We love, We rage, We desire: Black feminist activism and community at 'elite' universities as an act of healing and reclamation

• In Event: Unveiling Power, Privilege, and Resistance: Interrogating Whiteness, Internationalism, and Black Feminist Activism in the Context of Racial Capitalism

Proposal

We live in a white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks, 1984). The legacies of coloniality and its bedfellows of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and cisheteronormativity, alongside other oppressive forces, can be felt across institutions and nations. Within these spaces, those of us deemed abject through processes of racialisation and gendering are pushed to the margins, “part of the whole but outside of the main body” (ibid). Furthermore, for those of us who possess intersectional vulnerabilities, there is the risk of us experiencing a form of ‘secondary marginalization’ (Cohen, 1999), a further peripheralization within our own communities. It is from these margins that resistance is born, and activism becomes a means through which to transform the main body for many of us. In this research, I investigate Black feminist activism in the context of two ‘elite’ universities: the University of Cambridge and Howard University. I examine the resistance of these Black women through three lenses of affect: love, rage, and desire. The Black feminist activist project is one which transcends contexts, countries and time. The themes and dilemmas at the heart of my project are not restricted to education and universities. However, I choose universities as my site of study. Understanding that universities act as a microcosm of the state, I use universities as a lens through which to explore the violence which is faced by Black women and the resistance that Black women embody in their actions and relationships. By choosing to investigate how these issues manifest in so-called ‘elite’ institutions in particular, I am able to probe some of the wider questions around how Black women occupy space within symbolic institutions plagued with violence in these white-supremacist capitalist patriarchies. Understanding the multifaceted nature of the Black feminist project, which Jennifer C. Nash (2018) reminds us are “theoretical, political, activist, intellectual, erotic, ethical and creative” (p.5), the Black feminist ethos runs through my entire approach to elements to this PhD. Methodologically, I employ the ‘sista circle’ methodology (Dunmeyer, Shauri-Webb & Muhammad, 2022), bringing Black women together in a sacred space of safety. Using creative elements including film analysis and letter-writing in these circles, I seek to understand how Black feminists within these ‘elite’ universities embody love, rage, and desire in their action and resistance.

Author

• Tyra Edwina Amofah-Akardom, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge