Black Feminism and Methodology

    Violet Barriteau’s discussion of the theoretical contributions of black feminism to mainstream Western feminism applies effectively to Gina Ulysse’s discussions of anthropological methods, particularly her “Auto-Ethnographic Quilt” put forward in Chapter 3.  Ulysse brings up problems she and others have identified in current trends in anthropological work, and the problems she specifies correspond to Barriteau’s list of theoretical contributions.  Two of these correspondences are particularly revealing.  

    Barriteau states that black feminism has contributed a “rejection of the undifferentiated notion of sisterhood” in pointing out the ways in which mainstream Western feminism ignores and denies the specific experiences of black women.  Ulysse points out a similar issue in the discipline of anthropology, saying that “when the object of reflection is race and class within the academy, and the larger politics that shape intellectual production, such discussion are treated as trivial, and not ethnographic.”  In short, both mainstream Western feminists and anthropologists (as a whole, not necessarily as individuals) ignore the flaws in academic treatment of race and even belittle scholarship that tries to point this out as being non-academic and thus not worthy of consideration.

    Another of Barriteau’s listed contributions is that black feminism “changes feminist methodologies and requires new methodological approaches.”  This is brought forth in Ulysse’s statement that the kinds of practices put forth as valuable and useful in anthropology cause problems “as the theoretical approaches and methodological tools I brought from graduate school often failed to capture the subject under research.”  What she is saying here is that her perceived nativeness as a black woman from the general region under study causes her to have difficulty producing the kinds of work desired by the academy.  Her struggle with the notions she is assigned leads her to produce her auto-ethnography in the first place, as she feels that she cannot do justice to the topic with the conventional methods.  

    Ulysse, in discussing these issues of methodology and conventional academy knowledge in the midst of her non-mainstream exploration of her own process, brings forth more clearly the kind of tensions prevalent in the academy and the need to think critically about them.  How can mainstream Western feminism take into account the experiences of black feminists?  What might mainstream Western feminists do to examine the tensions in their own processes and identities?