Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality
Jennifer C. Nash
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2019
171 pages
ISBN: 978-1-478-00059-4

In her recent book, Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality Jennifer C. Nash begins her argument by discussing both the unsettled debate and the controversial positions in relation to the significance of intersectionality at some universities in the US. She also indicates that intersectionality is no longer just a theory that is adopted by academics exclusively, since the term is also used in everyday conversations by laypeople. Nash’s focus is on how intersectionality can be utilized both to comprehend and to challenge black feminism at contemporary US universities by providing alternative ways to look at intersectionality. The author also regards intersectionality as a “barometer” to both measure and standardize “the political atmosphere of the US university” (2). This barometer functions in a way to indicate the amount of pressure black female academics experience in comparison to their white colleagues in US institutions. Starting from this point, her book is an attempt to highlight the complex and ongoing nature of the relationship between intersectionality and women’s studies. The author argues that this relationship paves the way for new horizons and possibilities for black feminist studies which has a longer and more complicated relationship with intersectionality. Additionally, Nash highlights the practicality of intersectionality in reframing black feminism’s engagement with the now widely appropriated feminist theory.

Black Feminism Reimagined delineates the significance of how intersectionality has occupied the center of women’s studies for both black feminism and black feminists by providing new promises for them to preserve their collective identities in US universities. This collective act of protecting black feminist identities in contemporary academic practice is referred to as an act of “defensiveness” by Nash (3), which is forged because of black feminists’ belief that since intersectionality is founded by their black female predecessors, it has to be continuously acknowledged as their intellectual invention and, when possible, exclusively used to address issues related to blackness in certain contexts. Nash argues that this act of defensiveness is confining to black feminists, and that to achieve any progress in the political sphere and theoretical worldview, they need to stop conceptualizing such knowledge as property. According to Nash, intersectionality and, thus, black feminist defensiveness should be situated in the context of women’s studies, which is the aim of this book. Interestingly, Nash understands the relationship between black feminism and women’s studies in the context of American academia to track the limitations that institutes have imposed on black female academics in terms of the lack of equal opportunities determined by political, intellectual, and corporeal labor in comparison with their white female colleagues.

As a part of her quest to unravel the inequality in the experiences of black female academics in the US, Nash provides an intellectual background to the emergence of intersectionality as a heuristic term and a theoretical frame in black feminism in the introductory part of the book. The author claims that credit should not only be attributed to the Combahee River Collective – Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Deborah King, and Frances Beal – who are usually listed among the first to have theorized intersectionality. Supported by recent black feminist scholarship, Nash argues that Anna Julia Cooper’s work should also be regarded as foundational in modern intersectionality theory. She argues further that Cooper’s A Voice from the South (1892) was possibly the first book of considerable length that provided an example of black feminist theory in the US, as it articulates what it means to be a person and citizen in terms of race, gender and class. Nash proposes another interesting argument about intersectionality by inspecting its intellectual history in the US. She argues that in shaping certain black identities, race overcomes other categories. Gender and class become racial categories that are rendered meaningful through racial domination processes. These black identities are therefore constructed because of exceedingly complex interactions of gender and class, which are dominated and perpetuated by their racial position in the society.

Nash’s book is organized in a way that chronologically follows the development of intersectionality in black feminism. The first three chapters introduce the emergence of intersectionality, the centrality of intersectionality within women’s studies and black studies, and the risk of intersectionality in its liability of becoming dogmatic in both approach and application, respectively. Nash then refers to the limiting quality intersectionality imposes on blackness in chapter four, in which she suggests that black feminists should refute the idea that blackness is “synonymous with death and the idea that black feminism is dead or dying” (129). This means that the limitations imposed by intersectionality will not be a cul-de-sac for black feminism as the limiting comprehensibility of intersectionality in representing the black female experience is acknowledged. She invites black feminists to redefine their positions and experiences in love and reconciliation with what is already past rather than being defensive and possessive of the concept(s) of intersectionality. Nash reimagines black feminism as an act of love and letting go, which is reflected in the poetic titles of the chapters such as “surrender” (81) and “love in the time of death” (111). They are poetic in that they indicate the personal tie and intimate attachment black feminists have developed with intersectionality. The titles do not only grab the readers’ attention but also reflect on the essence of the arguments of the book.

Nash also discusses some mainstream misconceptions about black feminism, such as that the work of black feminism is understood mainly as a critique of women’s studies. She challenges the ways intersectionality has been associated with white feminism. White feminists rely on it both to revive and complement their political project. They are aware that since intersectionality aims at empowering black women, the most disadvantaged members of a society, those who are less disadvantaged – white women in this matter – can also be empowered by an intersectional approach. By referring to what she terms “intersectionality wars,” i.e., fights over who “owns” intersectionality, this volume aims at showing that intersectionality is a term that came into existence as a result of black feminists coming together in defining their experience with an intersectional perspective. They have originated it, enabled it to make progress and now, they are taking a defensive stance in claiming their authorial rights of it. Nash expresses her concern about the overt reliance of black feminists on intersectionality, which she suggests resembles being dogmatic. She critiques the way some black feminists view intersectionality as a property by stressing that scholars should not approach knowledge in a colonialist way.

It would have been a significant addition to this volume if alternative, less problematic and less dogmatic theoretical frames had been suggested by Nash for black feminists to tackle issues of oppression and inequality, especially those in US academia. Nonetheless, Nash’s Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality is an opportune and significant contribution to the current debates on intersectionality becoming a household term, on its being limited to black feminists, and on its confining scope that restricts black academic scholars. This book is a step towards an unorthodox way of doing feminism enterprise, rooted as much in love as in showing awareness about the restricting consequences of blind belief in an exclusive methodology. This love is reflected in Nash’s use of a unique and personal language, particularly in her chapter titles, to pave the way for the book to engage not just academic scholars interested in intersectionality and but to reach a wider audience with different backgrounds. Intersectionality still proves to be a valid analytic tool of choice that black people continue to choose to both lay bare oppression and empower themselves. In the light of events such as the George Floyd case followed by the BLM movement occurring in the past two years, Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality remains a timely and relevant contribution not only to feminist discourse and scholarship on intersectionality but also to mainstream issues faced by laypeople.

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