{"id":2399,"date":"2019-10-24T11:12:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T15:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2019-10-24T11:12:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T15:12:44","slug":"shanges-transnational-inclinations-in-a-daughters-geography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=2399","title":{"rendered":"shange’s transnational inclinations in A Daughter’s Geography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201csomebody\/ anybody<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

sing a black girl’s song<\/strong><\/em>
\nbring her out<\/strong><\/em>
\nto know herself<\/strong><\/em>
\nto know you<\/strong><\/em>
\nbut sing her rhythms<\/strong><\/em>
\ncarin\/ struggle\/ hard times<\/strong><\/em>
\nsing her song of life<\/strong><\/em>
\nshe’s been dead so long<\/strong><\/em>
\nclosed in silence so long<\/strong><\/em>
\nshe doesn’t know the sound<\/strong><\/em>
\nof her own voice\u201d – Lady In Brown\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

(PAGE 2 of TAMARA LEA SPIRA ZINE)<\/p>\n

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“Self-creation and self-representation of the third world women\u2026 complicates representations and challenges a third world woman\/woman of color binary.\u201d (Enszer & Beins)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

I’ve posited these three quotes together because I find that they effectively represent this incredible desire from and for women of color\/third world women to have mediums in which they can be heard, felt, and seen\u2014 wherein through representation they can escape for a moment the strictures or biases from label of “third world women\/woman of color” and have their personhood recognized. This recognition of our innate personhoods and insistence on drawing lines of connectivity across borders is the world I find Ntozake Shange incredibly dedicated to within all of her works but in specific to A Daughter’s Geography.\u00a0<\/em>A collection of poems dedicated to her Daughter Savanna; these poems reach far and wide in terms of subject matter and scope and truly demonstrate Shange’s use of what Enszer and Agatha Beins refers to as “transnational feminist perspective” (24).<\/p>\n

Transnationalism by definition is a “scholarly research agenda and social phenomenon grown out of heightened inter connectivity between people and receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.” Enzer and Beins also draws attention to another “primary use of the term” (24) being actually a “synonym for diasporic” (24). In looking at Shange’s history as one rooted in movement, diaspora, and writing\u2014from her parents’ travels and its impacts on her life, to her own personal travels and its impact on her writing\u2014 we find the inherent role Transnationalism plays in all of her texts. In specific to\u00a0A Daughter’s Geography,\u00a0<\/em>Shange quite literally maps out for her daughter through poetry various occurrences that took place both in the past and take place in her present<\/em> that her Daughter will have to come into contact with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am most profoundly struck by these lines in her poem, “New World Coro”:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c salvador & johannesburg\/cannot speak<\/strong><\/p>\n

the same language<\/strong><\/p>\n

we\u2019re fight the same old men\/ in the new world\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“a long time ago\/we boarded ships\/ locked in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

depths of seas out spirits\/kisst the earth<\/strong><\/p>\n

on the atlantic side of nicaragua costa rica<\/strong><\/p>\n

our lips traced the edges of cuba puerto rico\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

charleston & savannah\/ in haiti\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

we embraced &<\/strong><\/p>\n

made children of the new world<\/strong><\/p>\n

but old men spit on us\/ shackled our limbs\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cfor but a minute\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

you\u2019ll see us in luanda or the rest of us in chicago\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In her inclusion of American cities like “Charleston”, “Savannah”, and “Chicago” alongside nations like “Nicaragua”, “Cuba”, and “Luanda”, Shange not only points to a collective and transnational experience of Colonialism and Anti-Blackness and their effects throughout the globe, but she like Enszer and Biens stated above “complicates representations and challenges a third world woman\/woman of color binary”.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>She foregrounds that these experiences and their effects are bigger than borders could control, and she provides a space for people all over the world despite their cultural or individual distinctions to feel represented and acknowledge their collective experiences of the very visceral effects of Colonialism. She illuminates that it’s deeper than a “third world” problem. Her intentional use of different languages and various references to cities and people throughout the colonized world\u2014as seen in Feminist Publications like Conditions\u2014<\/em>throughout A Daughter’s Geography,\u00a0<\/em>forces the reader within their own experiences of representation to engage with other cultural experiences and employ a diasporic and transnational thought within their experience of the book and hopefully experience of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201csomebody\/ anybody sing a black girl’s song bring her out to know herself to know you but sing her rhythms carin\/ struggle\/ hard times sing her song of life she’s been dead so long closed in silence so long she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice\u201d – Lady In Brown\u00a0   (PAGE 2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}