Black Women, Collective Resistance and the Imperative of Transnational Solidarity

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

The death of Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco in 2018 led many black feminist scholars from around the world to stand in solidarity with black women and black communities in Brazil. This transnational solidarity was in part motivated by the similar conditions of precarity and violence that threaten black women globally. For black people in the Americas, “Nuestra America” has always been a precarious articulation fraught by the realities of gendered anti-blackness. Black people experience a pattern of state-sponsored killing, terrorization and silencing across the Americas that not only marginalizes us as a racialized population but also—ironically--leads many to push back by forming transnational coalitions. Inspired by transnational black feminist epistemologies and politics, this roundtable brings together scholars/activists from Brazil and the United States to reflect on the political horizons and possibilities of transnational solidarity for black women in the Americas. Each participant in this roundtable is actively engaged in transnational solidarity work in some form--from collaborative writing to transnational organizing against state violence. This roundtable queries how we as black women in the Americas build coalitions to (re)claim and recover ourselves from the ongoing threats of gendered antiblackness from an anti-imperialist, Pan-American perspective. In considering the transnational dimensions of the ongoing racialized and gendered threats that endanger and challenge black women, participants will discuss our past, present and future projects and think through concrete tools to approach solidarity—politically and methodologically.

Sub Track

• Otros Saberes and Alternative Methods

Session Organizer

• Christen A Smith, University of Texas/Austin

Chair

• Erica L Williams, Spelman College

Discussant

• Erica L Williams, Spelman College

Presenters

• Christen A Smith, University of Texas/Austin

• Keisha Khan Y Perry, Brown University

• Edilza Sotero, Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA)

• Andreia Beatriz dos Santos

• Matheuzza Xavier, Universidade Federal da Bahia