Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity

Wiegman, Robyn

doi:10.1215/9780822384199-014

Cited by 22 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 110 publications

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“…Particularly in intergroup interactions, White allies negotiate appearing not prejudiced toward racial out-groups (Shelton, West, & Trail, 2010; Unzueta & Lowery, 2008). Impression management theories can explain why White would-be allies aim to be seen as good, warm-hearted, and noble (Ahmed, 2004, 2005; DiAngelo, 2018; Grimes, 2001; Swan, 2017; Wiegman, 1999)—and the methods they often utilize to promote their image as organizational citizens include ingratiation, where individuals seek to be viewed as likable; exemplification, in which individuals seek to be viewed as dedicated; and self-promotion, in which individuals hope to be seen as competent (Jones & Pittman, 1982). These behaviors may amplify the engagement in White allyship behaviors.…”

Section: Outcomes Of White Allyshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

White Allyship of Afro-Diasporic Women in the Workplace: A Transformative Strategy for Organizational Change

Erskine

Bilimoria

2019

Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

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Given the underrepresentation of Afro-Diasporic women in senior leadership roles, this conceptual article points to the transformative potential of antiracist, feminist White allyship to serve as a missing piece in organizations that may propel the career development and leadership advancement of Afro-Diasporic women. We define White allyship as a continuous, reflexive practice of proactively interrogating Whiteness from an intersectionality framework, leveraging one’s position of power and privilege and courageously interrupting the status quo by engaging in prosocial behaviors that foster growth-in-connection and have both the intention and impact of creating mutuality, solidarity, and support of Afro-Diasporic women’s career development and leadership advancement. We describe the behaviors, outcomes, motivations, and detractors of White allyship and offer suggestions for future research. White allyship of Afro-Diasporic women holds important opportunities for meaningful relationships to develop in organizations, for which would-be allies need support, coaching, and training to increase their allyship competence and self-efficacy.

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Section: Outcomes Of White Allyshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

White Allyship of Afro-Diasporic Women in the Workplace: A Transformative Strategy for Organizational Change

Erskine

Bilimoria

2019

Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

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“…This has often involved intertwining autoethnographical and creative writing with theorising, notably by Black and feminist writers of color like Audre Lorde (1984), bell hooks (1992) and Sara Ahmed (2017). However, when engaging with Black feminist works as a white person, the risk is that too much self-reflection can become 'me-too-ism' or even lead to a re-centering of whiteness (Wiegman 1999). When do accountability and situatedness turn into unnecessary and counterproductive gestures, more efficient in easing white guilt than unravelling racialised power structures in academic writing?…”

Section: Situated Knowledges and 'Selling Out' To White Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Music Videos as Black Feminist Thought – From Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda to Beyoncé’s Formation

Kyrölä¹

2017

Feminist Encounters

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The article examines two recent music videos by Black female artists, Nicki Minaj's Anaconda (2014) and Beyoncé's Formation (2016), and the heated online discussions around them about whether they are feminist or not. The article argues that the epistemic habit of asking this question often works counterproductively and stabilises the boundaries of feminism. Instead, the two music videos are considered as creative works of Black feminist thought, following Patricia Hill Collins (2009). Collins suggests that in order to challenge traditional forms of white male knowledge production, other forms of expression than academic writing should also be considered theory. The key question then becomes: how do Anaconda and Formation participate in, re-imagine and work as Black feminist thought, understood as complex and dynamic? The article outlines three main critiques directed at the videos: selling out to white people and capitalism; promotion of white, heteronormative body ideals while appropriating queer of color culture; and involvement in so-called 'reverse oppression'. Anaconda and Formation can be seen to answer each these critiques respectively, when seen connected to and employing strategies of Black feminist theories of pleasure, queer of color critique, and Black feminist politics of coalition among marginalised subjects.

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“…This has often involved intertwining autoethnographical and creative writing with theorising, notably by Black and feminist writers of color like Audre Lorde (1984Lorde ( ), bell hooks (1992 and Sara Ahmed (2017). However, when engaging with Black feminist works as a white person, the risk is that too much self-reflection can become 'me-too-ism' or even lead to a re-centering of whiteness (Wiegman 1999). When do accountability and situatedness turn into unnecessary and counterproductive gestures, more efficient in easing white guilt than unravelling racialised power structures in academic writing?…”

Section: Situated Knowledges and 'Selling Out' To White Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Complete Issue

Office¹

2017

Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture a

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Founded in 2017, Feminist Encounters is a journal committed to argument and debate, in the tradition of historical feminist movements.In the wake of the growing rise of the Right across the world, openly neo-fascist national sentiments, and rising conservative populism, we feminists all over the world are needing to remobilise our energies to protect and advance gender rights.Feminist Encounters provides a forum for feminist theorists, scholars, and activists to communicate with each other, to better educate ourselves on international issues and thus promote more global understanding, and to enhance our critical tools for fighting for human rights.Feminism is an intellectual apparatus, a political agenda, and a programme for social change. Critical analysis of how gender discourses produce cultural identities and social practices within diverse lived realities is key to this change. We need to think more sharply in order to strategise well: as the discourses of conservatism renew and invigorate themselves, so we as feminist scholars need to be refining our amazonic swords in order not just to respond effectively but also to innovate our own ideas for equality and social justice.We are, of course, committed to intersectionality, a vital lens through which to see the contours of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, age/ability, and explore how gendered scripts get lived, and filtered through these specificities of cultural organisation. Lived experience is never codified in terms of gender alone, and so our research will always be sensitive to the nexus of lived oppressions.The journal has a large editorial board and journal team, consisting of over forty scholars in twenty countries. This is deliberately inclusive in order that we can promote diversity and engage with different concerns from across the world. Our aim is not to simply talk to ourselves, reconfirming our localised assumptions, but to generate feminist encounters across regions, even if this is sometimes uncomfortable. Globalisation has been a triumph of neoliberalism, but digital technologies have also flattened and reduced the distance between us in dramatic ways, so that now we can talk to each other with unanticipated ease.This new access to each others' voices has also brought challenges to the way we think and do things, so that being a feminist today might be quite a different prospect to a person living in China, Iran, Norway, South Africa or the UK. Second Wave Feminism used the idea of 'sisterhood' to invoke solidarity between women. I've always rather liked Andrea Dworkin's claim, though, that: "Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy in behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with anymore." The notion of sisterhood was challenged by Black feminists in the 1980s as being too conceptually white, thus bell hooks' trenchant critique that: "the idea of 'co...

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Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity

Cited by 22 publications

References 110 publications

White Allyship of Afro-Diasporic Women in the Workplace: A Transformative Strategy for Organizational Change

White Allyship of Afro-Diasporic Women in the Workplace: A Transformative Strategy for Organizational Change

Music Videos as Black Feminist Thought – From Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda to Beyoncé’s Formation

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