• DOI:10.1080/01419870220136709
• Corpus ID: 145195879

Re-thinking a black feminist standpoint

@article{Reynolds2002RethinkingAB,
  title={Re-thinking a black feminist standpoint},
  author={Tracey Reynolds},
  journal={Ethnic and Racial Studies},
  year={2002},
  volume={25},
  pages={591 - 606}
}

• T. Reynolds
• Published 1 January 2002
• Sociology
• Ethnic and Racial Studies

Black feminists in Britain and the USA have long argued that there exists a black feminist standpoint based on theoretical understanding of black women's everyday experiences. This article draws connections between black feminist standpoint theory and the widening availability of black women's writings within literature and popular culture to investigate the issue of what experiences get taken up and come to define the black female experience. Through doing so, questions are raised about the 'triumph of experience' and the underlying assumptions of authenticity and authority that are so central to academic accounts and popular narratives of the black female experience. In the analysis, tension and discontinuity emerge between academic definitions of experience and the way that black women define experience within their everyday social worlds. The essay draws on and uses empirical research within specific localized communities to critically explore these issues.