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Black feminist thought is a collection of ideas, writings, and art that articulates a standpoint of and for black women of the African diaspora. It describes black women as a unique group that exists in a ”place in US social relations where intersectional processes of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation shape black women s individual and collective consciousness and actions. As a standpoint theory, black feminist thought conceptualizes identities as fluid and interdependent socially constructed ”locations within a historical context. It is grounded in black women s historical experience with enslavement, anti-lynching movements, Civil Rights and Black Power movements, sexual politics, capitalism, and patriarchy.
Distinctive tenets of black feminist thought include: (1) the legitimization of partial, subjugated knowledges as a unique, diverse standpoint; (2) black women s multiple oppressions resulting in ideologies and challenges that are unique; (3) black feminist consciousness as a self-reflexive process toward black women s liberation through activism; and (4) the replacement of deleterious images of black womanhood. Black feminist thought has been expressed historically through collective social and political activism (National Black Feminist Organization; Combahee River Collective). Black feminists assert that all black women have the common experience of negotiating oppression(s) despite occupying different social locations and possessing variable privileges.
Black feminists broke from mainstream feminists in the 1970s. At this time, black feminist thought began to reflect a provocative, sophisticated critique of the mainstream white women s movement and theorizations. Black feminist writings do not advocate a wholly separatist movement from mainstream feminism but do call for the inclusion of all women s experiences in scientific inquiry. Attention to the interlocking nature of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation over the course of time and geography is a recurrent theme in writings. The 1980s saw black feminists building a ”praxis bridge between the ivory tower and the community. Black feminist literature illuminated the historical contributions of black women in American civil rights and women s movements. In the 1990s and early twenty-first century, black women scholars also began to spotlight black women s experiences of intimate violence and resistance.
Black feminist thought is conducive to qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method designs. Black feminists incorporate traditional data and non-traditional and non-literal data (e.g., diaries, creative arts) to document the personal experiences of participants. Methodological critiques have included the difficulty of operationalizing black feminist concepts and the lack of predictive power in regard to behavioral outcomes. Future research directions should include attempts to demonstrate black feminist thought s utility in empirical research.
Bibliography:
- Collins, P. H. (1991) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, New York.
- Few, A., Stephens, D., & Rouse-Arnette, M. (2003) Sister-to-sister talk: transcending boundaries in qualitative research with black women. Family Relations 52: 205-15.
- James, J. & Sharply-Whiting, T. D. (eds.) (2000) The Black Feminist Reader. Blackwell, Cambridge, MA.
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