Reparative readings: re-claiming black feminised bodies as sites of somatic pleasures and possibilities

ABSTRACT

Black girls and women in the west reside at the nexus of racism and sexism, pinned down by a vitriolic hate for the black feminised body that is wedded to legacies of slavery. Dominant discourses configure these bodies as animalistic and other (than human), thus informing a range of (educational) policies, practices, and programmes. These narratives shape teachers’ curricular and pedagogical practices in ways that potentially objectify and wound black girls. In this paper, we use Andrea Lee’s Sarah Phillips [Lee, Andrea. 1984. Sarah Phillips. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press] and Danzy Senna’s Caucasia [Senna, Danzy. 1999. Caucasia. New York: Riverhead] to trouble said dominant discourses by engaging in ‘reparative readings’ [Sedgwick, Eve. 2003. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham: Duke University Press Books] of the texts’ black female protagonists. We re-read these main characters' bodies as sites of pleasure and possibility, not singularly or solely harm. In doing so, we show how curriculum theorising can be mobilised for repair, and can function to humanise othered and marginalised bodies.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodiment
• girls
• race and ethnicities
• pedagogy
• curriculum

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

The first author wishes to express deep thanks to Dr Candice M. Jenkins for substantive feedback on initial thoughts about the texts under study, and early iterations of this article that subsequently emerged from those seed ideas. The second author wishes to thank Dr Nancy Lesko for introducing her to the curriculum of the body.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 A discussion of the questions regarding the existence of an idealized, unified, and/or essential self that are raised by this scene can be found in Butler’s (1990) Gender Trouble.