How it Feels to Be Colored Me

Hurston, Zora Neale

doi:10.4135/9781483328539.n14

Cited by 25 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…This reflects a tension that I address through this paper: how do I conduct this research without fixing Black Muslim women as Other within a (white) Self/(black) Other binary? To paraphrase Zora Neale Hurston (), is it even possible to do this work without throwing our racialised bodies against this sharp white background that makes one feel most coloured? How can I research shifting and complex experiences of being without re‐inscribing “the researched into the dominant representations of powerlessness” (Bhavnani, , p. 30)?…”

Section: The White Background Of Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Johnson

2019

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Specifically, I examine how to conduct research without representing Black bodies as a fixed, exoticised Other that is oppositional to a disembodied white Self. To do so, I use double consciousness alongside Black feminist work on dialogues as a methodological framework to centre Black Muslim women as knowledge producers. This novel approach moves away from simply describing (and fixing) racialised bodies to a particular performance/experience, and instead explores how performances shift as we negotiate different bodies, objects, and spaces. The paper advances discussions in critical race studies and the ethics of geographical research by illustrating how the situated experiences of the researcher and the participant are embedded in processes of knowledge production: I look to subvert the fixing of racialised bodies as deviations from the normative white background of academia. K E Y W O R D SBlack feminism, dialogue, double consciousness, normative whiteness, race and higher education, research ethics 1 | THE WHITE BACKGROUND OF ACADEMIA I feel most coloured when I am thrown against a sharp white background. … Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. (Hurston, 2000, p. 96) I've often thought about the above quote by Zora Neale Hurston in relation to how knowledge is produced within academic institutions: her words expose an ethical quandary with developing research about persons racialised as non-white against the "sharp white background" of academia.This paper responds to my ethical concerns with conducting research about racialised minorities within academic institutions that perpetuate normative whiteness. In doing so, the rest of this introduction outlines the "sharp white background" that I struggled with through my work on the clothing practices of Black Muslim women in Britain. Second, I examine how the racialised Other has been constructed as oppositional to whiteness. Following this, I extend work on double consciousness and dialogue by bringing these concepts together and using them as methodological tools to explore the relationship that Black Muslim women have to this (white) Self/(black) Other binary.My research with 21 Black Muslim women in Manchester and Sheffield (ages 18-51) arose from the dearth of work about our experiences (Johnson, 2019). Research on British Muslims focused primarily on Muslims with South Asian heritage (e.g., Brown, 2006;Phillips, 2015), while research about Black communities and religion focused on the role of Christianity and Black churches (e.g., Harris, 2006;Knowles, 2012). By centring Black Muslim women, I focused on how ---

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Section: The White Background Of Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Johnson

2019

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“…Africans existed in their homeland for thousands of years before some were abducted and transported to foreign lands. The transition required an extraordinary level of responsiveness to assure both daily and long-term survival (Hurston 1995). The nucleus of jazz involves ancient African musical and cultural traditions reflected most clearly in blues.…”

Section: Just As the Character Of Nature's Particular Forces Is Evidementioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking Particles of Poly-dimensional Harmony in the Search for Music's URAM

Hester

2007

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

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“…Years later, she comes across his obituary, then searches his history on the web. A trained actor with "a heart ailment and high blood pressure" (230), he is found dead at 39 years old in Saginaw County, Michigan, "more than five hundred miles from the site of the World Trade Center" (223), perhaps preparing to perform his "last jump" without a harness.…”

Section: Literature After 9/11: Falling Man (2007)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Linda Kauffman has argued convincingly that Falling Man draws on DeLillo's nonfictional prose, both before and after 9/11, to comment on the relationship between 1960s radical protest movements in Europe and the U.S. to contemporary global terrorist movements. 223 Like Antonio Negri, convicted in absentia for his role in the Italian Red Brigades' kidnapping and murder of Christian Democratic Prime Minister Aldo Moro, Ridnour/Hechinger represents the intersection of radical politics and culture.…”

Section: Literature After 9/11: Falling Man (2007)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Politics of the New American Studies

Rowe¹

2012

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How it Feels to Be Colored Me

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Tracking Particles of Poly-dimensional Harmony in the Search for Music's URAM

Cultural Politics of the New American Studies

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