Transnational Black Feminisms

Transnational Black Feminisms was initiated by Premilla Nadasen and Celia Naylor as a working group at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) in 2019. In 2023, Tami Navarro joined Premilla as project co-director, Anna Reumert joined as project assistant, and the working group partnered with BCRW. The podcast and the conference are supported by CSSD and BCRW.

This working group aims to think about how transnational Black feminism can move us beyond survivability, beyond demands for recognition, and generate alternative frames and understandings around belonging, community, justice, and equity. Black feminism has by necessity emerged in tandem with political mobilizations: the struggle against slavery, anti-colonialism, opposition to sexual violence, and movements against state violence. These struggles have created the conditions of possibility for radical social transformation. They have also been deeply embedded in the crucial processes of raising broader, foundational questions about the relationship between theory and praxis, between lived experiences, and the articulation of expansive visions of social change.

Participants:

• Vanessa Agard-Jones, Anthropology, Columbia University
• Yvette Christiansë, English and Africana Studies, Barnard College
• Dana-Ain Davis, Anthropology, Queen’s College
• Abosede George, Africana Studies and History, Barnard College
• Natasha Lightfoot, History, Columbia University
• Manijeh Moradian, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
• Premilla Nadasen, History, Barnard College
• Celia E. Naylor, Africana Studies and History, Barnard College
• Tami Navarro, Africana Studies, Drew University
• Keisha-Khan Perry, University of Pennsylvania
• Anna Reumert, Columbia University
• Robyn Spencer, History, Lehman College, CUNY
• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, African-American Studies, Northwestern University

PODCAST

The Transnational Black Feminisms (TBF) podcast is a series of conversations between working group members that explore research, writing, and activism. Hosted by TBF co-directors Premilla Nadasen and Tami Navarro, each episode features an in-depth conversation with a leading scholar whose work is rooted in the long and important history of Black feminist thought. It is our hope that these conversations offer listeners insight into thought processes, methodologies, and strategies that enable TBF group members to produce vital and dynamic scholarship today.

Episode 1: Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine

In this episode, Premilla Nadasen speaks with Robyn Spencer-Antoine (Lehman College) about her forthcoming biography of Black socialist feminist Pat Murphy Robinson, Radical Therapist: Pat Murphy Robinson and the Black Freedom Movement. Robinson’s work as a counselor, theorist and transnational activist lays the foundation for the conversation which examines the connections between colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism and people’s everyday lives–their struggles around child care, mental health, relationships, and their “interior life.”

Episode 2: Natasha Lightfoot

In this episode, Tami Navarro interviews Natasha Lightfoot (Columbia University) about her work on everyday abolition struggles in the Caribbean under British colonial rule. Grounded in an engagement with Natasha’s 2015 text, Troubling Freedom: Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation (Duke University Press), this conversation examines the contours of freedom, the limits of archives, and the broader political commitments that can inform intellectual labor.

Episode 3: Abosede George

This episode features Tami Navarro in conversation with Abosede George (Barnard College) about her work on black girlhood in Nigeria, and reflections on Black immigrant life in the US. In a wide-ranging interview rooted in Abosede’s text Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development in Colonial Lagos (Ohio University Press, 2014), Tami and Abosede discuss the ways that life phases such as ‘childhood’ and ‘girlhood’ are variously available–or foreclosed–to communities along lines of race; the circuitous itinerary of Abosede’s early life and how it informs her current approach to research; and the complexity of identity within the African diaspora.

THE SCHOLAR AND FEMINIST CONFERENCE 49: Anti-Colonialism, Black Radicalism, and Transnational Feminism

The 49th annual Scholar and Feminist Conference will explore transnational Black feminism in the context of “third world” liberatory movements since the 1940s. The conference will be held at Barnard College on March 22-23, 2024. Details and RSVP here.