Black Feminist Anthropology, 25th Anniversary Edition

IRMA McCLAURIN, PhD/MFA, is a Black Feminist activist anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston scholar, and founder of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive at UMass Amherst. An award-winning writer and poet, and Culture and Education Editor for Insight News, she authored Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America (Rutgers University Press) and is co-contributor to Black Studies: An Interdisciplinary, Integrative and Interactive Approach. She resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. JOHNNETTA BETSCH COLE was the first African American woman to serve as president of Spelman College in 1987. After a decade of service at Spelman, she joined the faculty at Emory University as Presidential Distinguished Professor of anthropology, women’s studies, and African American studies. She went on to serve as president of Bennett College, the only other historically Black College for Women, and then as the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She is the author or co-author of many books, including All-American Women: Lines that Divide, Ties that Bind; Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities; Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President; and Speechify: The Words and Legacy of Johnnetta Betsch Cole. She is the recipient of a National Humanities Medal, and 70 honorary degrees. She resides in Fernandina Beach, Florida.

Foreword by Johnnetta B. Cole

Preface to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition:
Creating a Canon and Building a Legacy: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Black Feminist Anthropology

“Poem for My Black Anthropology Sistahs Today”

Preface to the 2001 Edition


Introduction: Forging a Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics of Black Feminist Anthropology
Irma McClaurin

1 Seeking the Ancestors: Forging a Black Feminist Tradition in Anthropology
A. Lynn Bolles

2 Theorizing a Black Feminist Self in Anthropology: Toward an Autoethnographic Approach
Irma McClaurin

3 A Passion for Sameness: Encountering a Black Feminist Self in Fieldwork in the Dominican Republic
Kimberly Eison Simmons

4 Disciplining the Black Female Body: Learning Feminism in Africa and the United States
Carolyn Martin Shaw

5 Negotiating Identity and Black Feminist Politics in Caribbean Research
Karla Slocum

6 A Black Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Commodification of Women in the New Global Culture
Angela M. Gilliam

7 Biomedical Ethics, Gender, and Ethnicity: Implications for Black Feminist Anthropology
Cheryl Mwaria

8 Contingent Stories of Anthropology, Race, and Feminism
Paulla A. Ebron

9 A Homegirl Goes Home: Black Feminism and the Lure of Native Anthropology
Cheryl Rodriguez

Notes on Contributors
Notes on the Cover Art and Author Photograph
Photo Credits
Index