Chismosas Against White Hetero-patriarchy: Chisme as a Literacy Pedagogy of Resistant Girlhood/Womanhood

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women of Color feminists have theorized and pointed to the ways that chisme is a resistant practice for Women and Girls of Color. In line with this theoretical and epistemological framing of chisme, the authors explore the ways that gossip is, in fact, an intellectual and political literacy practice that Women and Girls of Color utilize in the face of racist, sexist, and classist structures. In doing so they aim to (1) center Women and Girls of Color as holders and producers of knowledge, (2) acknowledge and honor the literacies of chisme, and (3) center the truths of Women and Girls of Color who draw on chisme literacies in both academic and non-academic spaces. In this article they document the contours of chisme to highlight how it is legitimate, pleasureful, intergenerational, and disruptive of power structures. Through their respective empirical studies, the authors offer examples of chisme as powerful pedagogy with Girls of Color. They conclude with a call to scholars and practitioners to reconsider the role of chisme in their classrooms and research and how they might re-position Women and Girls of Color in their work.