feministmethodologies

In the timely article, Love No Limit: Towards a Black Feminist Future (in Theory), Brittney Cooper uses Black feminist theorizing to suggest that Black feminism or rather the Black feminist project has remained static and fallen into the academic habit trap of conforming  to western hegemonic standards by steadily trying to prove its rigor and legitimacy, which results in the under-theorization of race, gender, and the metaphysical. Similarly, my research questions the double binded usage western canonical texts to put forth new theories of race, gender, or something new where in which I wish to use new accounts of race gender rooted in studies of blackness. However, one cannot use what simply hasn’t been produced. Cooper’s exploration of of Black feminist theorizing is significant in that it challenges black feminist methods of theorizing as well as questioning  if it is bold enough to ask and explore what lies in the dark, a problem which I, too struggle with in my navigation of the Ivory tower. Barriers continued to be set up not only by western philosophical theorists, but also more frustratingly, other Black feminist theorists.  This short essay will seek to evaluate Cooper’s interrogation of the state of black feminist theorizing, by examining structure and significance of arguments.

Rather than necessarily posing new or less regulated questions for the Black feminist future, Cooper uses this article to comment on and trace Black feminist inquiry as it pertains to black feminist methods of theorization, how it negotiates space in the realm of feminist activism and theorization as in place in theory. I am reminded of Gabriel argument for uses of ethnographic poetry as a method of geographic research when Cooper criticises  the increasing popularity of western literary criticism as root for black feminist theorizing when “people of color have always theorized” using “ narrative forms, in the stories  we create, in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic rather than fixed ideas seem more to our liking”( Cooper 8). Cooper uses Barbara Christian’s work, A Race for Theory, to suggest that the preoccupation with finding a legitimate way to theorize displaces the already legitimate black epistemologies. On one hand, Cooper’s critiques is dizzying in that black feminist theory in this regard reifies that which it sought to resist. On the other hand, contextualizing and tangling with the realities that black women and black feminist theorists often have limited access to academic spaces. In addition, black feminist theorist are  vulnerable to internalized sexism, racism and additionally  often lacking administrative and faculty support in predominately white and western academic institutions. As Cooper admits “Black women become forced to participate in a discourse but always only to the extent that they exercise language and expression of often alien theorizations”(Cooper 10). Black feminist theorist are in a constant cycle of trying to prove themselves. The questions seemingly remain static in that they assert why black women belong in the university, why leaving black women or women of color out renders western political theories incomplete. Always in binary opposition to the western patriarchal theorists or white feminist theorists , black feminist criticism becomes co-opted  and transitions critically necessary lenses like intersectionality into the domain of buzzword, holding no real meaning. Likewise, rather than fight for new understandings of what we think we know, we become folded into the neoliberal project by striving for academic legitimization and focused moving away from being seemingly out of place. In other words, Black feminism theorizing is always on the defense.

My greatest criticism of the Cooper’s article, is the common mistake of making the place queerness and trans folk in black feminism and afterthought. I  suggest that rather than make space for a range desires and black performances of gender that queer black feminism be at the center. as we begin to create and develop a comprehensive black sexual politic  in addition to theorizing black interiority, I assert that nothing can be done with rendering even the thinking of black queer pleasure impossible. Despite the black feminism’s history with queerness, Combahee River collective, queerness, queer theory, and black feminist theorizing remain departed drawing two separate paths.

As Cooper interrogates the growth of Black feminist theorizing, Cooper frames BFT as a problem rather than a solution. In other words, BFT for the past two decades has served to be an interruption rather than a producer of new knowledge or uncovering the old. Cooper strongest example is looking at the over-production and obsession with “controlling images” research like Sapphire, Jezebel, and Mammy.  Without question, Black feminist attraction to race, gender, and representation is linked to it relevance and prominence in our daily lives–no doubt a critical pillar of BFT. However, Cooper asserts that the obsession with being an interruption rather than a producer serves to make BFT complicit  in the processes that place BFT on a pedestal, stalling the possibility for exciting new inquiries. For instance, Cooper introduces Patricia Hill Collins’ work, Black Feminist Thought, as something that could be considered a canonical black feminist text. What strengthens her argument is the insight that although this text is significant  and has been crucial for the development of black feminist theory  as a  critical social theory, Collins work  is taken as given and though heavily cited, never critiqued. Theorists use Collins books as perhaps a justification or contextualization of their own ideas but never challenging Collins’ ideas themselves or taking up the questions and gaps purposefully left in in Collins work. This particular example convinced me that the disconnect I have felt from the Black feminist project is not only real but indicative of  how black feminist theorizing must broaden as  questions the political landscape as well as the bridging gap the realm of black feminist  metaphysics.

In conclusion, Cooper has brought new questions for me about the state of Black feminist project. Particularly, how does or can the black feminist theorize the nation state and the twice displacement of diasporic peoples?  Will Black feminism always serve as a problem or site for contention if its very necessity constitutes its limitations? Who or what is controlling the black feminist project? Is and should the object of feminist theorizing be that black feminist theorizing be folded into the larger feminist project or perhaps toward a larger human ethical project or does that desire for particularity always/already hold it at odds?

Cooper, B. C. (2015). Love No Limit: Towards a Black Feminist Future (In Theory). The Black Scholar,45(4), 7-21. doi:10.1080/00064246.2015.1080912

BFT- Black feminst theorizing