Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:18:52.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Methodology of the Privileged: White Anti‐racist Feminism, Systematic Ignorance, and Epistemic Uncertainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Adale Sholock
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article addresses the impact of systematic ignorance and epistemic uncertainty upon white Western women's participation in anti‐racist and transnational feminisms. I argue that a “methodology of the privileged” is necessary for effective coalition‐building across racial and geopolitical inequities. Examining both self‐reflexivity and racial sedition as existing methods, I conclude that epistemic uncertainty should be considered an additional strategy rather than a dilemma for the privileged.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , Fall 2012 , pp. 701 - 714
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Bailey, Alison. 2007. Strategic ignorance. In Race and epistemologies of ignorance, ed. Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Baldwin, James. 1985. The price of the ticket. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1986. Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black feminist thought. Social problems 33 (6): 14–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The color of fear. 1994. Directed by Lee Mun Wah. VHS. Berkeley: Stir Fry Productions.Google Scholar
Combahee River Collective. 1983. Combahee River Collective: A black feminist statement. In Homegirls: A black feminist anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela Y. 1983. Racism in the women's suffrage movement. In Women, race, and class. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Dyer, Richard. 1997. White. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Frankenberg, Ruth. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankenberg, Ruth. 2001. Mirage of an unmarked whiteness. In The making and unmaking of whiteness, ed. Brander Rasmussen, Birgit, Klinenberg, Eric, Nexica, Irene J. and Wray, Matt. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 1983. On being white: Toward a feminist understanding of race and race supremacy. In The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. New York: The Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 1992. White woman feminist. In Willful virgin: Essays in feminism 1976–1992. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Haggis, Jane, and Schech, Susanne. 2000. Meaning well and global good manners: Reflections on white western feminist cross‐cultural praxis. Australian Feminist Studies 15 (33): 387–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1991. Whose science? Whose knowledge?: Thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 2004. Introduction: Standpoint theory as a site of political, philosophic, and scientific debate. In The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies, ed. Harding, Sandra. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heldke, Lisa. 1998. On being a responsible traitor: A primer. In Daring to be good: Essays in feminist ethico‐politics, ed. Bar On, Bat‐Ami and Ferguson, Ann. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia. 2007. Denying relationality: Epistemology and ethics and ignorance. In Race and epistemologies of ignorance, ed. Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist theory: From margin to center. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.Google Scholar
Ignatiev, Noel, and Garvey, John. 1996. Race traitor. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kendall, Frances E. 2006. Understanding white privilege: Creating pathways to authentic relationships across race. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. 1997. The racial contract. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Toni. 1992. Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma. 1989. The project of feminist epistemology: Perspectives from a nonwestern feminist. In Gender/body/knowledge: Feminist reconstructions of being and knowing, ed. Jaggar, Alison M. and Bordo, Susan. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Outlaw, Lucius T. Jr. 2007. Social ordering and the systematic production of ignorance. In Race and epistemologies of ignorance, ed. Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, Minnie Bruce. 1984. Identity: Skin blood heart. In Yours in struggle: Three feminist perspectives on anti‐semitism and racism. Ithaca: Firebrand Books.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1983. Coalition politics: Turning the century. In Home girls: A Black feminist anthology, ed. Smith, Barbara. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.Google Scholar
Rich, Adrienne. 1986. Notes towards a politics of location. In Blood, bread and poetry: Selected prose 1979–1985. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Roediger, David R. 1998. Black on white: Black writers on what it means to be white. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Sandoval, Chela. 2000. Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Segrest, Mab. 1994. Memoir of a race traitor. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 2007. Managing ignorance. In Race and epistemologies of ignorance. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Shannon. 2006. Revealing whiteness: The Unconscious habits of racial privilege. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Townley, Cynthia. 2006. Toward a revaluation of ignorance. Hypatia 21 (3): 37–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trask, Haunani‐Kay. 1996. Feminism and indigenous Hawaiian nationalism. Signs 21 (4): 906–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truth, Sojourner. 1992. Ain't I a woman? In Feminism: The essential historical writings, ed. Schneir, Miriam. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar