This document summarizes key concepts from black feminist thought and postcolonial feminist perspectives. It discusses (1) how black feminist thought centers black women's lives and experiences, challenging Eurocentric and masculinist views; (2) the interlocking systems of oppression around race, class and gender; and (3) how knowledge is produced through situated knowledge and collaboration with marginalized communities. The document also examines the matrix of domination and resistance at different levels, as well as the importance of dialogue and empowerment in constructing feminist knowledge.

1. Unit 11 Postmodernism and gender Black feminist thought

2. Patricia Hill-Collins

3. Hill-Collins and knowledgeproduction Knowledge, consciousness and the policitics of empowerment Black feminist thought=> placing black women’s lives and experiences at the center of analysis; a post modern approach to knowlegdeproduction; newconcepts, paradigms and epistomology Knowlegde is power and part of the social relations of domination and resistance of marginalizedorexcludedgroups

4. Conceptualframework The interwovenmechanisms of race, gender, class; (ethnicity, culture, nationality, age..etc) Empowering (black orcolored) women and men withinanafrocentricepistomologicalperspective Paradigmatic shifts; how does ittakeform? Domination and resistance; Reconceptualizing race, class and gender as interlockingsystems of oppression Black feminist thoughtsees these distinctivesystems of oppression as being part of overarchingstructure of domination. Sociohistorical context essentialforunderstanding the interlockingmechanisms

5. Examples of black feminist epistomologies and thougt Placing the particular in the center of analysisrevealsmuchneededinformationabout the expericences of a specificgroup and questions the eurocentricmasculinistperspectives

6. Writers and scholars likeLorainneHansberry, Alice Walker, ZoraNealeHurston, HazelCarby, Bell Hooks, Toni Morrison , Nikki Giovanni, JuneJordan, Barbara Christian, Philomena Essed

7. The matrix of domination

8. Models of oppression are rooted in the either/ordichtomous thinking of Eurocentric white masculinist thinking. Replacing models of oppression of interlockingsystems of oppressionreplacesnewparadigms, a shift in paradigm. Race, gender, class, sexualorientation, age, religion and ethnicityaffectsheavenly the lives and experieces of black and non white women Analysing the displacement, marginalization and lack of epistemology of black womenorothermarginalizedgroupschallengesprevailingnotions, theories and definitions. The theoreticalframework race, gender and classconceptulizes all experiences of groups and persons. Itcritiques the assumptionthatit does not matter Master thesis; From Black women studies towards black feminist research; paper for the MIT conferencie Black women in Academy. A summary

9. Multiple levels of domination The axes race, gender and socio-economic background form the matrix of domination and that is onseveral 3) levels: 1)the level of personalbiography, 2)the grouporcommunity level or the cultural context and 3)the systematic level of socialinstitutions The power of dominationcantake all kinds of forms; accounts are diverse and domination is always complex and diffucult. How is dominatingwho and where? (class, race, gender, education, ageetc… within different context and situations) Oppression is filledwithcontradictions…. There are nosimplevictims and oppressors….penalties and privilege are part of the multiple systems of oppression in everybodys lives.

10. Resisiting the matrix of domination; revolutionbeginsby the self. Audre Lorde ;…. Butthatpeace of the oppressorwhich is planteddeepwithineach of us….

11. Is it important to be a black women to understand the matrix of domination? How is knowledgeproduced? ExampleZoraNealeHurston. All the stereotypicalideasabout black females (teenagemothers, single mothers, abusedbyfathers and husbands, poverty, violence and at healthrisk (HIV). How to changethisknowledgeor research and fromwhichperspective? Situatedknowledge, subjugatedknowledge and partialperspectives Knowledgeabout black women is produced in collaborationwiththem in theircommunities; it is specilizedthought and epistomology (Foucault). It is partial… the particular. The matrix oversees multiple groupswithvaryingexperiences. No groups has the truth……

12. Agents of knowledge The importance of dialogue, empathy and truth Dialogue and empathy: subjectivity, interdependence, taken forgrantedknowledge and everydaypractices… Black womenintellectualsrealizethatsocialconditionsshape the types of thought. Decentering the dominant group (whichevergroup) does notoccur without struggle… in order to accept the variety of experiencesthatexists, a variety of ways of understanding the world, a variety o of frameworks of operation without imposingconsiouslyorunconsiously a notion of the norm….

13. The politics of empowerment Let go of victamization and a passive attitude and beaccountable, ownership, complex and responsible, noteithereitherbutboth, humanbeings

14. Constructing feminist knowledge in the Caribbean

15. EudineBarriteau

16. Barriteauperspectivesongender relations in the Caribbean. Who is EudineBarriteau? The concept of genderjusticeinstead of the concept of rights. Caribbeaneconomies are charactizedbypost-colonialpatriachal histories BasedonLiberalconservativepatriachalstatesideologies Gender and developmentpolicies of international organizations (UN agencies) WID.

17. WID and UN discourseonwomen , developmenttheories and globalisation is utilitarian and veryeconomic Ananalysis of the lack of femaleontological right to be The interwovenmechanism of race, gender and class CAFRA The role of Caricom, UNDP , HDI, GDIand the role of postcolonialsocieties

18. The lack of data on the lives of Caribbeanwomen (and men) Singular focus of family relations, householdstypes and matriachalfamilystructures, glorifyingcaribbeanwomen as orveryvunerableoruberstrong The role of the UWI gender and developement center in producing research and data on the lives and experiences of women in the Caribbean No feminist state ideology in the Caribbean Backlashforwomenby the attentionfor the position of caribbean men, Millers ´The marginalisation of the Black Male´+ drop out rates of boys, high unemploymentrates of men, crime rate etc. Ideologicalconstructionsthatfavor men abovewomensexperiences

19. The invisibility of the experiences of women in politicalideologicalconstructions and philosophies