“Black women create… that’s what we do”: Intra-Black girlhood epistemologies as organic subversion

• In Event: It’s in My Bones: Advancing the Embodiment of Theory for and by Blackgirls and Women

Abstract

Purpose
In this paper, I advance intra-Black girlhood epistemologies (IBGEs) as non-monolithic means of knowledge validation and exchange that exist exclusively between those with lived experiences of Black girlhood. Ways of knowing and assessing communal stimuli that exist between Black girls, femmes, and women bolster their development and their navigation of educational misogynoir.
Simultaneously, IBGEs constitute specifically Black feminine sociopolitical resistance against anti-Black gendered racism. The potential for anti-misogynoiristic resistance through IBGEs is especially poignant when IBGEs are exercised within pervasively white, elitist educational spaces where the oppressive dynamics of positivism run rampant – and, wherein Black girl students may develop a broader intersectional awareness by noticing the privileging of white and/or male-centric forms of knowing as a palpable form of educational misogynoir. I specifically position authenticity, an IBGE involving an externalization of essence meant to better ensure synchrony between intent and impact, as one such epistemology that encourages the vulnerability necessary to such consciousness-raising as well as confidence in one’s Black feminine gendered-racial identity (Clonan-Roy et al., 2016).Intra-Black girlhood epistemologies are similar to but distinct from (Black girl) literacies (Price-Dennis et al., 2017).

Perspective
I examine the propensity for non-Black feminine individuals to be/come Black girl literate, while positioning IBGEs as particular to Black girls, given their specific standpoint as well as the individual and multiplicative gendered-racial performances they derive from it. To do so, I rely on findings from a larger multimethod qualitative study examining university-based Black girls’ intersectional awareness of misogynoir as it developed within an intergenerational, pedagogical gendered-racial affinity group (Author, 2025b).

Discussion
As I highlight developmental factors that contribute to the diversity of Black girls’ gendered-racial performances and the resultant IBGEs, I meditate on gendered-racial ideology (Williams & Lewis, 2021) to frame how Black girls interpret one another’s essences amid intragroup diversity (Collins, 2000). I conclude by visioning the possibilities Black girlhood pedagogies such as those that aided IBGEs’ conceptualization hold for bolstering self-assessment, (gendered-racial) affinity and (intersectional) sociopolitical development (Carter Andrews et al., 2019).

Author

• Gabrielle Kubi, Boston College