Discursive scaling of solidarity through difference

Experiences of African women in the African diaspora

Bibliographic Data

ID2861828
AuthorsGorrety Wawire (0000-0002-9795-2336, Baylor University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume54
Issue3
Pages491-513
Publication date2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage in Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047404524000046
OpenAlexW4391893524
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited34

Drawing on data generated from a two-year ethnographic observation with a group of multiethnic Black women, this investigation delves into the ways they employ discursive and linguistic strategies, namely solidarity through difference and distinction, solidarity through denaturalizing difference, and solidarity through shared struggles and learning in deictically anchored interactions. The study presents a moment-by-moment analysis of culturally and socially situated conversations. These conversations allow us to see how the social actors enact different stance-taking and scaling practices to construct meanings about race that intersect with gender/transnational identities. Discursive practices show that when we closely attend to race, transnationalism, and gender, specifically considering the particularity of Black womanhood, new and more complex ways of understanding transnational identity formation emerge. Participants' constructions indicate that women co-construct a unique brand of Black feminist solidarity that is not based on similarity but meaningfully created through differentiation and distinction. (Black immigrant women, solidarity, stance-taking, scaling and deixis difference, African diaspora, intersectionality

Diaspora · Political science · Sociology · Solidarity · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy

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Open DOIOpen Access