This Ass is Magic: The Black Feminist Power of Twerking

Abstract

Using discourse analysis and autoethnographic research, I center twerking as a Black dance and a Black feminist practice. My research challenges omissions in communication studies, which has tended to overlook embodied practices as paths to liberation and contributes to scholarship in dance studies that amplifies the significance of Black women and ratchet feminism. Inquiries propelling this research are: (1) what does it mean for Black women to express physical joy through twerking?; (2) how do women resist politics of respectability and embody worthiness through twerking? By analyzing both the affordances of twerking and the ways the dancing has been dismissed, I reveal interlocking systems of white supremacist and patriarchal exclusions that attempt to destroy Black women’s pleasure and power.