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We, too, are academia: Demanding a seat at the table
Author(s) -
Laster Pirtle Whitney N.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
feminist anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2643-7961
DOI - 10.1002/fea2.12030
Subject(s) - sociology , vision , ethnography , metaphor , table (database) , autoethnography , literal and figurative language , media studies , statement (logic) , aesthetics , gender studies , art , law , linguistics , anthropology , political science , computer science , philosophy , data mining
This personal, reflexive, ethnographic essay is written in the tradition of Black feminist anthropological and sociological women thinkers who call‐to‐the‐table 1 educational systems and academic disciplines to name experiences and harms, center marginalized voices, and offer visions for transformation. I share two tales about having, or not, a seat at the table in the figurative and literal sense. I incorporate Langston Hughes's poem, I, Too , an exposé about the irony of Black erasure in the America, to emphasize my statement about Black women's (in)visibility in academia. 2 Throughout my essay, I offer endnotes to substantiate claims about Black women's rightful, yet oftentimes undervalued and sometimes abused, place in academia. 3 I argue that we must demand a seat at academia's decision‐making tables until a transformed space is actualized—because we, too, are academia.