Woman to Woman: Black Surinamese Dutch Women’s Identity and Family Life

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 19: Critical Feminism and Intersectionality

Abstract

This qualitative study takes an intersectional approach in exploring the self-identification of young Black Surinamese Dutch women in the racialized context of Dutch society. These women, ranging in age from 21 to 26, frame how they understand their identities, how they perceive the process of learning about their identities, and how their identities shape their everyday experiences in the Netherlands through the lens of family dynamics, and especially contribute a major influence to understanding their identities to the women in their lives, and to their mothers specifically. By conducting online in-depth interviews to center meaning-making and lived experiences, these young women were able to take control of their own narratives surrounding their multilayered identity formation in the context of a country that has always been in denial of its own racism.

Author

• Ashley Melcherts, Mississippi State University