the role of black feminist research

7/28/2019 The Role of Black Feminist Research

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African-AmericanWomen MakingThemselvesNotes on the Role ofBlack Feminist Researchleith Mullinus

African-Arnerican women continuallyrnake thernselves-always assuming an active role in the creation of culture and history.In this paper, I will put forward prelirninaryreflections on how, as Black feminist socialscientists, we might operationalize in research practices Black feminist theoreticalperspectives that seek to bring African-American wornen to the center of analysis. In otherwords, how can researchers explore the substance of African-Arnerican women's livesfrom the central vantage point of their experiences? This necessarily involves interrogating the relationship between scholars, researchers, and writers on one hand andworking-class and poor women on the other

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in examining how we think about and understand gender identity.

RepresenlingAfrican-American WomenBoth within the African-Arnerican cornrnunity and beyond it, African-Arnerican wornencontinue to be defined in ways that deny theirhurnanity. By now, a generation of scholarshas explored how structures of unequalpower relations give rise to irnages andstereotypes of African-Arnerican wornen thatinfluence public policy in such fields ashealth, education, and family and how theserepresentations facilitate the reproduction of


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African-American Women Making Themselvesinequality. Essentialized notions of cultureculture viewed as an immutable set of negative traits passed down from generation togeneration-are central to explanations forinequality. For example, concepts such as"culture of poverty" and "underclass culture"minimize structural factors responsible forinequality, suggesting that poverty is causedby the deficient culture of the poor. Central tothese are negative stereotypes of AfricanAmerican women as promiscuous, dependentwelfare recipients, and inadequate mothers.As many writers, scholars, and activists havepointed out-from Moynihan's description ofthe African-American matriarchal family tothe recent debate around "welfare reform"public policy demonizes African-Americanwomen, especially those with low income.

Historically, African Arnericans have challenged these negative stereotypes, but havegenerally accepted hierarchical models ofgender relationships. In earlier work, I attempted to map out the ideological currentsin African-American poltical movements asthey relate to gender, suggesting that thethree dominant approaches to African-American liberation embody very different constructs of gender.2 The inc1usionist paradigm seeks integration of AfricanAmericans into the existing social or-der, without a significant critique of thesocial, economic, or cultural structureof capitalismo This generally involvesan acceptance of hierarchical genderroles and normative notions of familystructure. William Julus Wilson's proposals,which embody and reinforce traditional models of family structure and gender roles as aneffective solution to the social problems facing African-American households, are a clearexample of this approach.3 Conservative nationalism, which at frrst glance would appearas the opposite poltical direction, similarlyincorporates a patriarchal model of familyand gender roles. In organizations such as the

Nation of Islam, hierarchical gender roles arerationalized by religious or cultural discourses and often articulated in language thatemphasizes the protection of women andgender complementarity.

African Americans inDefense of OurselvesThere is, however, yet a third paradigm.It calls for dismantlng all forms of inequality, including those of gender relations.African-American women, in particular,have assumed the task of writing into historytheir experiences, incorporating their roles asworkers, mothers, and activists. Contemporary work, which builds on a long traditionof writers such as Anna Jula Cooper, Ida B.Wells, and Alce Dunbar Nelson, attempts totheorize a gender poltics drawn from the experiences of the African-American community and African-American women. Emerging from this endeavor is Alice Walker'sformulation of "womanism" and Patricia HillCollins's pioneering work Black FeministThought, in which she calls for standpointresearch, examining the ways in which

80th within the African-American community and beyond it, African-Americanwomen continue to be defined in waysthat deny their humanity.African-American women have created adistinct standpoint on self, community, andsociety.4 Though Black feminisms mayemerge from diverse theoretical perspectives, they frequently speak to the politics ofrace and class, as well as gender, and addressthe dialectics of struggle and community empowerment.

Black feminists, then, often seek to excavate the "cultures of resistance" that give rise

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to a distinctive culture of gender identity. Forexample, Angela Davis's now c1assic 1981volume describes the ways in wbich AfricanAmerican women, from their vantage point atthe crossroads of race, elass, and gender, established "standards for a new womanhood."5Ten years later, Patricia Hill Collins arguedthat "Black women intellectuals have laid avital analytic foundation for a distinctivestandpoint on self, community and societyand, in doing so, created a Black women's intellectual tradition."6

Contemporary African-American feminism was stimulated by the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But the successes of thecivil rights struggle have also brought aboutunprecedented c1ass stratification amongAfrican Americans. Though most Black feminists, particularly those conceroed with theinteraction of c1ass, race, and gender, consciously attempt to reflect the voices of theworking-class majority in their work,7 muchof contemporary writing on the lives ofAfrican-American women represents theviews of Black ferninist acadernics, writers,independent scholars, and activists.8 To whatextent are the voices of contemporary working-elass and low-income women of Africandescent represented in discussions of newconstructions of gender?

Gaining insight into the everyday lives ofAfrican-American women and how they interpret them requires conscious methodological approaches and research practices. Increasingly, scholars are turning to researchtools that facilitate tbis. These inelude the useof qualitative methods such as ethnographyand cornmunity participation in research.

Research MethodsThe civil rights movement was an impetusnot only for the resurgence of Black feminism but also for "second wave" feminismoFrom these streams has emerged an impor-

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African-AmericanWomen Making Them. . vestant critique of traditional research methods,indicting, for example, the false separationbetween subject and object, or the "knowerand the known"9 and the hierarchical relations between the researcher and the informant-practices that mute the expression ofwomen's experiences. Furthermore, ferninistresearchers suggested that particularly in thestudy of resistance, empowerment, andprotest, a conventional understanding of poltical activities and methodological focus onsurveys and structured interviews rather thanparticipant observation frequently does not illuminate the types of resistance efforts inwbich women are involved and tends to obscure the agency of women. 1OThese earIy critiques pointed to the value oforal history, ethnography, and other qualitativemethods in uncovering women's perspectives.For this reason, the effort to bring women intothe analysis has involved important methodological interventions, foremost of which is"work with the personal testimony of individual women."1l Sorne feminist researchers havepointed to the value of oral interviews12 (andargued the merit of ethnography as an altemative approach). Such qualitative approachesare thought to facilitate "standpoint epistemology," whereby "less powerful members of society have the potential for a more completeview of social reality than others, precisely because oftheir disadvantaged position."13

As critics of ethnography have noted, however, the ethnographic endeavor too may embody hierarcbicaI relationships of researcherand subject. the ethnocentric construction ofthe nonwestero "other." and the representationof partial truthS. 14 These predicaments haveled sorne researchers, conceroed with the researchers' inability to adequately represent the"other," to declare an end to "truth" or to welcome multipIe versions of truth. In response,Frances Mascia-Lees and her colleagues suggest, citing Nancy Harstock, "The post modero view that truth and knowledge are contin-


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African-American Women Making lbemselves

Leith Mullings. Photo by John Smock.

gent and multiple may be seen to act as a truthclaim itself, a claim that undennines the ontological status of the subject at the very timewhen women and non-Western peoples havebegun to claim themselves as subject."15

A more productive approach to addressingthe concerns of representation may be community collaboration in research. Despitesorne very significant problems, incorporating community collaboration into researchhas the potential to speak to sorne of thedilemmas of traditional ethnography and produce information useful to the community.Furthermore, it allows us to uncover the cultures of resistance that stand in opposition tothe dominant representations of AfricanAmerican women that inform public policy.

Community Participationin ResearchThe essence of participatory research is thenotion of dialogue between the researcher

and the "community." The subjects of thestudy have significant input in selecting andformulating the research problem; constructing the research design, which ineludes determining the data to be collected and themethodology to be employed; the analysis ofdata; the disposition of the findings; and,where appropriate, developing a plan for projects suggested by the findings.l6

Skeptics raise questions about the same issues-for example, objectivity, validity, andpartisanship-problematized by the feministcritique of traditional methodology. Proponents of participatory research argue, however, not only that this approach combines research, education, and action 17 as a powerfultool to empower people to improve their social conditions,18 but that it also produces amuch more profound understanding of socialproblems.19

A recent experience with participatory research led me to think more about what Blackfeminist research rnight look like. The project

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was located in Harlem, a multiclass, predominantly African-American communty ofnearly 100,000 people, located in northernManhattan. 1 was familiar with the community, in that 1 had lived in Harlem for nearlytwenty years, and for eight of those years 1had also worked at the City CoHege of New

York, located in Harlem. 1 was recruited tothe project by the contractor, the Harlembased New York Urban League. This project,which was funded by the Centers for DiseaseControl, involved an interdisciplinary team20of researchers in exploring the reasons for thedisproportionate rate of infant mortality andlow-weight babies among African-Americanwomen of aH socioeconomic groups.

We utilized several methodological strategies to coHect data: participant observation,longitudinal case studies, focus groups, anda survey. First, we engaged in participantobservation at eight neighborhood andworkplace sites, where two ethnographersspent three to four months. Second, weworked with twenty-two women of varieddemographic and socioeconomic characteristics over the course of ayear, yielding longitudinal case studies. Third, we convenedeleven focus groups composed of community residents to discuss specific issues related to the context of infant mortality inHarlem. FinaHy, based on data gleaned fromparticipant observation and the focus

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African-American Women Making Themselvesgroups, we developed an open-ended interview that was administered to eighty-threerandomly selected women in centralHarlem. The interview covered a range oftopics, including work, family, stress, environment, health, political participation, andpregnancy.

Community residents collaborated in aHphases of the research. This was facilitatedthrough a twenty-four-member communityadvisory board (CAB), recruited from community-based organizations, unions, tenantsorganizations, youth programs, and serviceorganizations; and community dialoguegroups, smaller groups of residents who metwith researchers to discuss specific aspects ofthe research. Members of the CAB and thecommunity dialogue groups and other community residents were key participants in designing, guiding, and evaluating the research.This included selection of questions to be researched, research site, and topics for thequestionnaire; facilitating the researchthrough contacts and entry to research sites;evaluation; representing the project in variousarenas; assisting in developing strategies forpublic dissemination; and providing generaladvice. FinaHy, through the use of ethnographic methods we involved hundreds ofcommunity residents in the research.

The participation of community residentswas essential to the project. It significantly


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Atriean-Ameriean Women Making Themselv. .extended our understanding of everyday lifeby illuminating the hidden dimension oftransformative work-"efforts to sustain eontinuity under transformed eireumstances, andefforts to transform circumstances in order tomaintain eontinuity"21_through which newconstructions of gender are often expressed.Following the direction of community residents to sites and arenas that would not havebeen immediately obvious to us immeasurably deepened our understanding of howwomen express their reading of genderthrough their aetions in the realms of household and community and how these interpretations are contested at alllevels-from "neutral" statistics to inflammatory polieyspeeches in the halls of Congress.

For example, one of the first requirementsof the researeh was to prepare a eommunityanalysis based on quantitative data. Using thiseommunity report, we prepared a series offaet sheets presenting the eommunity deseription and other projeet findings in a popularform. These were mailed out to communityorganizations and distributed at communityevents, as well as distributed by CAB members through their organizations. We also produced a set of slides depicting the communitydeseription data to be used by eommunity organizations in making presentations to eommunity residents or to potential funders. Tocompile these, we analyzed census and otherdata. We reported the data, using the traditional categories generally found in publiedocuments, for e x a m p l ~ , unemployment, percentage of people below poverty, percentageof people receiving public assistance, numbers of vacant buildings, and so on.

When we presented a draft of the slidesand fact sheets to the CAB, members suggested that we revise our presentation todemonstrate the strengths, as well as theproblems, of the community. As a result ofthis discussion, we created additional slidesthat counterposed sorne figures, for example,

displaying the percentage of people above thepoverty line and the percentage of people noton public assistance. With community residents, we tried to address the ways in whichapparently "objective" statistical presentations emphasize negative characteristics andthereby legitimize stereotypes and unequalpower relationships. Together, the researchersand the CAB began to thirik about altemative .approaches that would illuminate the resistance and activism of women in trying to dealwith their daily lives. This eould take the direction of researching complaints of policebrutality; enforcing housing code requirements; ensuring lack of heat and hot water;taking legal action coneeming job loss; andresisting the placement of children in specialeducation.

These discussions with the CAB led us toadd an additional site to our research design,extending the research to inelude participantobservation in Housing Court, loeated indowntown Manhattan. It is here that manyHarlem women, in their struggle to retain decent shelter for themselves and their families,represent themselves in confronting thelawyers of the landlords who own the buildings in which they reside. Over one-third ofthe respondents to our survey had taken theirlandlords to court, and two-thirds of thosehad represented themselves without the benefit of a lawyer. One member of our CAB described the "tremendous courage" of thesewomen as follows:

To go into housing court, women and theirchildren must walk past court officers whooften treat them in a demeaning manner, intoa courtroom where the court is not sympathetic to poor people and is pressed with anenormous calendar. The judge sees the tenantas a problem: she does not speak his language; she may have children who are crying; she may be arguing with the landlord'slawyer.

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Participatory research allowed us to morefully document the daily experiences ofAfrican-American women. The findings ofthis study are fuIly reported,22 but it is important to note here that in Harlem, where morethan 70 percent of households are headed bywomen, women develop a variety of creativesubsistence strategies to confront difficultconditions, including multiple job s in the formal and informal sectors and flexible andfluid support networks.

Community collaboration in the researchadvanced OUT understanding of how womencreate free social spaces in which to nurturefamily and cornmunity and by doing so confront the hegemonic boundaries of genderand create the foundation for new identities.These are evident in the actions of womenand also in their interpretations of genderidentity. Though not necessarily theorized inacademic language, there is a conscious construction of gender roles that emphasizesself-reliance and independence.

As part of the survey, we asked women:"How were you raised to think about being awoman?" In answering that question, almosttwice as many women gave answers that emphasized themes of independence, competence, and self-reliance as compared to moretraditional gender role behavior, such as "Actlike a woman and do all the things a womanshould do"; "To be a mother and a housewife"; or "The woman is supposed to juststay home and take care of the home and staypregnant." Respondents gave such answers as" Be strong and achieve"; "Be independent";"Be responsible, do not depend on anyonebut yourself'; "Be strong and do not dependon a man to take care of me"; "That 1 can doanything 1 want"; and "To take care of myself-to be independent and self-supporting."

When asked, "What is the most importantthing about being a woman?" the majority ofrespondents did not mention reproduction,but gave answers that gave priority to inde-

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African-American Women Making Themselvespendence, responsibility, self-esteem, education, and competence. Por example, "Beingable to stand on your own two feet"; "Decency, respectfulness, smart; having anawareness about who you are and what youwill or will not accept"; and "Dignity and independence." Even among those whose firstresponse addressed issues of reproduction,this was often viewed in a broader context, asthe following answer demonstrates: "Beingable to give birth; being able to carry the burden of society on my shoulders, black womenare supposed to be strong like Timex-take alicking and keep on kicking."

As the aboye responses demonstrate, identification with the larger cornmunity, as wellas self-sufficiency, has traditionally been amajor aspect of gender identity for AfricanAmerican women. Several African-Americanwomen scholars have cornmented on this as-pect of identity. Nellie McKay discusses therole of "cornmunity identity" in constructionof positive self-images.23 Patricia Hill Collinsalso points to the importance of cornmunity inself-validation. Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, too,notes that "a critical component of the blackfemale self is her tie to the Afro-Americancornmunity."24 Identification with cornmunitywas evident in the very high levels of activismwe encountered in most sectors of the community. Respondents to the survey reportedbeing involved in a broad range of cornmunityactivities, including tenant associations, blockassociations, school boards, communityboards, churches or religious organizations,PTAs, self-help groups, social groups, political organizations, environmental organizations, and organizations fighting drugs.

lhe Sojourner SyndromeThrough cornmunity collaboration, we wereable to document, not merely describe, themultiplicative effects of class, race, and gender on health. The message of the intersecting


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Afriean-Ameriean Women Making Themselvesand overlapping gendered notions of responsibilities may be conceptualized as theSojoumer Syndrome. Sojoumer Truth wasboro in slavery around 1799 and liberated bythe New York State Emancipation Act of1827. In 1843, she assumed the name ofSojoumer Truth andbegan to travel acrossthe country as anabolitionist itinerantpreacher. She workedclosely with leadingabolitionists and becarne involved in theearly women's rightsmovement. In her fa-mous speech that underscores the memorable phrase "Ain't 1 aWoman?" SojoumerTruth dramatically depicts the various responsibilities of African-American women,carried out in circumstances characterized byracial and gender oppression:

That man oyer there says that women need tobe helped into carriages, and lifted oyerditches, and to haye the best place eyerywhere. Nobody eyer helps me into carriages,or oyer mud-puddles, or giyes me any bestplace, and ain't 1 a woman? Look at me!Look at my armo 1 haye ploughed, andplanted and gathered into barns, and no mancould head me! And ain't 1 a woman? 1 couldwork as hard as much and eat as much as aman-when 1 could get i t-and bear the lashas well! And ain't 1 woman? 1 have bornethirteen children, and seen them most all soldoff to slavery, and when 1 cried out with mymother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! Andain't 1 a woman?25The story of Sojoumer Truth has become

emblematic and anthematic to the character-

zation of the lives of African-Americanwomen. She is a legend, larger than life, andassumes extraordinary role responsibilities.Her account embodies the issues thatAfrican-Amercan women confront today:

the assumption ofeconomic, household,and community responsibilities, whichexpress themselves infamily headship,working outside thehome (like aman),and the constant needto address communitydiscrimination-alloften carried out inconditions of discrimination and scarce resources. In addition,the story speaks to the

contradiction between models of gender andthe lives of African-American women: theeXclusions from the protections of private patriarchy offered by concepts of womanhood,motherhood, and femininity; the experienceof being silenced; and the 10ss of children.

The Sojoumer Syndrome represents astrategy for fostering the reproduction andcontinuity of the community. The unusualroles historically assumed by African-American women have allowed the African-American community to survive under 400 years ofslavery, Jim Crow segregation, discrimination, and postindustrial redundancy. Duringslavery, when the slave family was illegal,African-American women's assumption ofmotherhood and nurturance responsibilitiesallowed children to survive. After emancipation, at a time when married Euro-Americanwomen generally did not work outside thehome, African-American women's work outside the home allowed the family to subsist ina situation where wage discrimination againstboth men and women did not perrnit a farnily

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wage. Throughout, African-Americanwomen's individual and coHective efforts onbehalf of the community have facilitatedgroup survival. In other words, the SojournerSyndrome is a survival strategy. But it hasmany costs, and among them are health consequences.

Problems in Participatory ResearchResearch projects that enlist cornrnunity residents in documenting structural oppressionand resistance to it are likely to conflict withthe institutions soliciting the research. National agencies and institutions, particularlythose concerned with health and disease, often have a strong investrnent in an implicitlypathological model that portrays communites as "sick" and disorganized.26 They mayinterpret oppositional behaviors as "noncompliant," "dysfunctonal," or "pathological."Researchers often find themselves pressuredby the funding agencies to report data in thisfrarnework.

In the project described aboye, cornrnunityresidents had a more nuanced approach.Though recognizing the severe health and social problems, they also had a strong investment in a "health" (as compared to a "disease") model of the community. Thecornmitrnent to demonstrate the strengths, asweH as the weakness, of the cornrnunity wasevident in the examples discussed aboye.Throughout the study, community residentsof aH socioeconomic strata expressed concern about the negative representation ofHarlem and African Americans in media andsocial science studies.

These issues of representation may become particularly problematic when the purpose of the research is to attract funding fromsocial service or state agencies. There is oftenan implicit or explicit directive to emphasizethe social problems for which funding issought, often resulting in an unbalanced por-

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Ifrican-American Women Making Themselvestrayal of the community. In addition, thefunding agencies may not appreciate or understand inquiry into strategies of resistanceand the researchers may find themselves contesting the strongly held stereotypes. Thoughindividuals associated with these agenciesmay seek to implement new approaches, institutional culture and history runs deep andmay not be easily changed.

Most important, these institutions are frequently unwilling to accept results that pointto long-term structural change. Research emphasizing dysfunctional cultural and individual behaviors produce recornrnendations for"manageable" interventions in the lives of thesubjects. On the other hand, research designed to illuminate the structures of oppression and the ways in which people resist themfrequently points to the need for large-scalesocietal changes in employment and access toshelter, education, and health careo Thoughthese "rights" are integral to the discourse ofinternational human rights, state institutionsare generally not prepared to tackle transformative social change. Conflicts among researchers, community residents, and thefunding agency may manifest in such issuesas how results are reported, disposition of thedata, and safeguarding the privacy of informants. In these disputes, the differentialpower of the institutions, researchers, andcornrnunities may become a serious issue.

Community participatory research, then,can yield important results. But it may be seriously compromised by reliance on state institutions to fund research. The organizationsthat sponsor research ar generally not transforrnative institutions. Indeed, many of theseinstitutions reflect class, corporate, and poltical interests that may be antithetical to theneeds of the population. The history of socialresearch is replete with examples of individuals, institutions, and agencies who haveharmed the communities they sought toserve.


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African-American Women Making ThemselvesBlack Feminisf Research:Where Do WeGo from Her.?What might Black feminist research practieeslook like? They would have much in commonwith overlapping feminist research strategiesthat seek to "bring women in";27 approachesto Black studies that describe it as desqip-tive, corrective, and

methodology and social science research ingeneral.

First, Black feminist research practicesmust be collaborative. This will require serious reflection on the relationship of researchers to the community. What are the implications of the fact that researchers mayshare race and gender identification withtheir subjects but may now occupy a different

socioeconomic posiprescriptive;28 andleft and progressiveapproaches to scholarship that assert thatthe purpose of scholarship is not to studythe world, but tochange it. Blaek feminist research practicesare informed by thesebodies of literature,but also enrich andextend them. Like

For research to be transfor- tion? Research methods then must begeared toward bringing the everyday lvesof African-American

mative, the subects of research must become actors inthe transformation 01 thelr women to the fore

front. In this sense,the search for appropriate methodologieshas much in eommonwith feministmethodological interventions. Here qualitative research techniques may have aspecial role, but "giving voiee is notenough."30 Researchpractices must help toreveal the "hidden

DeVault, in her discussion of feministmethodology, wemight claim a "distinctiveness withoutgiving definition."29

own environment, as well asinterpreters 01 the.r ownspace and place. In the end,the change agents of historyare social movements inwhich everyday people, intheir own language and fromtheir own ex:periences, collec-tively work to change theirworld. Culture then becomes aweapon of struggle.But as writers on

Black feminist theoryhave pointed out, what ideally marks Blackfeminist research is its grounding in theunique interaction of race, class, and genderfrom which emerges the experience ofAfrican-American women and its rootednessin communities of resistance. The enterpriseis both deseriptive in writing African-American women into history and corrective in itscritique of male-dominated, patriarehal socialtheories and interpretations of women's livesthat may be functions of class, raee, and gender hierarchies. For this reason, researchpractices developed by Black feminists havethe potential to critique and enrich feminist

structures of oppression"- the power and resource differentialsarising from class, race, and gender hierarchies.

Second, the research relationship must reflect the researcher's identification with andresponsibilities toward the African-Americancommunity. Ethical responsibilities concerning research practices, protection of informants, disposition of data, and framing of results must go beyond the codes of ethicspracticed by most reasonable disciplines.These eonsiderations beeome particularly important in the ease of a population that haslimited access to control over how knowledge

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is presented and represented. The AfricanAmerican community has a long history ofphysical mistreatment and ideologicaldefamation through exploitative research.

Finally, in my view, to be effective, Blackfeminist research must link itself to socialmovements through which change can takeplace-it must be prescriptive. The relationship of scholarship to practice continues to bedebated in various disciplines: For example,"advocacy anthropology,"31 "pennanent soci-010gy,"32 and "conscious partiality" in feminist approaches33 aH speak to this issue. Butseveral Black feminist researchers suggestthat we have a special responsibility forpraxis: that the poltical purpose of theoryshould serve transformation and empowerment.34 Such approaches presume changefrom the standpoint of the interest of the subject.

This underscores the necessity for researchto be truly collaborative. For research to betransformative, the subjects of research mustbecome actors in the transfonnation of theirown environment, as weH as interpreters oftheir own space and place. In the end, thechange agents of history are social movements in which everyday people, in their ownlanguage and from their own experiences,collectively work to change their world. Culture then becomes a weapon of struggle.

Nolesl. The phrase is adapted from E. P. Thompson, author

of The Making 01 the English Working Class (New York:Pantheon Books, 1963).2. Leith Mullings, On Our Own Terms: Race, Class

and Gender in (he Lives 01 Alric an American Women(NewYork: Routledge, 1997).3. WiIliam J. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: Thelnner City, the Underclass and Public Policy (Chieago:University of Chicago Press, 1987).

4. Patricia HiIl Collins, Black Feminist Thought!Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics 01 Empow-erment (New York: Routledge, 1991).

5. Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York:Routledge, 1981).

28 Souls Fall2000

African-American Women Making Themselves6. Collins, Black Feminist Thought, p. 15.7. Patricia Hill Collins, for example, states, "RecJaim

ing the Black women's inteIleetual tradition involves examining the everyday ideas of black women not previously considered intellectuals." Ibid.8. Rose M. Brewer, "Theorizing Race, Class and

Gender: The New Scholarship of Black Feminist Intelleetuals and Black Women's Labor," in Stanlie JamesandAbena Busia, eds., Theorizing Black Feminisms: TheVisionary Pragmatism 01 Black Women (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 236.

9. MaIjorie L. DeVault, "Talking Back to Sociology:Distinctive Contributions of Feminist Methodology:' An-nual Review 01 Sociology (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annua! Reviews, Ine.), Vol. 22 (1996), pp. 29-50.

10. Ida Susser, "Political Activity Among WorkingClass Women in a U.S. City," American Ethnologist, Vol.13, no. 1 (1986), pp. 108-117; Sandra Morgen and AnnBookman, "Rethinking Women and Polities: An Introductory Essay," in Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen,eds., Women and the Politics 01 Empowerment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).

11. De Vault, "Talking Ba ck to Sociology," p. 33.12. Kathryn Anderson et al., "Beginning Where We

Are: Feminist Methodology in Oral History," Oral His-tory Review. Vol. 15 (1987), pp. 103-127.

13. Joyce Nielson, "Introduction," in Joyce Nielson,ed., Feminist Research Methods (Boulder: WestviewPress, 1990), p. 10.14. James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing

Culture: The Poetics and Politics 01 Ethnography(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1985); Judith Stacy, "Can There Be a FeministEthnography?" in Sherna Berger Gluck and DaphnePatai. eds., Women's Words: The Feminist Practice 01Oral History (NewYork: Routledge, 1991).

15. Frances E. Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, andColleen BaIlerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn inAnthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective,"Signs: Journal olWomen in Culture and Society, Vol. 15,no. 1 (1989).

16. See Peter Park, "What Is Participatory Research?A Theoretical and Methodological Perspeetive," in PeterPark et al., eds., Voices 01 Change: Participatory Re-search in the U.S. and Canada (Westport, Conn.: Bergenand Garvey, 1993).17. For example, Budd Hall, "Introduction," in Park

et al., eds., Voices olChange.18. Park, "What Is Participatory Research?"19. Jean J. Schensul and Donald D. Stull, Col/abora-tive Research and Social Change: Appli ed Anthropology

in Action (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1987).20. The principal investigators were rnyself; Dr. Di-

ane McLean, an epidemiologist at the Harlern HospitalPrevention Center; Dr. Janet Mitchell, chief of neonatology at Harl em Hospital; and Dennis Walcott, CEO of theNew York Urban League. Dr. Alaka Wali served as !hesenior ethnographer. Several graduate students, Deborah


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African-American Women Making ThemselvesThomas, Denise Oliver, Sabiyha Prince, and Patricia Tovar, served as ethnographers and research assistants. Theproposals for community participation were developedby the research team and are fully reported in LeithMullings, Alaka Wali, Diane McLean, Janet Mitchell,Sabiyha Prince, Deborah Thomas, and Patricia Tovar,"Qualitative Methodologies and Community Participation in Exarnining Preterm Delivery," Journal of Mater-nal and Child Health (forthcoming).

21. MulJings, On Our Own Terms, p. 98.22. Leith MulJings and Alaka Wali, Stress and Resis-

tance: The Social Context of Reproduction in CentralHarlem (New York: Kluwer AcademiclPlenum Publishers, forthcoming November 2000).

23. Cited in Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, "Learning toListen: InteIview Techniques and Analyses," in Gluckand Patai, eds. Women's Words, p. 44.

24. Ibid., p. 53.25. There are two strikingly different accounts of the

events that occurred in 1891 and Sojoumer Truth's address. See Manning Marable and Leith Mullings, eds.,Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Re-form and Rebellion (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), pp. 67--69, fOI both accounts.

26. See the discussion by John D. O'Neil, Jeffrey R.Reading, and Audrey Leader of "the portrait of a sick,disorganized community implicit in this epidemiological

discourse . . . as justification for continued marginalization and patemaJism towards Canadian Aborigines.""Changing the Relations of Surveillance: The Development of a Discourse of Resistance in Aboriginal Epiderniology." Human Organization, Vol. 57, no. 2 (1998).

27. DeVault, ''Talking Back to Sociology," p. 32.28. Manning Marable, "Black Studies." Race and

Reason, Vol. 4 (1997), pp. 3-8.29. DeVault, p. 34.30. Sherry Gorelick, "Contradictions of Feminist

Methodology," in Heidi Gottfried, ed., Feminism and So-cial Change: Bridging Theory and Practice (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1996), pp. 23-46; quotefromp.27.

31. Roger Sanjek, "Anthropological Work at a GrayPanther Health Clinic: Academic, Applied, and Advocacy Goals," in Leith Mullings, ed., Cities of he UnitedStates (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987).

32. Jacques Hamel, ''The Positions of Pierre Bourdieuand Alain Touraine Respecting Qualitative Methods,"British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 49, no. 1 (1998).33. Maria Mies, ''Towards a Methodology for Feminist Research," in Gloria Bowles and Renate DuelliKlein, eds., Theories ofWomen's Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), pp. 117-139.

34. See, for example, Davis, Women, Race and Class;CoJlins, Black Feminist Thought.

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