In
comparison to the last several readings, I had a much easier time following
both the argument and the theory/methodology behind this book. As I am already somewhat
familiar with intersectionality and Black feminism (though not necessarily
Black left feminism), I could easily pull out some important and useful themes
in the book. At the same time, through its focus on Black left feminism and a
much more in depth and complete history of concepts such as intersectionality,
I felt this book to be incredibly useful for both my research and how I understand
and teach intersectionality.
In
the introduction, McDuffie states that this book is meant to be a “recovery”
of Black left feminism. As with many other social movements and political
ideas, McDuffe argues that Black women communists were foundational in many
social movements, although they are rarely given credit. McDuffie’s goal is to
move these thinkers from the margins to the centers in order to understand
social movements in the U.S. McDuffie explains: “Given black women’s location
at the interstices of multiple oppressions, black left feminists charged that
black women across the African diaspora, not white working-class men, represented
the vanguard for transformative change globally” (4). Although he does not
label it as such, I believe that this sentences sums up the methodology behind
the book: by centering the struggle of women facing “triple oppression” we can
uncover transformative change. In my own work, I am already trying to do
something similar by centering the border crossing experiences of individuals
who represent multiple oppressions. While previous scholars have looked at
human smuggling as a standard experience (with some notable exceptions of those
who study violence against women on the border), I am proposing that we
understand this experience by centering the most vulnerable migrants: children,
women, and Central Americans, in particular. Drawing upon McDuffie, the idea
here is to look at the center of multiple oppressions as the first step in
understanding both the experience of immigration and to see how to transform
the border region.
One
aspect that I found compelling and important to McDuffie’s methodology was his
decision to forgo the oft-used understanding of feminism as several waves. He
explains that this understanding obscures the important work the Black left
feminists have been doing through these “waves.” Instead, he “recover[s] these linkages” (13)
of intergenerational connections and, again, centers the experience of Black
left feminist whose work does not fit neatly into the white-women-led waves. In
terms of my work, restructuring how we think about history could prove to be
useful. Like feminism, immigration is certainly looked it in terms of “waves.”
In fact, my original plan (which has since been changed) was to look at some
recent shifts in immigration and how these shift impacted smuggling networks.
However, following McDuffie’s reasoning, I am now challenged to look at how
immigrants who have been at the “margins” might have a different story to tell
about the projection of immigration history. In particular, I wonder if looking
at youth migrants (who are rarely centered in research) would have a different
response to economic or border control trends. Although I would have to do more
historical research before exploring this further, I do think the idea of
restructuring history and recovering linkages and connections could be very
useful.
On
page 5, McDuffie explains that the women he studies would not have labeled
themselves “feminists”; indeed, they consciously distanced themselves from the
term. McDuffie, however, choose to continue to use the term to describe these
women because it “makes sense” (5). He claims that their understanding of
intersectionality, multiple consciousness, and sexism makes “feminist” an
appropriate title. I disagree with this assessment, especially considering
McDuffie’s positionality. I thought that the work in and of itself was an
interesting one for a man to undertake, and I was disappointed to find that he
did not address his own positionality in writing this book. Furthermore, it
struck me as insensitive to give a label to a group of people who explicitly
rejected that very label, especially as someone who is writing from a
relatively privileged position. In this sense, I think the book is actually
lacking in some of the methodological development.
In
the same vein, in order to complete this history, McDuffie relies on both
archival evidence and oral histories. Similar to the lack of positionality in
the book, I think more analysis of the methodology behind these particular
methods could have been used. His explanation of the methods is brief, and his
only analysis is to briefly question the reliability of one of his
interlocutors. Again, I question his lack of further analysis and the lack of
self-awareness in this particular issue. In other books throughout the
semester, we have found excellent examples of how individuals position
themselves in research—particularly ethnographer or oral histories—and how they
have analyzed their influence, the “silence” of their participants, etc. I have
been able to take away valuable
As a side note, in terms of my teaching: for
the first few years of graduate school, I understood intersectionality as a
theory developed in the 80’s. With a class called Racial Capitalism, I began to
understand that this theory developed “before” that, although I still didn’t
have a good understanding of its precursors. However, McDuffe provided some
important name and ideas that I hope to use in the future:
- - Claudia
Jones: triple Oppression
- - Boyce
Davis: Superexploitation of Black women
- - Grace
Campbell
- - Louise
Thompson Patterson – Triple exploitation
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