Meaningful white feminism? Developing a European-Caribbean researcher positionality

Underlining the importance of feminist self-reflexivity, I seek to develop a meaningful researcher positionality as a white, European scholar interested in Caribbean feminisms and their transnational engagements. I call this a “white feminist” position to mark its partiality, search for contributions that can be made from this hegemonic position to decenter epistemological standards, and argue for relational ways of knowledge creation. The paper has four components: First, reflecting on my work on transnational feminisms and the translation of women’s rights norms, I emphasize the practice of making connections to create standards of gender justice, including their contestation. Second, as feminists from the Global South have been important contributors to these transnational connections and at the same time, challenged their inherent power hierarchies, I argue that this leadership needs to be acknowledged and amplified by white feminist scholarship. Third, I recognize that as a European-socialized scholar, I am part of an epistemic tradition that denies its lasting connectivity to colonial exploitation. In contrast, Caribbean critical thinkers such as Sylvia Wynter structurally connect Eurocentric knowledge production to racial hierarchies and dehumanization. This critique has fueled all kinds of epistemologies beyond the West and is important to re-situate white European scholarship in global context. Fourth, I suggest engaging with white femininity in the European colonial project, in particular its non-agential status and need of white male protection, to develop transformative white feminist knowledge and agency. This endeavor includes recognizing and transforming complicity, listening to and connecting with Caribbean and Global South feminist and other critical thinkers, working with the possibility of being rejected by them, and developing strategies to keep communicating. Keywords: Eurocentrism, Global South, Caribbean, white feminism, feminist epistemology, racial hierarchy, colonialism, relationality