Cover not available

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

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Black female scholarship matters

A black female’s reflections on language and sexuality studies

 | Pennsylvania State University, USA
Published online: 15 February 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.00013.mak
Abstract
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.
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
References (54)
References
Ampofo, Akosua Adomako. 2016. Re-viewing studies on Africa, #Black Lives Matter, and envisioning the future of African studies. African Studies Review 59(2): 7–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ball, Arnetha, Makoni, Sinfree, Smitherman, Geneva, Spears, Arthur K. & wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. 2003. Black Linguistics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Banks, Taunya Lovell. 1999. Colorism: A darker shade of pale. UCLA Law Review 471: 1705.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernal, Dolores Delgado & Villalpando, Octavio. 2002. An apartheid of knowledge in academia: The struggle over the “legitimate” knowledge of faculty of color. Equity & Excellence in Education 35(2): 169–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Usree, Jiang, Lei & Canagarajah, Suresh. 2020. Race, representation, and diversity in the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Applied Linguistics 41(6): 999–1004. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Block, David. 2010. Globalization and language teaching. In The Handbook of Language and Globalization, Nikolas Coupland (ed.), 287–304. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. 2002. A Geopolitics of Academic Writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chakravartty, Paula, Kuo, Rachel, Grubbs, Victoria & McIlwain, Charlton. 2018. #CommunicationSoWhite. Journal of Communication Studies 681: 254–266.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charity Hudley, Anne H. 2017. Language and racialization. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society, Ofelia García, Nelson Flores & Massimiliano Spotti (eds), 381–402. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chitando, Ezra & Mateveke, Pauline. 2017. Africanizing the discourse on homosexuality: Challenges and prospects. Critical African Studies 9(1): 124–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coetzee, Azille. 2017. Feminism ís African, and other implications of reading Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí as a relational thinker. Gender and Women’s Studies 1(1): 1–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cummings, Sarah J. R. & Hoebink, Paul. 2017. Representation of academics from developing countries as authors and editorial board members in scientific journals: Does this matter to the field of development studies? The European Journal of Development Research 29(2): 369–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dade, Karen, Tartakov, Carlie, Hargrave, Connie & Leigh, Patricia. 2015. Assessing the impact of racism on Black faculty in White academe: A collective case study of African American female faculty. Western Journal of Black Studies 39(2): 134–146.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Lauretis, Teresa. 1991. Queer theory: Lesbian and gay sexualities. An Introduction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3(2): iii–xviii.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Epprecht, Marc. 2013. Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa: Rethinking Homophobia and Forging Resistance. London: Zed Books. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2016. Epistemic injustice and the preservation of ignorance. In The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance, Rik Peels & Martijn Blaauw (eds), 160–177. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 2015. Settler colonialism as structure: A framework for comparative studies of US race and gender formation. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1(1): 52–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haddix, Marcelle M. 2016. Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me. New York: NCTE/Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 2015. Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hendriks, Thomas & Spronk, Rachel. 2020. Introduction: Reading “Sexualities” from “Africa”. In Readings in Sexualities From Africa, Rachel Spronk & Thomas Hendriks (eds), 1–17. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hountondji, Paulin J. 2009. Knowledge of Africa, knowledge by Africans: Two perspectives on African studies. RCCS Annual Review 11: 121–131.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutton, Chrisopher M. 1999. Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-Tongue Fascism, Race, and the Science of Language. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeater, Diana. 2018. Academic standards or academic imperialism? Zimbabwean perceptions of hegemonic power in the global construction of knowledge. African Studies Review 61(2): 8–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kubota, Ryuko. 2015. Race and language learning in multicultural Canada: Toward critical antiracism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 361: 3–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 41(5): 712–732. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leap, William L. & Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2012. Launching a new phase in language and sexuality studies. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1(1): 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lutz, Catherine. 1990. The erasure of women’s writing in sociocultural anthropology. American Ethnologist 171: 611–627. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree. B. 2012. Language and human rights discourses in Africa: Lessons from the African experience. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 7(1): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree & Pennycook, Alastair (eds). 2007. Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mayer, Vicki, Press, Andrea, Verhoeven, Deb & Sterne, Jonathan. 2017. How do we intervene in the stubborn persistence of patriarchy in communication research? In Interventions: Communication Theory and Practice, D. Travers Scott & Adrienne Shaw (eds), 53–64. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Medie, Peace A. & Kang, Alice J. 2018. Power, knowledge and the politics of gender in the Global South. European Journal of Politics and Gender 1(1–2): 37–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKinney, Carolyn. 2017. Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling: Ideologies in Practice. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millán, Márgara. 2016. The traveling of ‘gender’ and its accompanying baggage: Thoughts on the translation of feminism(s), the globalization of discourses, and representational divides. European Journal of Women’s Studies 23(1): 6–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mkandawire, Thandika (ed). 2005. African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development. London: Zed Books. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mott, Carrie & Cockayne, Daniel. 2017. Citation matters: Mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement’. Gender, Place & Culture 24(7): 954–973. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Musila, Grace A. 2017. Navigating epistemic disarticulations. African Affairs 116(465): 692–704. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ndhlovu, Fenix & Kamusella, Tomasz. 2018. Challenging intellectural colonialism: The rarely noticed question of methodological tribalism in language research. In The Social and Political History of Southern Africa’s Languages, Tomasz Kamusella & Fenix Ndhlovu (eds), 347–364. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2014. What is beyond discourses of alterity? Reflections on the constitution of the present and the construction of African subjectivity. In The Social Contract in Africa, Sanya Osha (ed.), 111–130. Braamfontein: The Africa Institute of South Africa. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nyanzi, Stella. 2013. Dismantling reified African culture through localised homosexualities in Uganda. Culture, Health & Sexuality 15(8): 952–967. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Queering queer Africa. In Reclaiming Afrikan: Queer Perspectives on Sexual and Gender Identities, Zethu Matebeni (ed.), 61–66. Cape Town: Modjaji Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. 1997. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Conceptualizing gender: The Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies 2(1): 1–5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair. 2001. Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair & Makoni, Sinfree. 2020. Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez, Moira & Radi, Blas. 2020. Current challenges of North/South relations in gay-lesbian and queer studies. Journal of Homosexuality 67(7): 965–989. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Phillipson, Robert. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Qureshi, Riaz, Lê, Jimmy, Li, Tianjing, Ibrahim, Michel & Dickersin, Kay. 2019. Gender and editorial authorship in high-impact epidemiology journals. American Journal of Epidemiology 188(12): 2140–2145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scharrón-Del Río, María R. 2020. Intersectionality is not a choice: Reflections of a queer scholar of color on teaching, writing, and belonging in LGBTQ studies and academia. Journal of Homosexuality 67(3): 294–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. 2000. Linguistic Genocide in Education – Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spronk, Rachel. 2018. Invisible desires in Ghana and Kenya: Same-sex erotic experiences in cross-sex oriented lives. Sexualities 21(5–6): 883–898. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Von Esch, Kerry Soo, Motha, Suhanthie & Kubota, Ryuko. 2020. Race and language teaching. Language Teaching 1–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Okeke, Dennis E.
2025. Are African Catholic bishops ‘sanctimoniously’ defying Pope Francis? Rethinking same-sex blessings, cultural borders, and the rhetoric of colonization in postcolonial ‘African’ Catholicism. African Identities ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Barrett, Rusty & Kira Hall
2024. Sexuality Discourses: Indexical Misrecognition and the Politics of Sex. Annual Review of Anthropology 53:1 ► pp. 127 ff. DOI logo
Abdalhay, Ashraf, Cristine Severo & Sinfree Makoni
2023. Regimes of literacy as regimes of truth about Africa: language ideologies and southern voices. In International Encyclopedia of Education(Fourth Edition), ► pp. 723 ff. DOI logo
King, Brian W.
2023. Beyond undoing raciolinguistics—Biopolitics and the concealed confluence of sociolinguistic perspectives. Journal of Sociolinguistics 27:5 ► pp. 436 ff. DOI logo
Falabella Fabrício, Branca
2022. Language, gender and sexuality in 2021. Gender and Language 16:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Makoni, Sinfree, Cristine Severo & Ashraf Abdelhay
2022. The politics of southern research in language studies: an epilogue. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 17:4 ► pp. 371 ff. DOI logo
Milani, Tommaso M
2021. Fuck off! recasting queer anger for a politics of (self-)discomfort. Gender and Language 15:3 ► pp. 439 ff. DOI logo
Severo, Cristine, Alan Silvio Ribeiro Carneiro & Regina Helena Pires de Brito
2021. Sobre as políticas de produção e disseminação de conhecimento. Cadernos de Linguística 2:4 ► pp. e588 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue