Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts

Sista Resister

  Sista Resister

Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism  

by m seenarine

Xpyr Press 2023. 327 pages

This book presents 50 biographies of radical women of color activists from over 25 countries and terrorites. Available on Amazon

About

The book, Sista Resister: Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism, introduce the biographies of women from over 25 countries and territories. This eclectic collection of biographies of female activists show that 'Third World' females are active on a wide range of issues, from women's and children's health, to housing and labor rights, the environment and climate change. The book is divided into two sections. Part I, on current sista resisters, chronicles the lives of 30 contemporary female activists, from Mexico to the Philippines. The 20 life stories in Part II, on foresisters of resistance, establish that women in the Global South were some of the earliest feminist thinkers and writers in the world. Each life story refutes the common misrepresentation of Indigenous, African, Asian, Latina, Muslim, Dalit and other females as docile creatures in need of Western rescue. 

Contrary to their depiction in mainstream media as passive and docile, women in the 'Third World' were some of the first women's rightist activists. For instance, Fang Weiyi (1585 to 1668) and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648 to 1695) wrote about women's rights a century before Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 to 1797), whose essay, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792), is widely regarded as one of the first feminist text. And, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's (1880 to 1932) feminist science fiction novella, Sultana's Dream (1905), was written a decade before Charlotte Perkins Gilman's popular feminist utopian novel, Herland (1915). One of the main goals of this book is to amplify the voices of high-melanin female activists, and examples of their work are included in each portrait.

Table of Contents

Defining Terms and Intentions

ix

Glossary

x

Acknowledgments

xv

Preface

1

Introduction

9

 

 

PART I - CONTEMPORARY RESISTERS

 

 

 

1. Rebecca Lolosoli (Kenya)

47

2. Audra Simpson (Mohawk/Canada)

50

3. Marielle Franco (Rio, Brazil)

53

4. Sarah Deer (Muscogee/US)

58

5. Lydia Cacho (Mexico)

63

6. Yue Xin (Beijing, China)

68

7. Ece Temelkuran (Turkey)

72

8. Moya Bailey (Georgia, US)

77

9. Asmaa Mahfouz (Egypt)

81

10. Alma Caballero (Mexico)

86

11. Nadia Murad (Iraq)

89

12. Leymah Gbowee (Liberia)

93

13. Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe/US)

97

14. Malalai Joya (Afghanistan)

100

15. Risa Hontiveros (Philippines)

106

16. Wu Qing (Beijing, China)

109

17. Randa Jarrar (Chicago, US)

112

18. Tawakkol Karman (Yemen)

116

19. Norma Vázquez (Mexico)

120

20. LaDonna Brave Bull (Sioux/US)

124

21. Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala)

128

22. Haneen Zoabi (Nazareth, Israel)

132

23. Carmen Cruz (Puerto Rico)

136

24. Phoolan Devi (India)

140

25. Alice Walker (Georgia, US)

145

26. Wangari Maathai (Kenya)

151

27. Haunani-Kay Trask (Hawaiʻi/US)

155

28. Loujain AlHathloul (Saudia Arabia)

161

29. Berta Cáceres (Honduras)

165

30. Assata Shakur (US/Cuba)

169

 

 

PART II - FORESISTAS of RESISTANCE

 

 

 

31. Queen Nzinga (Angola)

178

32. Fang Weiyi (China)

182

33. Sor Juana (Mexico)

185

34. Queen Aliquippa (Seneca/US)

190

35. Sojourner Truth (NY, US)

194

36. Bamewawagezhikaquay (Ojibwe/US)

202

37. Savitribai Phule (South Asia)

207

38. Forten Women (PA, US)

212

39. Harriet Tubman (MD, US)

219

40. Dolores Jiménez (Mexico)

228

41. Rokeya Hossain (South Asia)

233

42. Raden Adjeng Kartini (Indonesia)

238

43. Ida Bell Wells (MS, US)

243

44. Bibi Khānom Astarābādi (Iran)

251

45. Hiratsuka Raichō (Japan)

255

46. Lucy Parsons (TX, US)

260

47. Mirair Ngirmang (Palau)

266

48. María Rivera (Peru)

270

49. Yuri Kochiyama (CA, US)

274

50. Lolita Lebrón (Puerto Rico)

281

 

 

ADDENDUM

 

Abolition & Women's Rights (US)

289

Endnotes

297

 

 


Haunani-Kay Trask

 

“Politics - the blind are showing movies/in the plaza/so the deaf are gathering/in the plaza/so the mute can debate/in the plaza/the fate/of one beloved nation.”
            - Merlinda Bobis (born 1959) is a Philippine-Australian writer & academic.


Chapter 27. Haunani-Kay Trask (Hawaiʻi/US)


Introduction: Gynocentrism and Gift Economy

Among the Indigenous people of Turtle Island, corn was the staple crop, and the Green Corn Dance was celebrated from North to South America. This important dance varies by group, but the core is a commemoration of the gift of corn by an ancestral corn Goddess. This sacred gift was reciprocated among the people of many nations. In matrilineal cultures, corn was stored in large granaries and distributed equitably by the clan mothers, the oldest women from every extended family. Since Indigenous communities placed an emphasis on sharing and equity, inequality and stratification were far less of a problem than in Europe.

Gynocentric theorists link many forms of social oppression to male domination and the exchange economy. These feminists suggest that only by dismantling male rule and phallic supremacy will many of the social problems that plague our modern world be mitigated. In her fictional account of a mother-centered culture, “The World of the Gift Economy,” feminist scholar Genevieve Vaughan describes the characteristics of the maternal gift economy as "Giving rather than exchange in the way we transmit our goods." The female-centered system is based on unilateral giving, like the mothering of little children, who cannot give back an equivalent in exchange for what they receive from caregivers.

Gynocentric and matriarchal cultures focus on meeting the needs of its members, which establishes bonds of mutuality and trust between givers and receivers. For example, Vaughan writes, "Hums like to guess each other's needs, so it is not unusual if I need a new pair of shoes to find them on my doorstep without my even asking anyone." The relational economy helps the future society the author describes in “The World of the Gift Economy,” to overcome competition and violence so prevalent in male-dominated societies in each corner of the globe. She writes, "The elimination of Patriarchy and exchange everywhere has defused the emphasis on categorization and belonging to superior categories that was part of racism, classism and sexism."

Despite centuries of patriarchal colonization, it is remarkable that some gynocentric traditions remain, even in the colonized US, and other parts of Turtle Island. Many Indigenous survivors understand and write about the importance of maintaining female-centered ways of knowing and being, like gift-giving. First Nations female scholars also document the intersection of colonization, dispossession and racism on Turtle Island, and feminist, cultural, environmental and social justice activists could learn much from these women. A shining example of Indigenous female leadership is Haunani-Kay Trask of Hawaiʻi.

Haunani-Kay's Biography

Haunani-Kay Trask (born October 3rd 1949) is a Hawaiian nationalist, educator, political scientist and writer whose genealogy connects her to the Piʻilani line on her maternal side and the Kahakumakaliua line on her paternal side. The Hawaiian native grew up on the island of Oʻahu and continues to reside there. Known as "The Gathering Place", Oʻahu is the third-largest Hawaiian Island. The island has around one million people, about two-thirds of the state's population.

Haunani-Kay earned a BA, MA and PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She graduated in 1981, and her dissertation was published as Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory (1986). Trask is professor emeritus of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and has represented Native Hawaiians at the UN and other global forums. Sista Trask is the author of two poetry books, Light in the Crevice Never Seen (1994) and Night Is a Sharkskin Drum (2002). And in addition to her thesis, Dr. Trask published the nonfiction, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii (1993).

Professor Trask co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning documentary, Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation (2011). The scholar-activist also created an educational video on the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement, Haunani-Kay Trask: We Are Not Happy Natives (2002). In March 2017, Hawaiʻi Magazine recognized the Oʻahu native as one of the most influential women in Hawaiian history.

As an Indigenous feminist, Haunani-Kay opposes tourism to Hawaiʻi, as well as US military's presence on the islands. In a 2014 interview, the Oʻahu native explained how she got involved with anti-military activism in the Pacific,
I got involved with Kahoʻolawe and the whole archipelagic idea of bombing ranges when I came back from college [in the mid-1970s from the University of Wisconsin Madison]. My mother, who was very straight, said you better come home, these people are going out there [to Kaho‘olawe] and getting arrested, and some of them are dying. It sounds like something you’d like. So that’s how I got into it. I did come home, and I didn’t write my dissertation for two years because I was so engaged in this process.
More recently the professor has spoken against the Akaka Bill to establish a process for Native Hawaiians to gain federal recognition similar to the recognition that some Native American tribes currently possess. Advocates of Hawaiian sovereignty oppose the bill since it disregards the 1993 Public Law (103-150) in which the US Congress apologized "for the overthrow and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination." Professor Trask exposes the Eurocentric settler bias and violence present in her native islands, writing,
The color of violence, then, is the color of white over black, white over brown, white over red, white over yellow. It is the violence of north over south, of continents over archipelagos, of settlers over natives and slaves.
The Hawaiian studies scholar explains further that melaninized subjugation in the island chain is inter-linked with other layers of oppression,
Shaping this color scheme are the labyrinths of class and gender, of geography and industry, of metropoles and peripheries, of sexual definitions and confinements. There is not just one binary opposition, but many oppositions.
Melaninized persecution is one form of patriarchal dualism among many. Intersectional oppression in Hawaiʻi is complicated and requires complex analysis and multi-disciplinary approaches. The political scientist describes different levels of violence inherent in the occupation of Indigenous lands by the most powerful nation in the Anglo-sphere,
Within colonialism, such as that now practiced in my own country of Hawai'i, violence against women of color, especially our Native women, is the economic and cultural violence of tourism and of militarism. It is the violence of our imprisonments: reservations, incarcerations, diasporas. It is the violence of military bases, of the largest porting of nuclear submarines in the world, of the inundation of our exquisite islands by eager settlers and tourists from the American and Asian continents.
Predatory capitalism is part of colonialism and racism, and this gets translated into the society, language and institutions of Eurocentric rule on Turtle Island. The Hawaiian nationalist describes this process with regards to culture,
Colonialism began with conquest and is today maintained by a settler administration created out of the doctrine of cultural hierarchy. It is a hierarchy in which Euro-Americans and whiteness dominate non-Euro-Americans and darkness.
Professor Trask contends that in a colonial country, there must be dominance and subordination, and low-melanin hegemony delineates this hierarchy in the US. Thus, the Indigenous political scientist argues,
white people are the dominant group, Christianity is the dominant religion, capitalism is the dominant economy, and militarism is the dominant form of diplomacy and the underlying force of international relations. Violence is thus normal, and race prejudice, like race violence, is as American as apple pie.
People of European descent are an elite minority in the islands. Low-melanin people comprise about 25 percent of the ethnically diverse state's 1.3 million residents, while those who identify as Native Hawaiian account for around 20 percent. Most residents are of mixed 'race,' so multi-racial people are the majority. The female Indigenous scholar explains how structural racism works in the US,
In a racist society, there is no need to justify white racist behavior. The naturalness of segregation and hierarchy is the naturalness of hearing English on the street, or seeing a McDonalds on every other corner, or assuming the U.S. dollar and United Airlines will enable a vacation in Hawai'i, my native country. Indeed, the natural, everyday presence of the "way things are" explains the strength and resilience of racism. Racism envelops us, intoxicating our thoughts, permeating our brains and skins, determining the shape of our growth and the longevity of our lives.
As an activist poet, Professor Trask employs the “art as an anvil” method in her writing style. Recognizing that Indigenous Hawaiians have been relegated to the margins of their society, the First Nations poet utilizes her words as weapons against the colonizing oppressors. An example of the art as anvil approach can be seen in the poem, "Racist White Woman," featured in her 1994 book, Light in the Crevice Never Seen:
Racist White Woman
I could kick
Your face, puncture
Both eyes.
You deserve this kind
Of violence
No more vicious
Tongues, obscene
Lies.
Just a knife
Slitting your tight
Little heart.
For all my people
Under your feet
For all those years
Lived smug and wealthy
Off our land
Parasite arrogant
A fist
In your painted
Mouth, thick
With money
And piety.

Haneen Zoabi

(Excerpt from Sista Resister: Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism by m seenarine. Xpyr Press.)

Introduction: Zionism and Feminism

The overwhelming majority of people affected by divisive patriarchal ideologies such as racism, casteism, Zionism and Islamophobia are women and children. The survivors of thousands of years of misogynist authority and religion are also mostly women and children. Jews in the apartheid state of Israel consider themselves an integral part of the Anglo-sphere, and for over seven decades, Zionists have practiced some of the worse forms of Eurocentric oppression in the world against Indigenous Palestinians.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine advocated for independent Arab and Jewish states, and a neutral Jerusalem. The UN Plan was rejected by Arab leaders, but the 1948 Arab–Jewish War led to the establishment of Israel over the former British territory. As tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews, Persian Jews, and other Jewish communities from across the globe migrated to colonize Palestine, they displaced millions of Indigenous Arabs, Christians, Druze and other local populations.

The West Bank and Gaza remained under Arab control, but the colonization continues with Zionist military occupation, illegal Jewish settlements, walled-in Palestinian ghettos, and the killings and imprisonment of Palestinians. As of 2013, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has condemned Israel in 45 resolutions. And, the UN General Assembly has adopted numerous resolutions saying that the strategic relationship between Israel and the USA encourages Israel to pursue aggressive and expansionist policies and practices.

Amira Hass, a Jewish female journalist argues, Israeli feminism has a dangerous mutation, namely the demand for an increasing number of women to assume “combat” roles. 

We do not know whether some day they will have to defend the homeland from a foreign army. Meanwhile, they – like the male soldiers – are maintaining the military occupation and defending its trophies: the outposts and the settlements, all of them illegal. The female soldiers, like the men, whether or not they are combat soldiers, are sent to defend the observance of the Jewish mitzvah to abuse, to rob, to expel.(156)

Yet, patriarchal hegemony, including Jewish variants, is never complete, and the feminist agency of Palestinian women like Haneen Zoabi is a model of resistance for struggles in the Global South.

Haneen's Biography

Haneen Zoabi (born May 23rd 1969) is a Palestinian educator, activist and politician. In 2009, Zoabi became the first woman elected from an Arab party to the Israeli Knesset, a parliament increasingly dominated by right-wing Jewish men. Haneen was born in Nazareth to a Muslim family. Nazareth, known as "the Arab capital of Israel," is the largest city in the Northern District. The population in the childhood home of Jesus is around 77,000, mostly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 70 percent are Muslim and 30 percent Christian.

Sista Haneen described her parents as liberal Muslims, 

My parents are Muslims. They pray, they fast, they have been to Mecca, but they raised their children to think and feel as liberal, open-minded people.(157)

The Nazarene child grew up in a home where academic achievement was extolled. Her brother is an economist, with a degree from Tel Aviv University and one sister is an Arabic language instructor. Haneen earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology, and a Master of Arts in communications. She became the first Arab citizen of Israel to graduate in media studies, and she established the first media classes in Arab schools.

After university, Nazareth's native daughter worked as a mathematics teacher and school inspector for the Ministry of Education. In 2003, Haneen co-founded an NGO to expose Israeli media bias. And in 2009, she resigned to focus on her political career. Zoabi decided to go into politics because of her family's commitment to public service, and her "desire to effect even small positive change for my people."

Zoabi joined the Balad party in 2001 and entered the Knesset after the Arab party won three seats in the 2009 elections. The female Arab Parliamentarian served as a member of the Israeli Knesset until 2019. Haneen is a fierce advocate for Palestinian, Arab, women and non-Jewish rights in the Zionist state. She comments, "I was not elected to keep silent or sit at the table and clap."

Like Jesus in his time, this female Nazarene is not afraid of speaking truth to power. Haneen's courageous voice interrupts the false narrative of Jewish Holocaust victims living peacefully in West Asia's only 'democratic' state. For example, the female Arab leader notes the hypocrisy of the Zionist state,

The state treats all Jews and Palestinians differently. Israel doesn't recognize us as the owners of this homeland. The theory is that we have equal civil rights, but the practice is very far from this.(158)

In May 2010, the Parliamentarian participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to deliver aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. The female Parliamentarian was on board the Turkish ship, MV Mavi Marmara, when Israeli commandos attacked and killed nine activists.

Zoabi was arrested, and she accused the Jewish authorities of acting criminally after her release,

It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.(159)

On July 13th, 2010, the Israeli Knesset voted to strip the female Arab parliamentarian of the right to hold a diplomatic passport, to participate in Knesset discussions, and to vote in parliamentary committees. Asked to describe what is it like being a Palestinian in Israel, the Nazarene politician responded,

Israel did everything it could to make us forget our history: controlling education and the media, putting us in a ghetto, preventing us from having normal relations with the Arab world and visiting our families in Syria and Lebanon.(160)

Zoabi is opposed to any form of mandatory national service for Israel's second-class Arab citizens. In 2009, she characterized right-wing Israeli politicians like Avigdor Lieberman, Tzipi Livni, and Benjamin Netanyahu as "a bunch of fascists pure and simple."

However, Zoabi observed that Israeli president Netanyahu is "much more dangerous" than Lieberman, because he, "shares Lieberman's fascist views but takes care to sugarcoat his message for the international media. My anger is real, not a joke for the TV cameras. I will not shake the hands of these men."(161)

On July 29th, 2014, Zoabi was suspended again from the Knesset for six months. Of the parliament’s 120 members, at least 65 are part of the Zionist right and far-right. Nazareth's daughter regards the two-state solution as politically unrealistic, and the idea that Israel is a Jewish state as inherently racist. Instead, the Palestinian parliamentarian advocates a single state shared by Jews and Palestinian Arabs alike, with full equality and rights for all national and religious groups. Palestinians have advocated for this political solution ever since they rejected the 1947 UN Plan. 

The Arab educator and activist explains her reasoning, 

The reality of Israel's actions shows us that it's unrealistic to have a real sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as the capital. The more realistic solution is one state with full national equality for both national groups.(162)

Zoabi argues that rejection of the Jewish state concept is the only way to combat right-wing Jewish leaders' demand that all Israeli citizens take loyalty oaths. She contends that it is Jewish right-wing leaders like Lieberman who should take an oath of loyalty. "He is an immigrant from Moldova. I was born here, as were my ancestors. He's the outsider, not me."

Despite facing the wrath of the Israeli parliament and state, Haneen remains firm in her Indigenous views. Rejecting the 'Jewish state' concept, the Arab parliamentarian argues, is the only idea that can remove Lieberman from the circle of political and moral legitimacy... When you agree with the 'Jewish state' idea, you necessarily agree with the idea of loyalty to this state. Rejecting the 'Jewish state' concept will block the road for anyone who demands our loyalty to such a state.(163)

The former Palestinian teacher explains the source of her activism and courage,

We didn't expect an easy struggle. I chose to be involved in politics because I was born in a racist context. I will continue using all the democratic tools that are available. I ask Israel not to push us into undesirable activities... We do not want to throw Jews into the sea. We are not against Jews. We are against Israeli policies and the definition of Israel as a Jewish state.(164)

Haneen continued,

I have a vision of our rights as indigenous people. We didn't migrate to Israel; it is Israel that migrated to us.


Chapter 22. Haneen Zoabi (Nazareth, Israel)

Press News 012021

We published several articles in the fall of 2020, including:

"Repression of Anti-Racist Organic Intellectuals and Social Movements." Critical Mass Bulletin, Newsletter of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, American Sociological Association, Volume 45 (4) Special Issue Fall 2020

"Moses Seenarine - Scholar/Activist Profiles." Critical Mass Bulletin, Newsletter of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, American Sociological Association, Volume 45 (4) Special Issue Fall 2020

"Is Critical Race Theory Divisive? Politics and Curriculum in the Trump Era." Teaching/Learning Matters, American Sociological Association, Section on Teaching and Learning. Volume 51, Issue 4. Fall 2020

"Deconstructing ‘Race’ and ‘Whiteness’ in Critical Animal Studies." Mobilizing Ideas, Center for the Study of Social Movements, University of Notre Dame, Oct. 30 

'Race' and 'Whiteness' in Academia

As I write this article at the end of August 2020, socially defined “minority” communities across the country are protesting yet another police shooting of an African American, that of 29-year old Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Earlier in the year, there were weeks of activism over the strangulation of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American female emergency medical technician in Louisville, Kentucky; the killing of Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old African American man in Atlanta, Georgia; the strangulation of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old African American massage therapist in Aurora, Colorado; and the death of many others at the hands of the police.

Although it is not readily apparent, discrimination against “minorities” is relevant to critical animal studies, and there are many ways in which “race” and “whiteness” intersect in the field. I saw this first-hand one summer when I attended a protest at a factory farm in Los Angeles. A deep racial division was evident at the demonstration, as most of the animal advocates outside the gates were middle-class European Americans, while the majority of workers inside the slaughterhouse were disadvantaged Latinas/os, African Americans, and Asians. Horrified by the stench of the place, I became even more aghast when the European American activists started calling workers “murderers.” And, when I queried the protesters outside if their pets were plant-based, some grew defensive, arguing that dogs and cats are natural carnivores and have to eat flesh. Ironically, cognitive dissonance allowed European American vegans to scream “murderer” at marginalized meat plant workers while continuing to support factory farms by buying animal flesh for their own pets.

Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to bridge this divide between activists and workers. Since the pandemic began, tens of thousands of “minority” and immigrant meat plant employees have become infected with the virus while working on animal slaughtering and disassembly lines. Deemed as “essential workers,” over a hundred meat plant employees have died from COVID-19. As a result, marginalized workers, their families and unions are calling for the closure of meat plants, along with doctors and health advocates. Animal advocates can help by campaigning alongside factory farm workers in resisting the livestock industry. The intersection of “race,” workers in meat plants, and the pandemic, is an important one for critical animal scholars to explore. 

The are other ways in which “race” and “whiteness” intersect with critical animal studies. Educational institutions are not insulated from the effects of structural racism and the power of “whiteness” operating within the larger society. Universities and academic discourses reflect Eurocentrism and fortify structural racism, and scholars should examine how these larger social forces shape our disciplines. Despite claims of scientific objectivity and unbiased inquiry, there are several critical questions that remain largely unexplored in sociology and other disciplines.

For instance, why is there a lack of ethnic diversity in academia, generally, and more particularly, in our field? How does the lack of ethnic diversity in departments, in the academic literature, and in the use of citations, serve to reinforce Eurocentrism in our discipline? What are the consequences for a field of inquiry that is dominated by people with European heritage? Whose voices are included in the standard curriculum and knowledge base, which ones are excluded, and who decides? How do European ethnicity and cultural capital become entrenched as part of the discipline? And, how do European heritage and privilege bear upon the framing of research, the issues that are explored, the inclusion and exclusion of various voices, factors, social contexts, and so on?

There are other theoretical and material issues around “race” and “whiteness” that lack elaboration in critical animal studies. For instance, how does higher consumption of animal-based protein intersect with claims of Eurocentric supremacy and countries with majority European populations? How are over-consumption behaviors, and massive carbon footprints among a small middle-class in the Global North, subsidized by the impoverished masses in the Global South? How does the Western framing of individual “rights” for nonhuman animals conflict and contradict Indigenous notions of the “interconnectedness” of species? How are issues of representation, consent and objectification in the graphic imagery of animals and nature from the Global South, negotiated or ignored in animal studies and by nonhuman animal advocates and environmental organizations in the Global North? How do “conservation” campaigns in the Global North lead to corruption and dispossession in the Global South? And how does the promotion of ecotourism in the Global South for Westerners lead to trafficking, male violence and other problems for local women?

Although important first steps, the deconstruction of “race” and “whiteness” in our field will have limited outcomes if they are not accompanied by a decentering of Eurocentric theory and theorists, along with a centering of the work of socially defined “non-whites” — Indigenous, African American, Latina/o, Asian, and other. It is the responsibility of departments and academic fields to decenter Eurocentrism and increase ethnic diversity among scholars, scholarship, and the curriculum. Objectivity and transparency also oblige individual scholars to acknowledge ethnic privileges and to discuss how racial advantages may have influenced their career and research choices. 

It is equally important for Western scholars to examine how their theoretical framing reflects perspectives in the Global North, and how these may differ from those of “minority” scholars and theories emanating from the Global South. Addressing the social influence of “race” and “whiteness” in our personal lives and careers is an important part of the process of deconstructing and decentering “whiteness” in our own scholarship, and in transforming the discipline in which we operate. The racist violence against Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Elijah McClain, and the deaths of hundreds of “minority” meat plant workers from COVID-19, should inspire academics and their departments to do more in the cause of social justice for human and nonhuman animals alike.


Reprinted from:

Seenarine, Moses. 2020. "Intersection of 'Race' and 'Whiteness' in Academia," American Sociological Association (ASA), The Animals & Society Section Newsletter, Fall, pages 7-8.

About The Author
Dr. Moses Seenarine is the father of Jad and longterm ethical vegan. Seenarine immigrated with his family from South America to the USA in the late 1970s, and he is among the first generation to be college educated. His books include Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming (2016); and Cyborgs Versus the Earth Goddess: Men’s Domestication of Women and Animals, and Female Resistance (2017). Seenarine has written dozens of articles on women, race, caste, migration, the environment, animals, and climate change. His work has been cited by the FAO, UNESCO, Human Rights Watch, Anti-Slavery International, the Institute for the Study of Labor, World Council of Churches, and many others.

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