaches to Black feminist and critical race data analysis in qualitative inquiry.

Advanced and novice researchers interested in decolonizing methodologies and liberatory tools of analysis will find the text useful for cultural, education, political, and racial critiques that center the intersectional identities and interpretations of Black women and girls and other people of color. Daughtering as a tool of analysis in Black feminist qualitative inquiry is our own cultural and spiritual way of being, doing, and performing decolonizing work.

FIELDNOTE 1

A MOSAIC OF BLACK FEMINISM

The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences, and from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. Our development must also be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of Black people … Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the American capitalistic economy, a handful of us have been able to gain certain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which potentially enables us to more effectively fight our oppression.

~The Combahee River Collective, 1977

My grandmother was a pretty sophisticated woman. She was born in Mississippi, but she spoke and walked like she was the Queen of England. For years, I would get frustrated with her, because when someone of importance called—no doubt, a White person—she would change her speech to sound like she was from Europe somewhere. I don’t simply mean she sounded “White,” I mean she actually spoke in a different tone of voice. She presented like an actress!

In Chicago, she dressed in fine clothes, fancy wigs, and beautiful jewelry. She would hold and smoke her cigarette like a lady, and blow smoke to the side or up in the air like a lady. Grandma carried a gun in her purse and slept with one in her bedside drawer. Hell, grandma even liked going to the “lounge” or what we call nightclubs today.

But at church, which we didn’t go to very often, grandma would open the hymn book and hum off tune. It would piss me off to high heaven! Grandma was perfect at everything, but she could not keep up with the hymns. All the children noticed it, and we would giggle about it or laugh about it when she was out of earshot.

Then, one day, actually her birthday, she asked me to read a birthday card out loud for her. Being the daughter that I was, I said aloud, “Why can’t you read it yourself?” My grandmother simply giggled. There was something about the expression on grandma’s face, the backdrop of the giggle, that made her seem more weak than strong in that moment (it would be the first of two times in my life that I witnessed a sign of weakness on her face; the second would be me soaping her back in a warm bath as she wept, weakened by radiation for lung cancer).

On grandma’s birthday, the answer to my accidental observation of grandma’s facial expression came later on during the car ride home from grandma’s house; my aunt said to me matter factly, “You know your grandma can’t read!”

No, I did not know. I should have been ashamed in that moment, but I was not. I was actually proud. How in the world did my grandmother, on the south side of Chicago, raise six kids, own her own home as a single parent, and be a community organizer and a nurse? Yes, my grandmother was a nurse!

I later learned that my grandmother, after leaving the South and having to survive on her own, typed up a fake nursing diploma. So, yes, I was proud that my grandmother defied the odds and tricked the system—patriarchy, White supremacy, and the intelligentsia—she did what she had to do to survive. Once I learned of her secret, which was around the age of 12, I not only admired her strength and cleverness, I revered it. Grandma’s strength, beauty, grace, and intelligence is what I aspire to be. She’s my spirit guide, because she used what she already embodied and what she did know to CREATE.

Revelation: Grandma’s gun and “fanciness” were basically her tools for navigating across different cultural communities.

In this book, I use the term Black feminism to describe a long tradition of Black women’s intellectual labor and community endeavors in the U.S. and across the African Diaspora. Although most scholars interested in Black women’s approaches to qualitative inquiry are able to define Black feminism and locate it within a larger intellectual tradition within the social science and critical theory, we do not always agree that it is appropriate or accurate to lump the body of Black women’s political struggles inside and outside the academy as “Black feminism,” or, for that matter, for Black women who participate in gender-centered scholarly pursuits or community engagement, to be identified as a “feminist” or as a “Black feminist.”

At this moment in history, we are witnessing first hand a resurgence of Black women, youth, and other subjugated groups boldly and actively resisting mainstream institutions’ discourse, language, and concepts associated with the oppressor class. Black women like myself who are born within or enculturated into an African-centered community, or young women educated on an African consciousness, are taught to conscientiously question, resist, and reject ideologies and taken-for-granted assumptions handed down by White scholars or those trained in Eurocentric paradigms. Feminism as a term and as an ideology is no exception. Feminism is a range of political ideologies, social and political movements that call for political, economic, and social equity between the sexes.

More than 20 years after being introduced to the term and ideas of (White liberal) feminism as an undergraduate student, I persistently ask: What is feminism and what does it mean for Black women and girls? Who is a feminist and how will the label “feminist” validate or invalidate my own credibility as a Black woman scholar and community activist? And, what do Black women compromise when we align with feminism, especially since it is viewed as a theoretical and political agenda belonging to liberal White women? Even more, is Black simply being added to the term feminism to make (White women’s) feminism more palatable to non-White women, or are Black scholars simply adding Black to feminism to represent the addition of race politics to gender politics? As an institutionalized (and commodified) concept, Black feminism as intellectual thought is certainly familiar, but certainly is contested as a discourse. Language is power and the power to name is just as powerful!

Intellectual migrations

Therefore, to critical scholars, especially those engaged in decolonial thinking and who critique the social world from an Afrocentric episteme like myself, Black feminism at first glance appears to be like the “lions dancing with the hunters.” However, as long as we choose to play within the confines of Western institutions and with an adopted language (i.e. academic English), Black women will always compromise, negotiate, and balance the needs of institutions and our struggles for social, economic, political, and education liberation. Participation in the politics of language does not give way to concession. For instance, in the U.S., those of African ancestry have historically struggled with naming ourselves as a cultural and political group. A few cultural/political names that have emerged over the last century or so: Colored, Negro, African American, African, Black, Black American, and African in America.

Some of these names have been forced upon us while others have been adopted or adapted. I contend here that (1) the English language is limited and unimaginative, and (2) as Black/African we name ourselves within a larger socio-political context. This is understood when naming ourselves as an ethnic and cultural group situated within a particular geopolitical context(s). Therefore, we need to be careful of coloring Black women’s ponderings of “our naming” as frivolous or moreover as a thoughtless concession to White women’s (epistemic) domination.

I am Black and African, and my mother bestowed upon me my Earth name, Venus. Beyond given familial names, cultural/ethnic/political identities are too naturally fluid. For example, while serving in South Africa, I was often described, when introduced or in conversation, as American or an American Black. I was shaken to the core when my American identity was forefronted in South Africa by other Africans, because I rarely considered myself as American. In contrast to the South African context, in the U.S., I was always Black or African American. Never was I told that I was American first and then Black or African. This naming did not fit my constitution.

As another example, once a dear friend and adopted family member in her native tongue described me to an elder, who did not speak English and with little contact with city life, as half-caste. In other words, in their minds, I was not authentically or wholly “African”! Nonetheless, I explained to my peer, who was also my adopted sister, that culturally and politically I align with the continent and people of Africa, and that spiritually I am situated (read: axiologically speaking) and “called” (read: ontologically speaking) back to my ancestral land. Intellectually speaking, my worldview migrates back and forth, in between, and across continents, histories, and diverse religious and spiritual traditions, and political orientations.

As a matter of fact, Western science would never accept an African womanist worldview where the “subject” herself claims to transcend time and place, or a worldview where the notion of time and place are themselves scientific constructions open to critique, questioning, and manipulation. In South Africa, Ghana, North America, and across the African Diaspora, we all are (re)learning to name ourselves for ourselves. As hinted at above, the naming of ourselves is inevitably hindered by language, discursive boundaries and power, and geopolitical context. Yet, our naming does not negate our endeavors to analytically frame our social, political, economic, cultural, and philosophical contestations.

Black feminism is not my naming, but mostly my “framing” of my racial and sexual politics. As an example of framing vs. naming, my aunt, sister, and I have the same picture of my maternal grandmother hanging or sitting on shelves in each of our homes. And although we all have the same picture of my grandmother, adorned in a blue outfit with decorative pearl earrings and a matching necklace, the picture is of a different size (e.g. 8 x 5 or 10 x 12) and we all have different frames that accentuate and forefront her image. The different frames do not distort our memories of her nor distort the constitution of the picture. This is how I, in fact, view Black feminism and other similarly situated theoretical frameworks like African feminism, African womanism, Pan African womanism, and womanism. Depending on our location in the world and particular body of politics, Black women scholars borrow different language(s) and/or “frames” to accentuate and forefront our memories and lived realities based on personal tastes, aesthetics, and convenience.

For me, I support the ideals of Black feminism while also, awkwardly at times, rejecting being labeled as a Black feminist. Although I do align with anti-racism and gender equity, and fervently engage in resistance efforts against White supremacy patriarchy capitalism imperialism, which is consistent with Black feminism as theory and praxis, Black feminism as institutionalized knowledge (and now a part of popular discourse) has been commodified and co-opted to a point that it might be too “centered” for my tastes. Meaning, I am reluctant to identify with any given identity that has become so accepted by the status quo that it no longer poses a real or perceived threat to dominant discourse, hegemonic structures, or social groups aligned with authoritarianism.

On the other hand, reluctance to name aside, centering Black feminism in this conversation about qualitative inquiry allow us a shared starting point, which centers Black women’s epistemology, approaches to analysis, analyzing, critique, and interpretations of the social world. Accepting the limitation of an institutionalized Black feminism while also imagining its futures, I present Black feminism as a mosaic. Black women across the diaspora have shared the unique history of surviving and struggling against White supremacy, economic oppression and domination, and gender oppression. How do we reflect upon these shared histories to carve out theoretical and methodological spaces of our own? Black women interested in the lives of Black women, have much, herstorical, theoretical, and practical knowledge to contribute to contemporary qualitative inquiry and discourse.

Many of us were introduced to the idea of “scientific research” by White men, and later the concept of qualitative research by White women, while reading assigned texts of White researchers’ interpretations of the social world and experiences. Consequently, our understanding of qualitative inquiry begins and too often ends from a White-centric lens. It is imperative that those committed to social and racial justice paradigms give attention to how non-White women make sense of contemporary and historical patterns. Moreover, it is equally important for us to consider the ways in which Black women seek to question, understand, and challenge, via the formal inquiry process, contemporary social injustice, like the imposition of deficit-thinking, white supremacy, and racialized gender bias in society as well as the research process itself.

In the past, qualitative research has been metaphorically described as a bricolage, a montage, quilt-making, and musical improvisation. In this fieldnote, I would like to describe Black feminism, and specifically its possibilities to qualitative research, as a mosaic. Mosaic as an artform is the process of creating images with an assortment of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other objects put together to create a pattern or picture. In most instances, the mosaic has cultural and spiritual significance. Black feminist scholars bring a wealth of knowledge, skills, talents, and experiences into the research process. These bits of experiences mold together to construct our multiple identities. And, from these multiple identities, yields a creative, distinctly mosaic worldview.

Using the metaphor of a mosaic, a piece of artwork composed of a combination of diverse elements, patterns, and forms, I propose a gender- and race-based approach to qualitative inquiry and analysis, alongside an inevitable critique of capitalism and economic exploitation. Black women scholars have a long tradition of facilitating knowledge of the connection between culture and theory formation. Throughout the text, I put forth the stance that due to continually navigating the contours of racism, classism, and sexism by virtue of existing in the confines of the matrix of White domination, women of African ancestry offer unique perspectives on the ways in which inequality persists within and across cultural contexts and institutions.

In the following discussion, the tenets and methodology of Black feminism/womanism are explained in relation to qualitative research methods and analysis. Also discussed is the usefulness of Black feminism to expose and trouble marginalization and exclusionary practices in qualitative inquiry. It is argued that a researcher’s embracement of a Black feminist consciousness shapes: (1) musings about knowledge and knowing, (2) how one interacts with participants throughout the research process, (3) one’s understanding of the context where the study takes place, (4) the body of literature reviewed, and (5) interpretation and analysis of data.

Although more recently there has been an increase in research conducted with or about women and girls of African descent, this body of research still receives less attention in qualitative research textbooks, in particular when looking at how research is applicable to current social, health, and economic challenges like food insecurity, state sanctioned violence, school inequality, obesity and cancer, childhood trauma, homophobia, etc. Black women’s worldview is shaped by our everyday joys and struggles as well as our quests to solve our own community’s problems and pushback against societal barriers.

To echo Ladson-Billings (2000):

The process of developing a worldview that differs from the dominant worldview requires active intellectual work on the part of the knower, because schools, society, and the structure and production of knowledge are designed to create individuals who internalize the dominant worldview and knowledge production and acquisition process.

(p. 258)

The mosaic of Black feminism brings forth an aesthetically distinct alternative to widely accepted notions of how knowledge production and acquisition should transpire in qualitative inquiry and analysis.

Multiple consciousness

Black feminism or womanism (a term coined by Alice Walker in 1983 to address the concerns of Black women about the history of racism in the feminist movement) was born out of Black women’s experiences and struggles against slavery, U.S. apartheid, and their on-going political involvement in Black and women’s liberation movements. As I have articulated elsewhere (Evans-Winters, 2017; Evans-Winters & Love, 2015), in the post-civil rights era, for many, a Black feminist consciousness is developed from (1) hearing family members shared stories of struggles and triumphs against racial oppression, (2) participation in one’s own first-hand experiences and continued struggle to spiritually and physically survive de facto segregated spaces, (3) experiences with hyper-surveillance in urban schools and neighborhoods (e.g. racial profiling, metal detectors in schools, drug testing of students, etc.), (4) witnessing symbolic lynchings (e.g. the first Black man president being depicted as a terrorist and monkey, countless Black young men and women killed and their murders being circulated on public television and social media while their murderers are acquitted), (5) militarized public schools (e.g. zero tolerance policies and armed policies officers on school sites), and (6) being allowed in White spaces for the sole intent of “speaking for the race” at a time when affirmative action initiatives are being rolled back in education and employment, leaving many Black women lonely, vulnerable, and absent of community.

Black feminist thought is a reflection of multiple theoretical traditions, including African-centered thought, feminist theory, Marxism, sociology of knowledge, critical social theory, and postmodern theory. Furthermore, Black feminist thought crosses the disciplines of cultural studies, literary studies, education, sociology, economics, political science, history, anthropology, African and African American studies, gender studies, legal studies and law, social work, media studies and the arts (e.g. dance, theater, singing, etc.). Black feminism as it is known today is “a continuation of intellectual and activist traditions” (Guy-Sheftall, 1995, p. 1), as well as African and African American values, beliefs, and traditions. Black feminist scholar Guy-Sheftall (1995) points out that Black femin...