Reflections from Afro-Diasporic Feminisms Part V: Black Women’s Agency and Methodologies Across Disciplines

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

A series of panels invite an in-depth Pan-American look at “Nuestra América/Our America” from the perspective of Black women. What is Pan-Americanism with the contributions of Black women to Latin America(n Studies)? Looking from 1600s towards 2041, 150 years after José Martí’s essay portrayed a black Latin American as "unknown and alone, singing in the dark of night, on top of a hill"… and yet another century of Black women triply-marginalized, yet ferociously alive, thriving, and beautiful, the multiple panels expand Pan Americanism with the heterogenous Black women's perspectives of justice and inclusion.
Massachussetts, where Black women such as Maria Stewart and Latinxs from labor unions advocated for emancipation and people of colors’ rights; where Maryse Condé's fictional character Tituba lived before her return to Barbados as a maroon rebel… makes an apt location to discuss justice and inclusion and the presence of Black women in Latin America(n Studies) and activism. Long after slavery was “abolished,” with Black women’s emancipation being long overdue, let us bring to the forefront the guerreras that have laid the base for collective and individual rights, from slaveships, to Haiti, to Santiago de Cuba, to Minas Gerais, to Cali, to Massachussets...
This is one of several multilingual panels representing the multilayered contributions of Black women; here the focus is on methodology in archival and fieldwork research across disciplines and historical periods. Each paper connects to experiences told from Black women's perspectives in Brazilian and Cuban urban spaces: from 19th century testamemts to contemporary children literature.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizer

• Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY)

Chair

• Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY)

Discussant

• Lana E Sims, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Autobiografias mediadas: uma leitura de testamentos de mulheres negras libertas do século XIX no Rio de Janeiro - Fernanda Felisberto da Silva, Independent Scholar; Isabel Braga

• This woman’s work: Curating blackness and femininity in the Cuban Revolution - Aisha Z Cort

• Jose Marti and “Mi Abuelita Negra:” Black Women Inserting African Elements in Children’s Literature in Cuba - Rhonda Collier, Tuskegee University

• Oral Histories and Performance to Recover Herstories and Restore Peace - Maria Vicenta Moreno Hurtado, Independent Scholar; Maria Elvira Solis; Elena Hinestrosa, Independent Scholar