Critical feminist reflexivity and the politics of whiteness in the ‘field’

Abstract

Feminist geographic commonsense suggests that power shapes knowledge production, prompting the long-standing reflexive turn. Yet, often such reflexivity fixes racial power and elides more nuanced operations of difference – moves feminist scholars have, in fact, long problematized. To counter this, we revisit Kobayashi's (1994) ‘Coloring the Field’ [‘Coloring the Field: Gender, “Race”, and the Politics of Fieldwork,’ Professional Geographer 46 (1): 73–90]. Twenty years on, and grounded in our fieldwork in South Sudan and Honduras, we highlight how colonial and gender ideologies are interwoven through emotion. Decentering a concern with guilt, we focus on the way whiteness may inspire awe while scholars of color evoke disdain among participants. Conversely, bodies associated with colonizing pasts or presents can prompt suspicion, an emotive reaction to whiteness not always fixed to white bodies. These feelings have significant repercussions for the authority, legitimacy, and access afforded to researchers. Our efforts thus disrupt notions that we, as researchers, always wield power over our participants. Instead we argue that the positioning of ‘subjects of color’ in the global south, racially and in their relationships with us, is historically produced and socioculturally and geographically contingent. Rethinking the field in this way, as a site of messy, affective, and contingent racialized power, demonstrates the insights offered by bringing together feminist postcolonial and emotional geographies.

La reflexividad feminista crítica y la política de la blanquitud en el “campo”

El sentido común geográfico feminista sugiere que el poder modula la producción del conocimiento, produciendo el cambio reflexivo que es ya de larga data. Sin embargo esta reflexividad fija el poder racial y omite operaciones de diferencia más matizadas – movidas que las investigadoras feministas han, de hecho, problematizado mucho. Para enfrentar esto, hemos revisitado “Coloreando el campo” de Kobayashi (1994). Veinte años después, y basado en nuestro trabajo de campo en el Sudan del Sur y Honduras, resaltamos cómo las ideologías coloniales y de género están entrelazadas a través de la emoción. Descentrando una preocupación con la culpa, nos concentramos en la forma en la que la blanquitud pueda inspirar asombro mientras lxs estudiosos de color evocan desdén entre lxs participantes. Inversamente, los cuerpos asociados con los colonizadores pasados o presentes pueden inducir sospecha, una reacción emotiva a la blanquitud no siempre fijada a los cuerpos blancos. Estos sentimientos tienen repercusiones significativas para la autoridad, la legitimidad y el acceso otorgado a lxs investigadorxs. Nuestros esfuerzos por lo tanto interrumpen las nociones que nosotrxs, como investigadorxs, siempre ejercemos el poder sobre los participantxs. En cambio sostenemos que el posicionamiento de lxs “sujetos de color” en el sur global, racialmente y en sus relaciones con nosotrxs, es históricamente producido y sociocultural y geográficamente contingente. Repensar el campo de esta forma, como un lugar desprolijo de poder racializado, afectivo y contingente, demuestra las miradas ofrecidas al unir las geografías feministas postcoloniales y emocionales.

批判女性主义反身性，以及“田野”中的白人政治

女性主义地理学的普遍认知指出，权力会形塑知识生产，而此一认知促成了长期以来的“反身性”转向。但此般反身性，却经常固着化种族的权力，并忽略了更细緻的差异操作——而此一倾向实际上却是女性主义学者长期以来问题化的对象。为了对抗此一倾向，我们重探小林（Kobayashi 1994）“将田野有色人种化”之理论。二十年以降，我们根据在南苏丹与洪都拉斯所进行的田野工作，凸显殖民与性别意识形态，如何透过情绪相互交织。我们藉由将内疚考量去中心化，聚焦白人性如何可能在参与者中唤起敬畏，而有色人种的学者如何引起蔑视。反之，与殖民过往或当下有关的身体，则可能激起猜疑——一种对于白人性的情绪性反应，而此种反应并非永远是固定在白人的身体之上。这些感受对于研究者的权威、正当性和可获得的管道，带来了显着的影响。因此，我们的研究成果打破了身为研究者的我们总能够对参与者施加权力的观点。反之，我们主张，在全球南方置放“有色人种主体”的位置性——不论就种族而言、或就其之于我们的关係而言，皆是在历史中生产之，并且在社会文化与地理上皆是偶发的。将田野再思考为混乱、情感且偶发的种族化权力场域，揭示了结合女性主义后殖民和情绪地理学所带来的洞见。

Keywords:

• feminist methodology
• race
• whiteness
• emotion
• postcolonial geography

Palabras claves:

• metodología feminista
• raza
• blanquitud
• emoción
• geografía postcolonial

关键词::

• 女性主义方法论
• 种族
• 白人性
• 情绪
• 后殖民地理学

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our special issue editors Carolin Schurr and Nicole Laliberte, our GPC editor Pamela Moss, and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article. We would also like to thank the communities with whom we work in South Sudan and Honduras. The article is dedicated to the late Melissa Booden, a Miskita mother, daughter, teacher, wife, and friend, who lost her life in early 2014 as the consequence of narco-violence and state neglect inside the Honduran Mosquitia.

Notes

^1. The editors of this special issue provide a foundational overview of emotional geographies in their introduction. We focus here on the limitations around and potentials for a more productive engagement with critical theorizations of race.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Faria

Caroline Faria is a feminist geographer focusing on gender and nationalism, transnational feminist organizing, and diasporic popular culture tied to the new Republic of South Sudan. Currently her work examines the trade in hair and beauty products there, and emergent contestations around modernity, womanhood, and cosmopolitanism. Her work has been published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

Sharlene Mollett

Sharlene Mollett is a feminist-cultural geographer researching the mutual construction of race and property rights in Central America. Sharlene studies how race, racialization, and patriarchy are bound up in land and natural resource policies and practices of international development with particular foci in the areas of biodiversity conservation, residential tourism, and poverty-reduction strategies. She has published in a variety of venues including Annals of the Association of American Geographers,Latin American Perspectives, Geoforum, and Cultural Geographies.