A Visitation from the Foremothers
Black Women's Healing Through a ‘Performance of Care’—From African Diaspora to the American Academy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12099385 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Olga Idriss Davis (0000-0001-8360-9732, Arizona State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 175-185 |
| Publication date | 2008-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Women s Studies in Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0749-1409 • E-ISSN: 2152-999X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07491409.2008.10162530 |
| OpenAlex | W1973028461 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
The performative ... is a cultural act, a critical perspective, a political intervention. --John Kronik, Editor's Note, PMLA Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom,' the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of the world. --Richard Shaull, Introduction, Pedagogy of the Oppressed This essay presents a personal narrative performance, which celebrates a spiritual heritage and illuminates the power of the word to evoke the spiritual and the unique power of ritual. This performance claims women's healing from academic institutionalization through a matrilineal diasporic experience. One might ask, From what in the Academy do women need healing? Implicitly, this performance reveals the problematics associated with the systemic, institutional barriers that intersect with race, gender, class, and sexuality, and continually reproduce and maintain inequities and unwelcome climates for women in the academic milieu. For women, from doctoral student to tenured faculty professor, the conditions faced in the Academy to prove our existence, to empower our voices, and to go beyond indifference and low expectations by peers and administrators, reflect an ideology of ongoing challenges. Such ideology is predicated on a system that trivializes and demeans the existence and presence of people. Yolanda T. Moses, in her study Black Women in Academe: Issues and Strategies, examines the climate for African American women in predominantly White colleges and universities, using results from a questionnaire conducted by the Project on the Status and Education of Women (PSEW) and a survey of literature concerning African American women and higher education. As the study indicates, some of the typical problems experienced by African American women administrators and faculty include: being constantly challenged because she is viewed as other and therefore inferior; a lack of professional support systems; over-scrutinization by peers, superiors, and students; an unstated requirement to work harder in order to gain recognition and respect; assumptions that her job was acquired through affirmative action and, therefore, that she is unqualified for the position; being tokenized, that is, seen as a symbol of her race rather than as an individual; and being denied access to power structures normally associated with her position. (35-38) Farmer further elucidates these observations about the dialectic of performing womanhood in the Academy: It is difficult to talk about being in a White space, even though in the United States such is usually the case. The difficulty is to speak, to name, without appearing to whine, a near impossibility, since African American women are not expected to speak at all. It is particularly difficult to be heard, since despite the reality, the myth still prevails that African American women are making great professional strides. Enmeshed within this myth is the belief that even when African American women are suffering, obstacles are faced stoically and handled with a prayer, and a smile. In other words, we always overcome. We African American women are reluctant to dispel this myth for it is one of the positive stereotypes afforded us. (205) But, at what price do we overcome? I contend that while we are culturally socialized to participate in our own demise, thereby perpetuating the very systems that oppress us, women embody a historical and spiritual reserve that can transform oppression into expressive strategies for healing and for care. (Re)covering self from the academy reveals the dialectical tension between academic rites and learning the practice of freedom through the healing ancestral continuum of women's orature
African american · Black women · Diaspora · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Higher Education Research Studies · History · Medicine · Mentoring and Academic Development · Gerontology
Black Woman Insighting Future Vision
The Impact of Health Narratives on Persuasion in African American Women
Spirituality
Somebody Bigger than You and I”
Journeying home and healing the academic self in Ghana, West Africa
Black Women Graduate Students on Whiteness and Barrier Breaking in Leadership
Remember, Me
| Citations per year | 0.58 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2026 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |