This chapter centers voices that are traditionally excluded from the anthropological canon in order to read a feminist praxis back into anthropology’s feminist theory and methodology. The authors excavate key debates and practices that yield insight into the liberatory potentiality of feminist anthropology. First, they explore questions around gender, sexuality, and the authority of the knowledge producer. Then, they query how the sexual and gendered mythos of the researcher clings to their research and the way the researcher is integrated into the field of anthropology, taking examples from anthropological history and debates around auto-ethnography. The third section explores how self-knowledge folds into feminist traditions of situated knowledges, particularly as it is engaged by Black feminist anthropologists, women of color, and queer thinkers. The fourth section revisits the work of performance and choreography in our field, navigating the political forces and forms of embodiment revealed through these methodological approaches. The chapter ends by drawing together questions of authority, autoethnography, situated knowledge, and the high stakes of performance through the case of sexual and gender-based violence to illustrate methodological and epistemological possibilities within anthropological research.

Who knew that twenty-two years ago when I began this musical journey that I was making a political statement by just being myself, an eighteen-year-old Black girl from St. Louis, Missouri? In the epilogue, I recount my career thus far in Country music – the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. My journey from Eureka, Missouri, to songwriter’s nights in Nashville to a record deal and all the misadventures along the way. In telling my story, I examine the disparities that exist for women and Black, Indigenous, and artists of color in the country music industry and propose ideas for how to bridge and fill the gaps.