Accepting the Challenge of Centralizing Without Essentializing: Black Feminist thought and African American Women’s Communicative Experiences”

Abstract

Black feminist thought represents one of several feminist standpoint theories. Collins’ (1986) conceptual framework of Black feminist thought renders an insightful vantage point into the experiences of “ordinary” African American women, and the focus of this essay is to offer a collaborative analysis of the salience and utility of Black feminist thought in communication research. A recent case study that focused on African American women’s communicative experiences is used as a reference point for this analysis. Critical reflection on this case study and on Black feminist thought allows us to address some of the implications of engaging in critical-cultural scholarship. There are, for example, significant conceptual and methodological dilemmas associated with the use of this framework in communication research. However, a central argument of this essay is that Black feminist thought remains useful for offering meaningful commentary about African American women’s everyday communicative experiences.