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Article published In:
10th Anniversary Issue: Reflections on the Field of Language and Sexuality Studies
Edited by William L. Leap and Heiko Motschenbacher
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 10:1] 2021
► pp. 48–58

Black female scholarship matters

A black female’s reflections on language and sexuality studies

| Pennsylvania State University , USA

In this article, I reflect upon the persistence of racial injustice and sexism in the process of knowledge production. This gendered racial injustice is seen in publication rates, citation rates, and appointments to editorial boards. The underrepresentation of women in general, and black women in particular, discursively constructs scholarly enquiry as normatively white and masculine. The exclusion of nonwhite scholars partially emanates from a reliance on Euro-American theoretical frameworks that are applied, often uncritically, in other contexts as if the Euro-American experience were universal. The result is scholarship that is incongruous with local experiences and practices. As the Journal of Language and Sexuality celebrates its tenth year of publication, it would benefit from including epistemic perspectives that are pluralistic in ontologies, cosmologies, and insights.

Keywords: racism, language, sexuality, queer, black women
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Language: The naturalization of anglonormativity
    • 1.2 Queer and Sexuality as imported terminology
  • 2.Publication and citational practices: Invisibility of black bodies
  • 3.Future directions and suggestions for research
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 February 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.00013.mak
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