Remember, Me: An Interlocking Narrative of Black Women's Past and Present. (February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ferdinand, Renata
• Other Names: Chawla Devika guest-editor.; Atay Ahmet guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Cultural studies, critical methodologies. Volume 18:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 52
• Page End: 60
• Publication Date: 2018-02
• Subjects: African American studies -- ethnicity and race -- autoethnography -- ethnographies -- methodologies -- postcolonial methodologies -- narrative -- methods of inquiry; Culture -- Research -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Research -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1532708617744575
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-7086

Abstract

This is a postcolonial autoethnography that explores the historical and contemporary plight of African American women. Specifically, it uses narrative and performative writing to demonstrate how both groups operate within similar systems of domination, leading to their existence as a disenfranchised, liminal group. By bridging the past with the present, the author draws a parallel between the lives of contemporary Black women and their historical predecessors, thereby showing the connection between seemingly disparate historical events. Furthermore, this essay examines the author's particular location as a diasporic subject, exploring how she exists in an illusion of freedom, and with a disjointed subjectivity. Summarily, this essay examines larger issues of race, gender, and the identity politics of the diasporic subject, all in an effort to show how the past is recapitulated into the present. It offers a more nuanced way of thinking about the past, present, and the future.