ABSTRACT Black women in the United States experience disproportionately poor maternal health outcomes, particularly in the Southeastern U.S. where structural racism is deeply rooted. Despite increasing research on interpersonal factors contributing to these disparities, limited attention has been paid to the structural mechanisms driving inequities. This conceptual paper addresses that gap by presenting a framework that examines the structural, social, and interpersonal mechanisms influencing Black maternal health care experiences in the Southeast. An integrative literature review was used to explore three key areas: gendered racism, patient-provider relationships, and structural racism. The framework integrates critical race theory, Black feminist thought, ecological systems theory, and resilience theory to propose a conceptual model that connects these mechanisms. It hypothesizes how historical and ongoing structural racism shapes Black women’s social lens, influencing their knowledge, beliefs, self-value, and vulnerability in maternal health encounters. The framework suggests that structural oppression and providers, coupled with a lack of trust and communication in patient-provider relationships, contribute to adverse maternal outcomes for Black women. By examining these interconnected factors, this paper offers new insights into the systemic forces sustaining disparities and provides a foundation for future research and interventions aimed at improving care for Black women in the Southeastern U.S.

This article critically examines how non-academic women of colour experience inclusion within UK higher education institutions. Drawing on narrative and semi-structured interviews, it reveals that inclusion is often choreographed through surface-level gestures that legitimise universities without redistributing power. The analysis develops three conceptual tools – curated inclusion, institutional affective discipline and progression ambiguity – to theorise how diversity initiatives function as containment strategies rather than mechanisms for transformation. Informed by Black feminist, critical race and decolonial theories, the study exposes how emotional labour, strategic silences and conditional belonging operate as everyday technologies of racialised governance. By centring the voices of women in non-academic roles, the article extends existing debates on institutional whiteness and performative inclusion, arguing for a structural reimagining of equity work grounded in decolonial praxis and epistemic justice.

This article draws on Black Feminism to demonstrate how the mainstreaming of race war and the obsession with the heteronormative patriarchal family in white supremacist thought is rooted in a longer genealogy. I follow how race war’s familial imagery emerges through a contrast with civil wars, which were constituted as fraternal and fratricidal. Tracing this genealogy through antiquity, I show how civil war’s potentially redemptive bloodletting within the family relied on the slave’s constitutive exclusion from the family. Carrying this exclusion through the 19th and 20th centuries, I examine white fantasies of Black rebellion and race war in the history of chattel slavery. White fantasies of race war took the images of miscegenation, infanticide, and parricide. In contrast to civil war’s potentially redemptive war within the family, race war destroyed the patriarchal family and with it, political order. I show how this fantasy of race war emerged as an idealized patriarchal family that simultaneously was upheld as a model of pacification and continued warfare against the enslaved. Slavery’s violence and the institutional form of the heteronormative family intersect to produce a fantasy of race war as an attack on whiteness through an attack on the family.

ABSTRACT This letter positions the digital realm as a Black feminist homeplace: a space of survival, joy, and (re)imagination. Digital homeplaces function as interventions that resist erasure, craft belonging, and generate archives of becoming. The footnotes operate as a parallel performance, directing readers to engage critically with the embodied dimensions of Black feminist praxis. While digital homeplaces carry these risks they also sustain autonomy, offering possibilities that traditional academic and performance venues often constrain. By framing digital Black feminist practice as a response to these shifts, this letter lingers in tension as the very condition of Black feminist digital life.

ABSTRACT Objective Black women consistently exhibit some of the highest labor force participation rates in the United States, yet they are among the least wealthy group across race and gender which carries a disparity with profound implications for both economic and health outcomes. Design This phenomenological study employed semi structured interviews with 13 Black women as heads of households. Collin’s Black Feminist Theory provides the framework for this study, underscoring race and gender within the context of labor as an essential factor in the wealth accumulation process and health outcomes. Results Part of a larger study, themes reported here revealed four themes of labor: hustle labor, emotional labor, spiritual labor, and resistance labor, actions taken to maintain dignity and self-worth in the face of systemic oppression, emerged as a new form of labor. Conclusion The study makes visible Black women’s labor beyond the U.S. traditional economic metrics. Recommendations for social policy and public health interventions central to wealth accumulation and health outcomes are offered.

Approximately one in five Black women report experiencing pain during their last sexual encounter (Townes et al., 2019). Although Black women experience dyspareunia more frequently and intensely than their White counterparts, they are less likely to receive a proper diagnosis and treatment (Carter et al., 2019). Despite advancements in genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD) research, the continued omission of Black women and the failure to consider their lived experiences perpetuate the exclusion of Black women's pain experiences and exacerbate inequities in vulvar pain research. Using an intersectional and Black feminist approach, this socioecological conceptual article explores the sociohistorical, sociostructural, sociocultural, and interpersonal factors that uniquely place Black women at risk of experiencing vulvar pain, developing GPPPD, ignoring their GPPPD symptoms, and receiving misdiagnoses. Theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and interventions that should be implemented in future research with Black women experiencing GPPPD symptoms are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This temporal multilingual intimate dual and duoethnography in education forwards duoethnography as an affective and temporal inquiry and explores how fear, language, religion, and immigration shape the lived and scholarly experiences of two immigrant women—one from Syria and one from Germany, working within U.S. educational contexts. Organized through <i>Then</i> and <i>Now</i>, not as a linear chronology but through felt time, this work constitutes a methodological and emotional movement between our research studies and the personal, political, and relational dimensions of our lives and our languages. We highlight how a duoethnographic approach offers methodological hope amid heightened fear and anti-immigration rhetoric that is anti-Muslim, anti-Black, and anti-Arab. The first study examines Arab immigrant women's educational experiences through a transnational Arab feminist lens, while the second centers Black immigrant women through a transnational Black feminist approach. Through friendship and dialogue, we trace how fear weaves through our research, writing, and ways of being. Our duoethnographic method becomes both a site of resistance and healing, revealing how intimacy, affect, and multilingual relationality can trespass the rigid boundaries of educational research and reimagine education as a deeply human and interconnected space. This work challenges the individualistic knowledge logics of the U.S. academy by centering intimacy and relationality across differences, mobilizing connection to confront the structures of fear that govern language and education in the United States. Through multi-layered duo-ethnography, we show how our research stories interconnect, capturing the intimacies of lived experiences that are rife with systemically imposed fear. We start this manuscript by introducing our affective states through a temporal representation of the "Then" and "Now" feelings as immigrant women scholars navigating U.S. educational contexts-feelings offered not as confession but as methodological testimony to the affective economies (Ahmed, 2004) that govern our multilingual lives.

Cervical cancer remains a preventable disease, yet Black women in the United States continue to face disproportionately high rates of incidence and mortality. These persistent disparities highlight that Black women's trust in preventive services is shaped not only by historical injustices but also by current experiences of systemic complexity, inequitable access, and provider behaviors. This qualitative study explored how Black women perceive and navigate the U.S. healthcare system in the context of cervical cancer prevention. Seventeen African American and Black immigrant women between the ages of 21 and 65 participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was guided by an integrated framework combining Ecological Systems Theory, the Ecosocial Theory of Embodiment, Intersectionality, and Black Feminist Thought. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: (1)systemic fragmentation that makes the healthcare system difficult to navigate and limits provider capacity; (2)inequitable access shaped by high costs, inadequate insurance coverage, and structural discrimination; and (3)the central role of healthcare providers in fostering trust, safety, and engagement. Participants emphasized that medical mistrust among Black women is rooted not only in historical injustices but also in ongoing experiences of marginalization and invisibility within clinical care. To improve engagement with cervical cancer prevention services, healthcare systems must address both structural and interpersonal barriers. Culturally responsive care, institutional accountability, and acknowledgment of historical harm are essential to rebuilding trust and advancing health equity for Black women in the United States.

This research aimed to explore the contributions of black feminism to anti-racist and emancipatory education. The methodology was qualitative and exploratory, based on a narrative review. Initially, 40 articles were selected using the keywords “black feminism”, “anti-racist education”, and “pedagogy”. After an initial screening, ten articles were chosen for full reading, and one more was added from the references, totaling eleven texts. The analysis was structured into categories that discuss: (1) the black feminist movement and its historical context; (2) sexist violence against black women; (3) concepts of racism; (4) the power of activists in feminist and black movements: the trajectory of Lélia Gonzalez; (6) the educational field as a means of reproducing racism; (7) black feminism as an aid to anti-racist education. The results show that black feminism is an essential tool for building anti-racist education by proposing the reformulation of Eurocentric structures, valuing black knowledge and voices. Its incorporation into the school environment contributes to the promotion of representation, the confrontation of oppression, and the recognition of diversity. It is concluded that schools should be spaces for debate and transformation, breaking down “preconceptions” so as not to become spaces for racist practices and the reproduction of oppression.

ABSTRACT The Dora Milaje defy stereotypes as the finest female warrior squad of Wakanda by pushing the boundaries of femininity and offering a shift from the traditional representations of Black womanhood. This paper investigates the portrayal of the Dora Milaje in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in order to analyse their contribution in challenging conventional representations of Black femininity. By adopting a feminist stance, this research paper examines how they dispute common perceptions about Black women as victims of clichés. This paper is centred on the leadership responsibilities, combat prowess, and embodiment of the sisterhood of the Dora Milaje. Through an intersectional Black feminist framework, the visual aesthetics of the Dora Milaje are examined to reveal how their portrayal emphasises freedom, strength, and intelligence, offering an alternative narrative of Black womanhood. The research shows this all-female elite squad of warriors as the new and strong illustration of Black women’s empowerment, challenging patriarchal standards and opening new avenues for the portrayal of Black women in media.

In his chapter, “Education as Freedom”, Rick Turner critiques the way in which schools socialise learners to conform to rigid ways of being. Turner also argues that schools in Africa were founded on colonial principles that actively promoted European (un)civilisation. Elsewhere, I have contended that colonial education has resulted in epistemic annihilation of African people. In this article, I recount my experiences as an educator curating learning spaces using decolonial and indigenous ways of knowing. I argue for embracing affect and vulnerability in the classroom as one form of remedy to the numbness imposed by coloniality. In this article, I explore how tapping into matrilineal ancestral archives and our intuitive connection to indigenous ways of knowing is an integral part of recovering from colonial violence in the classroom. I reflect on my experiences curating learning spaces through the Black feminist collective, IPotsoyi KwaLanga. I expound on the value of prioritising Black joy and African food and illustrate how introducing food fosters connection, challenges colonial patriarchal norms and triggers ancestral memory. I reflect on the impact of this methodology and draw on the following themes of discussion: how, historically, food and the kitchen have been spaces for connection and solidarity for African women; African food traditions and recipes as breathing archives that I use to connect with students and their ancestors in the classroom; and the use of food as a way to create a welcoming environment that resists the cold disembodied patriarchal colonial understanding of what a classroom should be.

This essay reflects on the affective and epistemic tensions of engaging feminist praxis within the context of Galeshewe, a township in Kimberley, South Africa. Using autophenomenology, the article traces the embodied and emotional topographies of my journey as a Black feminist activist–scholar navigating the possibilities and limits of institutionalised feminist theory. Rooted in a womxn’s only, community-based workshop in Galeshewe, this article explores how local concepts such as ho hata mabala and ukuzilanda offer affective and decolonial ways of knowing. These concepts reflect the age-old fluidity and living vitality of feminist thought embedded in the rhythms of everyday womxn’s lives. Initially entering the space with academic feminist praxis, the article lays bare the ways in which I was confronted by how institutionalised feminism was inadequate in holding the complexity, pain and matrixes of power that shaped township womxn’s experiences. The dialogue revealed that feminism, when used in Galeshewe, could not be adopted without modification from the simplified modes that it exists in the academy. This article offers a reflection that echoes Spivak’s caution that reminds us as the subalterns, who have accessed parts of the system, of the risk of reproducing the very systems we seek to dismantle and inadvertently severing ourselves from our communities. By foregrounding affect, memory and embodied knowledge, this article argues for a feminist activism and scholarship that is not only intersectional but deeply situated. It suggests a praxis that is fluid, grounded and committed to radical reimagining of feminist thought from the margins.

ABSTRACT Digital rhetoric is in a “paradigmatic aftermath” from Big Tech platformization. The implicit paradigm for digital rhetoric is the ecological model, but platformization has revealed how fragile ecologies are. This article argues that the ecology paradigm will be better suited to address digitality if we as a subfield systematize that fragility more explicitly. To make this argument, the article revisits the dominant scholarly paradigm of the rhetorical situation to parse a lineage of goals and heuristics. From there, the article considers the disastrous and violent effects of Big Tech logics and technics and what those effects have been on both traditionally rhetorical aims as well as paradigmatic efforts and theories. Ultimately, the article draws from the Black feminist “data healing” strategies that Neema Githere’s Data Healing Workbook theorizes to offer an ecology paradigm wherein repair is an always available response for thinking from and with collapse.

Historically rooted in US Black feminist activism, intersectionality emerged as an analytical lens through which to enhance knowledge about how multiple and interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, and class exploitation) shape the lives of US Black women and other historically marginalized populations, and as a tool for critical praxis, not empirical research. Intersectionality has numerous benefits for the field of public health. Accordingly, interest in intersectionality and intersectionality research has flourished within US and global public health. This review highlights some of the theoretical and methodological articles and systematic and scoping reviews focused on intersectionality in the field. It also addresses several of the conceptual and methodological complexities and challenges of qualitative and quantitative intersectionality research with the introduction of a Framework for Applied Intersectionality Research (FAIR). FAIR aims to reframe intersectionality as a critical transformative tool to advance health equity and social justice action, not just empirical research.

Reimagining Black Feminist Ecologies: Intersectionality and Decoloniality in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton and Malika Ndlovu.

This study aims to explore young Black female university students' knowledge and utilization of preconception health (PH) while identifying the barriers associated with PH use DESIGN: This study employed a phenomenological qualitative exploratory approach and the Black feminist theory to understanding the phenomenon under investigation. Participants were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling between June and September 2023. Data was generated through a semi-structured interview, which was analyzed inductively using thematic analysis. Ten Black students ranging from 19 to 22 years old participated in this study. The students were enrolled in a four-year college at the time of this study. Based on the analysis, three broad themes emerged. The first theme, knowledge construction of preconception health, from which two sub-themes were derived, encompasses how participants describe their knowledge of PH. The second theme, utilization of preconception health services, focuses on participants' use or lack thereof of PH services, from which three sub-themes were generated. The third theme, barriers to PH, discussed the multifaceted barriers participants encounter when seeking care or the barriers to gaining knowledge about PH. The narrative demonstrates that knowledge of PH among some young Black women is low due to a plethora of issues transcending beyond their immediate locus of control into system and structural-level problems that are unique to Black women. This study has direct public health implications for Black maternal health, higher institutions, sociocultural norms, and broad health policy.

Gendered poverty remains one of the most pressing socio-economic challenges of the 21st century, disproportionately affecting women and exacerbating global inequalities. Often conceptualized as the "feminization of poverty," this phenomenon highlights the ways in which structural discrimination, patriarchal norms, and institutional barriers restrict women's access to education, employment, land, and financial resources. Women’s overrepresentation in informal, insecure, and low-paying work, coupled with the disproportionate burden of unpaid care responsibilities, further entrenches cycles of economic vulnerability. Intersectionality deepens these inequalities, as women’s experiences of poverty are mediated by race, class, geography, and other social identities. The consequences of gendered poverty extend beyond individual women to household welfare, national productivity, and the achievement of global development goals, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study employs Structuration theory and Black Feminist theory and uses a qualitative methodology. Addressing gendered poverty requires a multidimensional approach that goes beyond income redistribution to include structural reforms, gender-responsive social protection, and the recognition of women as key agents of development. This paper critically examines gendered poverty as both a scourge and a catalyst of women’s socio-economic hindrance, highlighting its causes, impacts, and implications for inclusive development. Gendered poverty, limited land access, and indigenous knowledge systems intersect to marginalize the socio-economic empowerment of women. This study critically examines globally how structural discrimination, patriarchal norms, and institutional barriers restrict women’s access to education, employment, land for food security, and financial resources, reinforcing cycles of economic vulnerability. Indigenous knowledge, while culturally significant, often legitimizes practices that marginalize women, particularly regarding land ownership and decision-making, further entrenching inequality. Employing Structuration theory and Black Feminist theory, this qualitative study highlights the compounded impact of poverty, land deprivation, and exclusionary cultural practices on women’s livelihoods, household welfare, and community development. Findings emphasize the need for the Gender Commission to regulate the application of indigenous knowledge to prevent the marginalization of rural women and enhance their socio-economic agency, including rural women in innovative strategies to enable their participation in land ownership and effectively embark on agricultural activities. By situating local challenges within global development frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this study contributes to debates on gender, poverty, and empowerment, offering evidence-based recommendations for inclusive socio-economic transformation.

Stories about Black women's STEM journeys are limited in the literature. To build an innovative STEM ecosystem, all voices must be heard. Since students determine STEM career interest during their formative years, understanding K-12 experiences is crucial for promoting growth and inclusivity. Using a Black feminist thought framework, this study investigates the K-12 STEM experiences of ten Black women who pursued undergraduate STEM majors, specifically examining how they first became interested in STEM and the influences along their journey. Semi-structured interviews and written artifacts provided insight into their experiences. Findings revealed four key themes: initial STEM interest and influencers, family influences, positive and negative teacher characteristics, and role model/mentor characteristics. These women's stories provide an anti-deficit perspective that challenges existing deficit-based literature. The findings offer important insights for educators and scholars on promoting underrepresented students in STEM. Future implications include exploring the stories of other marginalized groups in STEM and investigating the influence of parents, teachers and counselors for Black girls in STEM.

Stereotypical and sexualised representations of Black women's bodies have long been scrutinised in academic literature. The presentation of Black women in hip-hop videos, in particular, in both an international and South African context, has been hypersexualised and typified. Scholars in western feminism and Black feminism have demonstrated how Black women musicians have challenged one-dimensional portrayals of Black women by taking ownership of their sexuality and rebranding stereotypical language and images with more empowered messages. Less examined in current literature on the representation of Black women in music videos is how Black African women musicians use music videos to exercise creative control in their self-expression. In this article, we use a Womanist perspective to interpret South African artist Zoë Modiga's SINENKANI (2022) music video. We argue that in SINENKANI, Modiga engages in a Womanist gaze, combining elements of Afrosurrealism and Zulu indigenous culture to create an empowered intra-communal perspective. We argue that far from just countering stereotypical representations of Black women, Modiga creatively constructs a complex identity of Zulu African womanhood which can only be fully understood intrasubjectively.

This paper aims to present the practices of care and identity affirmation, developed in conjunction with the Coletiva Mulheres da Quebrada, in an intersectional dialogue with community social psychology and black feminism. This theoretical and methodological commitment is based on the recognition of the epistemological and methodological limitations of psychology, which gains potential when articulated with different knowledge and worldviews. We call for the blackening of psychology through the Afro-centered epistemic resumption, making it possible to construct emancipatory notions of subject and society. We present a set of practices carried out by ColetivA, which are based on the affirmation of society projects with a view to social transformation, the protection of life and a reorientation of care. To qualify the discussion, some analyzes produced from the scenes experienced in group psychosocial intervention meetings that took place between 2022 and 2023 will be presented, with women who frequent the ColetivA space. The scenes are presented based on the areas of activity in which ColetivA is structured (mental health, social assistance, sociocultural and self-care meetings). The path taken so far has made it possible to give new meaning to the identity of black women by highlighting their protagonism and calling on them to share responsibility for care. We can see how the promotion of mental health has brought symbolic and psychosocial benefits, through the affirmation of a self-concept, the construction of critical thinking and the mirroring of a collective identity.