RADICALIZING + DECOLONIZING FEMINISM: DR. JOY JAMES, JALESSAH T. JACKSON, AND SALOME AYUAK

In celebration of International Women's Day, Charis welcomes Dr. Joy James, Jalessah T. Jackson, and Salome Ayuak for a conversation about Radicalizing and Decolonizing Feminism. Drawing from Dr. James' Radicalising Feminism, an excerpt from Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, this conversation will "present an explosive analysis of the history and practice of black feminisms, drawing upon political theory, history, and cultural studies." In addition, Jackson and Ayuak will bring their perspectives on what it means to Decolonize Feminism. This event is in partnership with the Decolonial Feminist Collective, scholar-organizers across disciplines utilizing internationalist and decolonial approaches in political education, movement, and solidarity-building. This event is co-sponsored by Rethink, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rethink's mission is to support youth of color in becoming thoughtful and capable leaders through the process of critically rethinking our educational experiences and taking action to create transformative systemic change. This event takes place on crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. Register here.
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.
Decolonial Feminist Collective is a project that seeks to produce new forms of knowledge as well as elevate, center, and amplify cultural epistemologies, experiences, and knowledge. As individuals within this collective, Jalessah and Salome draw upon various positions which inform their decolonial commitment. Decoloniality is their mode of resistance that finds its particular expression in the rhetorical, intellectual, and embodied practices. Decolonial feminism is the guiding theoretical framework of their collective work together and derives from our commitment to decolonial politics and principles, and also from our embrace of cultural resources, which offer the potential for resistance.
Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of the Humanities at Williams College. Trained in political philosophy, she is author of Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics; Transcending the Talented Tenth: Black Leaders and American Intellectuals; Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender and Race in U.S. Culture; and Seeking the 'Beloved Community'. James is also co-editor of The Black Feminist Reader.
Editor of The Angela Y. Davis Reader; The New Abolitionists;Imprisoned Intellectuals; and Warfare in the American Homeland, James works with women activists in the black internationalist unions (bius) of the Abolition Collective. She currently writes on the Captive Maternal.
abolitionjournal.org/bius/
sites.williams.edu/jjames/
Jalessah T. Jackson is a Black feminist (m)other, interdisciplinary scholar-organizer, abolitionist, and reproductive justice leader whose work is centered on the interrelationship between critical pedagogy, scholarship, and political engagement. As the Director of Community Engagement at Feminist Women’s Health Center, they lead the development the Center’s comprehensive vision, strategy, implementation, and evaluation plan for community engagement, education, organizing, and leadership development programs and initiatives.
Jalessah is the Founder and Co-Chair of the Decolonial Feminist Collective, a collaborative political education, research, solidarity-building project based on principles of decoloniality. In addition to their advocacy work, they teach courses in Community Health and Social Sciences, African and African Diaspora Studies and Gender, Women, Sexualities Studies.
Across her work, her focus has been on the ways that systems of oppression structure opportunities in society, and their daily work has been with/in communities who are marginalized through those structures.
Salome Ayuak is a member of the Horn of Africa Pan-Africanists for Liberation and Solidarity and Co-Chair of the Decolonial Feminist Collective, a group of organizers, researchers, and scholars working across disciplines and utilizing decolonial approaches in movement-building strategies, research, and publishing. Outside of formations, Salome is a co-author of a forthcoming textbook chapter on teaching world politics in ways that account for interlockings of colonial structures that impact how we learn and understand our worlds.