Morgan Mowatt, Mandeep Kaur Mucina, Gina Mowatt, Josephine Simone and Shilo Shiv Suleman
Indigenous and racialized people have suffered multifaceted dispossession as a result of ongoing and historical violence by the Canadian state. Most greatly affected are…
Abstract
Indigenous and racialized people have suffered multifaceted dispossession as a result of ongoing and historical violence by the Canadian state. Most greatly affected are Indigenous gender-queer and nonbinary people, who have been erased by law and policy and are targets of violence; Indigenous women, who are targeted by gender discrimination and violence; and Indigenous children, who continue to be removed from their communities. Nonwhite or racialized migrants to Canada are victims of the same colonial project, which relies on the slavery of Black and Brown bodies and Orientalist constructions that portray the West as “superior” in relation to the “barbaric” East. This dispossession, oppression, and violence are met by a constellation of local and global approaches to resist, heal, and create Fearless futures for Indigenous and racialized people.
Through collaborative storytelling, this chapter centers a radical project focused on resistance to gender violence, reconnection to land and body, Indigenous and settler solidarity, storytelling and witnessing, and healing through art. These efforts, including multiple community workshops and mural projects with Indigenous and racialized women, as well as queer and two-spirit people and youth, have recentered Indigenous healing and medicine, promoted intergenerational teachings, fostered intercommunity relationship building and solidarities through stories and witnessing, reconnected disconnected Indigenous peoples (both local and settler) to their bodies, lands, and communities, and unsettled colonial mentalities on gender and Indigeneity publicly and privately. This project was a collaboration between The Fearless Collective, based in South Asia, the Innovative Young Indigenous Leaders Symposium, based in British Columbia, Canada, and research from the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, British Columbia.
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Njoki N. Wane, Kimberly L. Todd, Coly Chau and Heather Watts
This paper aims to be a critical reflection on the author's position as a Black female academic in the academy, and comes from a motivation to raise Black consciousness about the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to be a critical reflection on the author's position as a Black female academic in the academy, and comes from a motivation to raise Black consciousness about the importance of Black feminist scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach
The author identifies the unique position of Black feminism, which has had to define itself apart from second‐wave feminism of the 1970s, which marginalised non‐White women and the Civil Rights movement, which marginalised women. The oppression faced by Black feminists is apparent in the shifting platforms of identity that Black feminists occupy in the academy. Another obstacle is the restricted and incomplete picture of feminism in the academy, which sidelines Black feminist writing. One of the ways to raise awareness is to focus on the corpus of Black writing and to re‐position it within academic core curricula, rather than relegating it to specialised courses.
Findings
It is found that Black feminism is marginalised in the academy in scholarship and representation. It is also found that students are more receptive to ideas about feminism when approaching the subject indirectly.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation of the study is an absence of theoretical literature from a UK context.
Social implications
The paper highlights the marginalisation of Black feminism in the academy.
Originality/value
The subjects of “feminism in academia” and the representation of “Black and minority ethnics in the Academy” have been explored in scholarship. However the combination of these terms, namely the role of the Black feminist in the academy, is a comparatively unexplored subject. Hence, the originality of this paper.
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Few scholars become notable figures in their areas of specialization. Understanding how and why some scholars are identified by their unusual accomplishments, therefore, can be…
Abstract
Few scholars become notable figures in their areas of specialization. Understanding how and why some scholars are identified by their unusual accomplishments, therefore, can be difficult, especially when some scholars achieve more notable careers and are invisible in their professions than others, more recognized colleagues. The reasons for some scholars’ visibility and their colleagues’ invisibility may be unclear or ambiguous. One common reason for invisibility is being a woman in a patriarchal discipline. Men’s ideas, values, and careers are privileged and more highly rated in a patriarchal subject like sociology.
Here, I analyze case studies of invisibility that emerge from deliberate suppression but focus on the more hidden processes of making women invisible in sociology. These less overt processes of invisibility require different theories, networks, and methods to discover the women’s notable careers than those used in examples of more overt processes.
Making invisible women visible requires multiple processes, over time, by a number of professionals and gatekeepers.