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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
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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.

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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.

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