Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness 2019029027, 2019029028, 9780367259808, 9780429290923

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Prologue
Acknowledgments
1. Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Calling for an International Relations Intervention
Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) Guiding Principles
Intersectionality
Scholar-Activism
Solidarity
Attention to Borders/Boundaries
One Axis at a Time: Regional, Race and Gender Scholarship in IR
Global IR, Regional Worlds and Western Exports
Race (Men) in IR
Greater than the Sum of Others’ Parts
Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
2. Honduras’ Ereba Makers: Garifuna Foodways as Grassroots Alternatives to Development
Garifuna Ethnogenesis and Migration
From St. Vincent to Honduras (1797 through Nineteenth Century)
Contemporary Matrifocal Society and the Centrality of Ereba
Gender and Dependency Within and Post-Development
Gender within Development Practice
Dependency Theories
Post-Development
How a TBF Framework Highlights Garifuna Alternatives to Development
Fieldwork with the Galpones Casaberos of Iriona
Galpones Organizing Alternatives
TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality
TBF Principle #2: Solidarity
TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism
TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries
TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
3. Understanding Black Women’s Families: The Value of Centering Family in IR Studies
Iriona Family Example #1: Daniel’s Sister-Cousin
Iriona Family Example #2: When I Became Family
Iriona Family Example #3: Host Families & Family Homes
Family Analysis in IR
Black Feminist Conceptualizations of Women
Black Feminist Anthropologists Writing about Black Brazilians
TBF Analysis of Family
TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality
TBF Principle #2: Solidarity
TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism
TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries
TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
4. Honduran Garifuna Nation: A Black Matrifocal Society in a Mestizo Patriarchal State
Racialized and Gendered Hierarchies in the Banana Republic
Anti-Black Legislation and Sentiments
A Woman’s Touch
1954 Workers’ Strike
Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
Black and Indigenous Garifuna Organizing
Human Rights Challenges in a State under Pressure
Garifuna Communities as Tourist Sites
Zelaya’s Ousting, Violent Repression and the Birth of a Resistance Movement
A TBF Analysis of the Black Garifuna Nation in the Mestizo
Honduran State
TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality
TBF Principle #2: Solidarity
TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism
TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries
TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
5. Beyond States: Understanding Transnational Indigeneity in Latin America
An International Relations Intervention
Latin American Mestizaje and Blanqueamiento
Feminist Conceptualizations of the Nation and of Nationalism
The Garifuna Transnational Community
A History of Garifuna US Migrations
Garifuna Matrifocal Nation
Garifuna Identity and Land Rights
A TBF Analysis of Latin American Transnational Indigeneity
TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality
TBF Principle #2: Solidarity
TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism
TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries
TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
6. Conclusion: Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity
From International Relations to Transnational Feminist Frameworks
Building Solidarity
Radical Reproductive Justice
Learning from Garifuna Land Struggles and the Food Sovereignty Movement
A TBF Analysis of Transnational Solidarity
TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality
TBF Principle #2: Solidarity
TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism
TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries
TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality
Conclusion
Epilogue
Index

Citation preview

‘This is a critically nuanced and compelling analysis of Honduran Garifuna people’s struggles for full citizenship, cultural and linguistic affirmation, and human rights—especially their collective rights to land and the sustainable development of their communities and resources, particularly in rural areas. Written from a theoretically sophisticated perspective of transnational Black feminism, that of a scholar-activist committed to diasporic solidarity, K. Melchor Quick Hall uses an ethnographer’s toolkit to make a significant intervention in International Relations and development studies. She also demonstrates the indispensability of intersectional analysis for illuminating the complexities and contradictions that shape everyday life and sociopolitical dynamics. At the center of her astute analysis are women, families, and gendered social relations organized around a matrifocal ethic of care and responsibility. This book extends our understanding of the parameters and possibilities of transnational Black feminism.’ —Faye V. Harrison, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA ‘K. Melchor Quick Hall’s Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) framework takes aim at the “exclusion across multiple axes” in IR, and offers a grounded ontology of “disciplinary re-making.” The originality of the TBF is bound to shake-up not only hegemonic IR, but also critical approaches in its various forms. A compelling work of historicizing the Black body within a transnational project of emancipation.’ —Randolph B. Persaud, American University, Washington DC, USA ‘In Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness, Hall employs findings from her feminist participatory research and personal experiences, alongside formal theories, to construct a much-needed and usable framework for transdisciplinary conduct of research, engagement in community practice, and transnational work for women’s liberation. More crucial is Hall’s articulation of principles of solidarity in the context of “Northern comforts and Southern tragedies” wherein particularly US-based feminists, including African-American feminists, are implicated politically and morally in the “tragedies.” A must-read for all committed to truly liberatory approaches to working across borders, literal and metaphorical.’ —Margo Okazawa-Rey, Professor Emerita, San Francisco State University, USA

Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework

By writing Black feminist texts into the international relations (IR) canon and naming a common Black feminist praxis, this text charts a path toward a Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) Framework in IR, and outlines why a TBF Framework is a much needed intervention in the field. Situated at the intersection of IR and Black feminist theory and praxis, the book argues that a Black feminist tradition of engaging the international exists, has been neglected by mainstream IR, and can be written into the IR canon using the TBF Framework. Using research within the Black indigenous Garifuna community of Honduras, as well as the scholarship of feminists, especially Black feminist anthropologists working in Brazil, the author illustrates how five TBF guiding principles—intersectionality, solidarity, scholaractivism, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality—offer a critical alternative for engaging IR studies. The text calls on IR scholars to engage Black feminist scholarship and praxis beyond the written page, through its living legacy. This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to feminist scholars, international relations students, and grassroots activists. It will also appeal to students of related disciplines including anthropology, sociology, global studies, development studies, and area studies. K. Melchor Quick Hall is a faculty member in Fielding Graduate University’s School of Leadership Studies, US. Interested in transnational feminist and grassroots work that advances liberation struggles, she is working to strengthen relationships between grassroots organizations in the US and other countries.

Worlding Beyond the West Series Editors: Arlene B. Tickner, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia, David Blaney, Macalester College, USA and Inanna Hamati-Ataya, Cambridge University, UK Historically, the International Relations (IR) discipline has established its boundaries, issues, and theories based upon Western experience and traditions of thought. This series explores the role of geocultural factors, institutions, and academic practices in creating the concepts, epistemologies, and methodologies through which IR knowledge is produced. This entails identifying alternatives for thinking about the “international” that are more in tune with local concerns and traditions outside the West. But it also implies provincializing Western IR and empirically studying the practice of producing IR knowledge at multiple sites within the so-called ‘West’.

15. Widening the World of International Relations Homegrown Theorizing Edited by Ersel Aydınlı and Gonca Biltekin 16. Western Dominance in International Relations? The Internationalisation of IR in Brazil and India Audrey Alejandro 17. Islam in International Relations Politics and Paradigms Edited by Nassef Manabilang Adiong, Raffaele Mauriello, and Deina Abdelkader 18. China and International Theory The Balance of Relationships Chih-yu Shih et al. 19. Unravelling Liberal Interventionism Local Critiques of Statebuilding in Kosovo Edited by Gëzim Visoka and Vjosa Musliu 20. Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework Writing in Darkness K. Melchor Quick Hall

Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework Writing in Darkness

K. Melchor Quick Hall

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 K. Melchor Quick Hall The right of Author to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Title: Naming a transnational black feminist framework framework : writing in darkness / K. Melchor Quick Hall. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Worlding beyond the West | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019029027 (print) | LCCN 2019029028 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367259808 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429290923 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: International relations--Philosophy. | Feminism--International cooperation--Case studies. | Feminist theory. | Race relations--Philosophy. | Transnationalism. | Intersectionality (Sociology) | Women, Black--Honduras--Social conditions--21st century. | Garifuna women--Honduras--Social conditions--21st century. | Garifuna (Caribbean people)--Honduras--Social conditions--21st century. | Honduras--Ethnic relations. Classification: LCC JZ1253.2 .H35 2020 (print) | LCC JZ1253.2 (ebook) | DDC 327.101--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029027 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029028 ISBN: 978-0-367-25980-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-29092-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

For mothers For daughters For grandmothers And children Born and unborn Anticipated and aborted Planned and forgotten With family or separated Detained or free Well or troubled For Sacoya

Contents

Prologue Acknowledgments 1

Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Calling for an International Relations Intervention

xiii xvi

1

Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) Guiding Principles 4 Intersectionality 4 Scholar-Activism 6 Solidarity 9 Attention to Borders/Boundaries 11 One Axis at a Time: Regional, Race and Gender Scholarship in IR 14 Global IR, Regional Worlds and Western Exports 15 Race (Men) in IR 16 Greater than the Sum of Others’ Parts 17 Radically Transparent Author Positionality 18 Conclusion 22 2

Honduras’ Ereba Makers: Garifuna Foodways as Grassroots Alternatives to Development Garifuna Ethnogenesis and Migration 28 From St. Vincent to Honduras (1797 through Nineteenth Century) 30 Contemporary Matrifocal Society and the Centrality of Ereba 31 Gender and Dependency Within and Post-Development 36 Gender within Development Practice 37 Dependency Theories 40 Post-Development 43

27

x

Contents How a TBF Framework Highlights Garifuna Alternatives to Development 47 Fieldwork with the Galpones Casaberos of Iriona 48 Galpones Organizing Alternatives 49 TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality 50 TBF Principle #2: Solidarity 51 TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism 51 TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries 53 TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality 53 Conclusion 54

3

Understanding Black Women’s Families: The Value of Centering Family in IR Studies

60

Iriona Family Example #1: Daniel’s Sister-Cousin 62 Iriona Family Example #2: When I Became Family 63 Iriona Family Example #3: Host Families & Family Homes 64 Family Analysis in IR 65 Black Feminist Conceptualizations of Women 71 Black Feminist Anthropologists Writing about Black Brazilians 72 TBF Analysis of Family 76 TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality 76 TBF Principle #2: Solidarity 77 TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism 79 TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries 79 TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality 80 Conclusion 80 4

Honduran Garifuna Nation: A Black Matrifocal Society in a Mestizo Patriarchal State Racialized and Gendered Hierarchies in the Banana Republic 84 Anti-Black Legislation and Sentiments 86 A Woman’s Touch 88 1954 Workers’ Strike 89 Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism 91 Black and Indigenous Garifuna Organizing 92 Human Rights Challenges in a State under Pressure 96 Garifuna Communities as Tourist Sites 99

83

Contents

xi

Zelaya’s Ousting, Violent Repression and the Birth of a Resistance Movement 102 A TBF Analysis of the Black Garifuna Nation in the Mestizo Honduran State 105 TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality 105 TBF Principle #2: Solidarity 106 TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism 107 TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries 107 TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality 108 Conclusion 109 5

Beyond States: Understanding Transnational Indigeneity in Latin America

113

An International Relations Intervention 114 Latin American Mestizaje and Blanqueamiento 118 Feminist Conceptualizations of the Nation and of Nationalism 121 The Garifuna Transnational Community 124 A History of Garifuna US Migrations 124 Garifuna Matrifocal Nation 127 Garifuna Identity and Land Rights 132 A TBF Analysis of Latin American Transnational Indigeneity 134 TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality 135 TBF Principle #2: Solidarity 136 TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism 136 TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries 137 TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality 138 Conclusion 140 6

Conclusion: Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity From International Relations to Transnational Feminist Frameworks 146 Building Solidarity 151 Radical Reproductive Justice 158 Learning from Garifuna Land Struggles and the Food Sovereignty Movement 163 A TBF Analysis of Transnational Solidarity 168

145

xii

Contents TBF Principle #1: TBF Principle #2: TBF Principle #3: TBF Principle #4: TBF Principle #5: Positionality 171 Conclusion 171

Epilogue Index

Intersectionality 168 Solidarity 168 Scholar-Activism 170 Attention to Borders/Boundaries 170 Radically Transparent Author

177 179

Prologue

My greatest aspiration for this book is that it will rise to the level of poetry, not the kind of poetry that is superfluous, but the kind that is central to envisioning alternative futures. Audre Lorde wrote about this kind of poetry in an essay entitled “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” Below is an excerpt that highlights the intention of this book: It is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are – until the poem – nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. … These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep. … For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. … If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core – the fountain – of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds.1 Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness2 seeks to name something. It is a collective thing, without name, that is 1 2

Audre Lorde, Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (New York: Random House, 2007), 36–39. Although the original title of the manuscript was Writing in Darkness: Articulating a Transnational Black Feminist Framework, Routledge asked that the title and

xiv Prologue already felt. This book represents the beginning of its birth to the Black feminist body. That Black feminist body is dark, ancient, and deep. In this sense, darkness should be seen as a generative source for creative production, a womb for the birthing of things yet to be named. I have named the object being birthed as a Transnational Black Feminist framework, because naming is an important part of welcoming new beings (or ontologies) into worlds. In many cultures there is a waiting period, as the nature of the being must be understood before the appropriate name can be given. This particular name honors Blackness, not as the only generative source for the framework, but as the end of a color spectrum, so reviled in a white supremacist context that it must be named in any radically liberatory response. Transnationalism is centered as a paradigm that cuts across the hierarchies of the international (or governmental), often out of reach for the most marginalized among us. BlackFeminism3 is the living, breathing body giving birth to this framework.

3

subtitle be switched in order to improve key word searches. This is an excellent example of how technology design shifts cultural practices rather than responding to them. In “Technology in Black Feminist World” (Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 40, no. 2 (2019): 243–257), I imagine a world in which culturally relevant and responsive technologies would be developed. Since that world doesn't exist today, I agreed to change the title to Articulating a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness. The minute after I agreed to do this, I knew it was the wrong title. When the series editors—Arlene Tickner, David Blaney and Inanna Hamati-Ataya—found out that I had been asked to change the title, they were sensitive to the issue, probably because they are also authors. When they checked in to see how I was feeling about the change, I responded to their inquiry as follows: “Once I switched the title and subtitle, I realized that I could not have `articulating' be the first word in the title of a book intended as much for community activists as for academics. On the whiteboard in my room, I wrote other possibilities. The word `naming' stood out because of the connection to contemporary activist movements such as #SayHerName, as well as the historical significance of naming in African American communities. Whether we think about enslaved Africans being assigned last names of white families who owned them, the stripping of African names when ripped from their homelands, or the politics surrounding the naming of my community as Negro, AfricanAmerican (with hyphen), African American (without hyphen), or Black, naming is undoubtedly important to Black struggle. All this is to say, that the switch provided an opportunity to insert a powerful yet common word. Without this request, I probably would not have found the new title for which I am grateful.” When written as two words, white people often will separate Blackness from feminism. They talk about a (white) feminism that existed before BlackFeminism. This is not the genealogy I follow. I am linking to a BlackFeminist tradition that is long and often unacknowledged in the US mainstream histories. People who are uncomfortable with Blackness will ask whether there is a more “general” term that I might use to describe the framework. Why do I need to call it Black? For the same reason that it makes them uncomfortable. Blackness (as the thing in opposition to which whiteness is defined) is at the center of white people’s reluctance to discuss race in the Americas. What would it mean for a BlackFeminist

Prologue xv Writing in darkness is not scary because darkness is ancient and deep; it is the woman’s source of power. It is the power to write darkness, in the form of Black, Latinx, and indigenous feminist scholars, into a white canon. When a write-in candidate receives recognition it is no small feat. That candidate has overcome overwhelming odds. We are the write-in candidates, afterthoughts in a white (supremacist) academy that has built (and is building) monuments to white supremacy. Writing in darkness also points to my location. I am in darkness, in the deep, ancient, generative space, in the flow of a BlackFeminist legacy. The writing is coming from that place. That darkness is embodied in Kimberly Juanita Brown’s Dark Room faculty seminar on race and visual studies. In The Dark Room, we curate art and word from deep, ancient legacies of women of color. That darkness is represented by the loving mentorship of Combahee River Collective founding member Margo Okazawa-Rey. It is in the unapologetic Black community other-mothering of my godmother Janice K. Smith. There are many dark locations that have constituted the womb from which this writing emerges. A more exhaustive, yet always incomplete, list is included in the Acknowledgments. Writing in darkness has allowed me to name a Transnational Black Feminist framework. It has allowed me to demonstrate how something often considered optional (in the context of white academia) is critical to the imagining of our future (and simultaneously present) worlds. In this Other Worlding series, I seek to break open the myth of a Western universe and to make known the existence of plural co-existing worlds, or a pluriverse.4 The world described in this book is one rooted in a BlackFeminist legacy that exists within and stretches beyond the US. Its survival depends on connection to other women of color. Inextricably linked to Chicana feminist scholarship exemplified by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa5 and the work of transnational feminists such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty,6 transnational Black feminism is not constructed in the silos that have defined hegemonic canonical traditions. Instead, it embodies a radical interdependence. This book is an opening, a start, a naming of something in its infancy, that must grow to maturity in relation with other traditions aimed at alternative futures and other worlds.

4 5 6

framework to be embraced in a predominately white canon? It would mean that something revolutionary had occurred. Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018). Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987). Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003).

Acknowledgments

Thank you everyone who has breathed life into me, this project, or the freedom movement it intends to advance. With some anxiety, and the understanding that I will surely omit some important people (and groups), I want to name some of those who have supported me. 

  





Family: Paula Quick Hall (mom), Beulah Melchor Quick (grandmother), Patricia Y. Kamara (grandmother’s caregiver), Janice K. Smith (godmother), Roland L. Freeman (godfather), Sacoya, Wanda (cousin), Billy (brother) and family In Memorium: William H. Hall, Sr. (father), Grace Johnson (great-aunt) Collective Inspiration: Iriona’s ereba makers, Black feminists (especially Black feminist anthropologists doing work in Brazil), Black freedom fighters (past and present), Ancestors Institutional Financial Support (for dissertation and book project): American University (AU) School of International Service (SIS) Dean’s Fellowship (2008–2009, 2009–2010, 2010–2011, 2012–2013), AU SIS Summer Fellowship for Dissertation Writing (2013), AU Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Research (Fall 2013), US Student Fulbright Grant (2011–2012) Institutional Financial Support (for Ereba Iriona companion bilingual photography project, documented at http://www.erebairion.org): Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies Władysław Maryan Froelich Research Grant (April 2015), Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center grant (May 2018), Fielding Graduate University Faculty Research Grant (July 2018) Other Institutional Support: Five College Women’s Studies Research Center Research Associate (2015–2016) with special recognition of (former) directors Darcy Buerkle, Banu Subramaniam, and Jennifer Hamilton and fellow research associate (as well as friend and revolutionary reproductive justice activist) Loretta J. Ross, Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center Visiting Research Associate (2016–2017, 2017–2018) and Visiting Scholar (2018–2019, 2019–20120) with special recognition of Resident Scholar Pamela Swing (and our cohort of scholars)

Acknowledgments 









xvii

Neighbors/Community: Dr. Santiago Ruiz (who allowed me to live in his family home in Honduras while conducting research) and family (who provided a supportive network in Honduras), Mrs. Wilkes (DC neighbor and former college tennis player), Mr. Gaffney (DC neighbor and US veteran), Philippa Jackson (community other-mother, culture worker, and real estate agent), Riché Barnes (boarding school neighbor and Black feminist comrade) and family (especially Darnel Barnes), Maria Hernandez (boarding school neighbor, teaching mentor, and source of light), Ms. Frazier (community connector and family friend), Clara Ligia Castro Meléndez (Garifuna and Spanish language tutor, translator, and sisterfriend), D. Julivic Márquez (research assistant and friend), Jessica Cunningham (friend, educator, and truth teller) Organizational Network: Dark Room Faculty Seminar (led by Kimberly Juanita Brown) with special recognition of Sandy Alexandre (dear friend and sanity-keeping partner), Solidarity Collective (organized by Elise Roberts and other former Witness for Peace employees), Soul Fire Farm (with special thanks to Leah Penniman), African American Education & Research Organization (founded by P. Quick Hall), Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat Center (with recognition of their support for the Women of Color Writing workshop), Decolonizing/Democratizing Knowledge Fellows (organized by Linda Carty and Chandra Talpade Mohanty), National Women’s Studies Association (especially under the leadership of Barbara Ransby) and its Women of Color Leadership Project (with special thanks to Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, who offered the opportunity for me to write about the TBF framework as I was developing the idea in a Meridians special issue) Academic Mentors: Christine B. N. Chin (dissertation committee chair and mentor), Loubna Skalli-Hanna (dissertation committee member), Rachel Watkins (dissertation committee member), Consuelo Hernández (dissertation committee member), Margo Okazawa-Rey (life mentor and dance partner as well as Combahee River Collective founding member) Current Academic Affiliation: Fielding Graduate University’s School of Leadership Studies, especially Human and Organizational Development Program Director Patrice Rosenthal (for her support of writing time in the form of professional development leave), Black feminist sister-colleague Tracy Fisher (for her constant provision of more good Black feminist scholarship) and the rest of my “Converse All-Stars” incoming cohort, including Abigail Lynam and John Austin Artistic Inspiration: BlackStar Film Festival (and everything Maori Karmael Holmes touches), Darrell Gane-McCalla (who produces multimedia politically-inspired, justice-oriented art), Maimouna Keita School of Dance (and Senegalese dancer Marie Basse Wiles for demonstrating something powerfully important about lineage from her grandmother Maimouna Keita’s Malian dance roots to collaborations with her son Ousmane Wiles’ Afro-fusion contemporary dance stylings), Sadio Diatta Rosché (for what

xviii

Acknowledgments

you have shown me about radical generosity and transnational networks of giving), Roland L. Freeman (and his incredible photographic archive) I will stop here, dissatisfied and disappointed that I know I have not named half of the people and organizations who have made this project possible. In particular, I feel that I have neglected many civil rights leaders who have inspired me (e.g., human rights activist Ella Baker and farm cooperative founder Fannie Lou Hamer) and contemporary artists who I have never personally met but whose work inspires me (e.g., photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier and choreographer Camille A. Brown). However, I stop here, with the hope that others will pick up this list and continue to connect to these legacies. Most of all, I am thankful to those who will see beyond the words to the intention of this text and use it to move forward the work of getting free. Thank you.

1

Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework Calling for an International Relations Intervention

Black feminist writer Audre Lorde (2007) wrote about “poetry as illumination” in the following way: “The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives” (36). Artistic and creative works often hold deep insights into the necessary path forward. This book engages Black feminist living legacies as a way to highlight omissions of international relations (IR). White, mainstream IR (Vitalis 2015) has recently taken up the question of Black scholarship developed at historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, focusing primarily on dead, Black, male scholars. What is radically different about this book’s intervention is the insistence on the engagement of Black feminist living legacies. In her poem entitled “Legacies,” Nikki Giovanni described a granddaughter refusing to learn to make rolls, who explains her resistance as follows: that would mean when the old one died she would be less dependent on her spirit so she said “i don’t want to know how to make no rolls” (Giovanni 1972, 5) This book is about legacies. Similar to the grandchild in Nikki Giovanni’s poem, I am born to a legacy. In my case, it is a Black feminist legacy. Having spent decades in quiet observance of and engagement with that legacy, it is time to write about the critical need for recognition of that Black feminist living legacy in my (scholarly) home discipline of IR. It is much easier to speak of the dead, manipulating writings to the conveniences of the living. Instead, I challenge IR to engage the Black feminist living legacies that have been marginalized “in the wake.” Christina Sharpe (2016) wrote about Black people living “in the wake” of a society memorializing, or positioning in the past, afterlives which are still unfolding: “For, if we are lucky, we live in the knowledge that the wake has positioned us as no-citizen. If we are lucky, the knowledge of this position avails

2

Calling for an IR Intervention

us to particular ways of re/seeing, re/inhabiting, and re/imaging the world” (22). This text is a bold re/imagining of Black feminist pasts and futures at a time when my mentors are present to read (and critique) this righting (and writing) of Black feminist texts into the IR canon. Black feminist scholarship has influenced many disciplines within the social sciences, which is why the lack of a Black feminist tradition in IR scholarship is so striking. Where is IR’s Black feminist tradition? Postcolonial and decolonial IR scholars (Anievas, Manchanda and Shilliam 2015; Chowdhry and Nair 2004; Persaud and Sajed 2018; Shilliam, 2015) have been the most vocal with respect to disciplinary omissions related to race and racism. This text intends to go beyond the naming of IR omissions toward the naming and claiming of a Black feminist engagement of the international. In particular, USAmerican1 political science, a close disciplinary cousin of IR, has a welldefined Black feminist tradition (Curwood 2015; Harris 2011), even though IR has not adopted such approaches. An imagined Black feminist IR tradition would have its roots in the fields of anthropology (McClaurin 2001a) and sociology (Collins 2009), disciplinary homes for many of the seminal works of Black feminism. International studies that use a Black feminist lens have been pioneered by Black feminist anthropologists (Caldwell 2007; Perry 2013). From its inception Black feminist scholarship has engaged multiple disciplines. A Black feminist IR tradition similarly would be multidisciplinary. In addition to building upon Black feminist traditions in various disciplines, a Black feminist approach to international studies would necessarily question and challenge the state-centric analysis of many IR studies. Given that the transatlantic slave trade dispersed Afro-descendants throughout the Americas and Caribbean, it is incomprehensible that a framework that emerges from the Black experience would not question the usefulness of contemporary states as the appropriate unit of analysis. In this regard, it is critical that a Black feminist approach to international studies challenge contemporary state borders and their significance in the analysis of the lives of Black, indigenous, and other marginalized peoples. “Coined by Lélia Gonzalez, one of the premier thinkers of Afro-Brazilian feminisms, the term Amefricanidade or ‘Amerifricanity’ references both the black diaspora and indigenous populations of the Americas, signaling their histories of resistance as colonized peoples” (Alvarez and Caldwell 2016, v). This project is one that embodies the Amefricanidade ethic that acknowledges shared struggle. In my study of the Black and autochthonous Garifuna community of Honduras, challenging colonial claims is central to the defense of communities’ rights to land. Similarly, as Keisha-Khan Perry (2004) noted, “In black communities in Brazil and throughout the African diaspora, 1

USAmerican is used in this text as a translation for estadounidense, or someone from the US. The use of American by people in the US marks US dominance and ignores the existence of other countries in the Americas.

Calling for an IR Intervention

3

urban land and territorial rights are the local idioms of black resistance” (811). The Black indigenous Garifuna people have occupied coastal land along what was formerly the Republic of Central America long before the current state boundaries divided their communities. Thus, when I refer to the Garifuna community as a whole today, I must speak in terms of a transnational community, just as I must think in those terms to understand many autochthonous and indigenous communities divided by current state borders. In exploring the potential of a Black feminist tradition in the context of IR, I emphasize transnational relations rather than international, or statelevel, relations. In doing so, I develop what I have named a Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) framework (Hall 2016). Building upon Black feminist and transnational feminist traditions, the TBF framework is intended to guide scholars, activists, and scholar-activists pursuing international and transnational studies. This effort to explore Black feminist theory follows similar efforts to explore an “Afrodiasporic feminism” in Colombia (Figueroa and Hurtado 2014) and a “Black diasporic feminist agenda” in Latin America (Perry 2009). However, this is a specific call to IR scholars to recognize the importance of a Black feminist tradition in the context of international (and transnational) studies. Doing so requires going beyond acknowledgment of Black traditions past (e.g., Vitalis 2015), and requires current engagement with living legacies that embody Black feminist traditions (e.g., 2017 National Women’s Studies Association conference2). This text is also a call to interdisciplinary scholar-activists doing meaningful work with communities in ways that engage IR scholars, pushing them beyond the comfort of a predominately white and patriarchal academic silo. This intervention aims to make room for a transnational Black feminist tradition within IR, not simply at the disciplinary margins. At the heart of this TBF framework are five guiding principles—intersectionality, scholar-activism, solidarity, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality—explored in detail below. These principles are articulated in relation to current Black feminist texts. In particular, the significance of recent Black feminist anthropological work in Brazil is highlighted.

2

The 2017 National Women’s Studies Association Conference was themed “Forty Years after Combahee: Feminist Scholars and Activists Engage the Movement for Black Lives.” The keynote address was a conversation between well-known Black feminist Angela Davis and Alicia Garza of #BlackLivesMatter fame. The two plenary sessions further facilitated intergenerational conversations between scholars and activists, highlighting the collective work of the radical Black feminist lesbian organization Combahee River Collective and their infamous Combahee River Collective Statement, which was published 40 years before the conference year.

4

Calling for an IR Intervention

Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) Guiding Principles Intersectionality Critical theorists who problematize constructions of class, gender and power are often disinclined to include the combination of race, class, and gender in their analyses (Chowdhry and Nair 2002). However, legal scholar and Black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw used the multidimensional experiences of Black women to demonstrate that a single-axis (race or gender) analysis is not only ineffective in capturing the experiences of Black women, but it actually distorts their realities (Crenshaw 1998, 314). In place of a single-axis analysis, Crenshaw recommended an intersectional analysis that would analyze simultaneously the experiences at the intersection of multiple categories (e.g., race, class, and gender): “Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated” (Crenshaw 1998, 315). Although Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” the Combahee River Collective Statement, published in 1977, named “interlocking oppression” as part of a Black feminist tradition nearly two decades earlier.3 In this way, Black feminist scholarship has long been shaped by the examination of a “matrix of domination” (Collins 2009), beyond any single axis of oppression. In particular, intersectional analysis helps to uncover a system of white privilege at work, by naming (i.e., racializing) the previously unlabeled experiences of whites (i.e., white men), and especially of white male elites (i.e., class-privileged white men). As Dunn (2008) described, “Certain groups enjoy unearned invisible assets from the systems of power underpinning social life. More often than not, those people are white middle/upper-class males from North America and western Europe” (47–48). Intersectional analysis illuminates these power-laden and multidimensional forms of agency. Dunn usefully described how the discipline of IR has functioned in the context of white male privilege. The majority of authoritative IR theory (the canon’s canon, if you will) has largely been produced by white males from North America and western Europe. Yet those in the field rarely acknowledge it as the white male North American/western European field of international relations. Rather, it is cast simply as IR; and those scholars writing from outside 3

Part of the violence done to a Black feminist legacy upon entry into a white US academic system is that these genealogies are erased. Individuals in the academy are rewarded for laying claim to concepts and terms, even when they are part of collective knowledge and communal legacies. Even when these scholars acknowledge this history, as Crenshaw does, the very form of how authors are cited in academic literature perpetuates an individualist framing. Further, the structure of the academy ensures that those who refuse to prioritize their individual knowledge claims through single-authored publications are unlikely to survive the tenure process.

Calling for an IR Intervention

5

those positions of privilege frequently have their work labeled in ways that mark it as outside the norm: feminist, post-colonial, non-Western, and so forth. Thus, I believe it is important to recognize that the current academic discipline is built upon a foundation of white male privilege and that the process of privilege remains an active element in how the discipline continues to be constructed, reproduced, taught and practised. (Dunn 2008, 51) Scholars who are more or less advantaged in the context of a white, patriarchal classist system write from their respective positions. However, those who are advantaged are seen as producing authoritative, objective knowledge, while the less advantaged (in relation to race, class, and gender) are interpreted as providing subjective and opinionated perspectives. This designation of white, class-privileged men as authoritative knowledge builders and holders requires an IR intervention that engages scholars in a “historical reckoning” to address and rectify these shortcomings. This text moves forward in that direction by centering texts by women of color doing intersectional research in the articulation of the TBF framework.4 In that way, the TBF framework engages intersectionality at the level of the integration of women of color scholars as central to IR theorizing as well as at the level of analysis by highlighting experiences of women of color. In writing Black feminist texts into IR, there are multiple ways that we can build bridges. One way is to think about the social contract between the state and citizen that is often discussed in IR. What an intersectional approach highlights is that rather than having one social contract, the reality is that states often have multiple de facto implementations of social contracts in relation to different kinds of citizens. Caldwell described how health as a citizenship right was consolidated in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. The rights-based, participatory unified health system that was created had as its 4

I have found that white feminist circles in IR often silence diverse feminist voices, sometimes policing counter-hegemonic voices in destructive ways. An earlier, article version of this chapter articulating a TBF framework was sent to the leading feminist (predominately white) IR journal, and received the following feedback: “The aim of producing a ‘new framework’ is somewhat ambitious (in a problematic way). And though the ‘guiding principles’ (intersectionality, scholaractivism and solidarity building) are all interesting and do hold promise – it seems to me that there is already a lot of literature ‘out there’ that works with these kinds of principles. The idea that what is being offered here is ‘new’ and override the ‘problems’ of other work in IR, is very much overplayed. I also wonder quite ‘where, who and how’ this ‘new framework’ is to be made successful (?) There is very much a flavour of ‘under-reading’ evidenced here. … Important topic but weak paper, reads like a literature review for doctoral work? An immersion in and centreing of the field of IR which I think the IFjP audience will not all be familiar with or want to engage.” The same content was a runner-up for the Northedge Essay Prize, offered by Millennium: Journal of International Studies. However, more important than the question of the “quality” of the essay is the discouraging tone of the feedback from the feminist reviewers, who clearly understand a feminist ethic differently than I.

6

Calling for an IR Intervention

core principles universality, integrality (or comprehensiveness), and equity. If IR scholars acknowledge from the outset that a state’s social contract, defining obligations to citizens, is shaped by the identities of those citizens, then we must consider the importance of an intersectional analysis. In Health Equity in Brazil, Caldwell highlights the important work of Black Brazilian activists in the health sector, who have advocated for attention to how policies and initiatives that target Black Brazilians (with little attention to Black women) and Brazilian women (again with little attention to Black women) impact Black Brazilian women (Caldwell 2017, 8). In addition to recognizing the important work of Black Brazilian feminists, she highlights the importance of transnational conversations that advance intersectional frameworks: Given the fact that intersectionality has become a transnational and diasporic concept, it is important to consider resonances and dissonances in how it is conceptualized and utilized, particularly in and by African diaspora communities that are linked by similar histories of racial slavery and contemporary forms of gendered antiblack racism. (Caldwell 2017, 12) The current book aims to advance such conversations. Scholar-Activism Scholars (and students) have, and always have had, a critical role in activist movements. Black feminist anthropologist Irma McClaurin (2001c) argued that anthropologists conducting research are faced with the following difficult task: “the task of fashioning a research paradigm that decolonizes and transforms—in other words, one that seeks to alleviate conditions of oppression through scholarship and activism rather than support them” (57). Black feminist anthropologists and sociologists have pioneered Black feminist scholar-activism. Collins (2015) used the phrase “intersectionality as critical praxis” to characterize scholar-activism: “Practitioners who would be drawn to intersectionality as critical praxis seek knowledge projects that take a stand; such projects would critique social injustices that characterize complex social inequalities, imagine alternatives, and/or propose viable action strategies for change” (17). Thus, the critical question to be asked of IR research projects and the scholars who advance them is whether they simply explore systems of oppression, domination, and imperialism or whether they also identify, propose, and/ or advance social justice solutions. Transnational feminists are known for their activism, engaging states in international politics by re-framing domestic issues in the context of international, transnational, or global issues (Tarrow 2005, 2–3). In particular, Keck and Sikkink have written about transnational advocacy networks:

Calling for an IR Intervention

7

Transnational advocacy networks are proliferating, and their goal is to change behavior of states and international organizations. Simultaneously principled and strategic actors, they ‘frame’ issues to make them comprehensible to target audiences, to attract attention and encourage action, and to ‘fit’ with favorable institutional venues. (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 2–3) However, as Yuval-Davis (2006) discussed, the growing professionalization of much transnational feminist work has changed its grassroots orientation: Given the growing body of legislation that emerged to secure the rights of women and other disadvantaged social groupings over the years, such advocacy has gradually come to require more and more legal expertise: in international law, in human rights legislation, in employment law, in domestic violence law, and so forth. This has meant the growing professionalization of feminist advocacy. Even those who are not actually in the legal profession have had to acquire sociolegal expertise. This has gone hand in hand with the NGOization of feminist advocacy, since such work often requires full-time engagement with it. To a large extent feminism has stopped being a mass social movement and has become the full-time business of trained experts. (288) Such “NGOization” of activism creates a hierarchy with trained legal professionals at the top, and less educated, poor women, once again marginalized. Conway (2008) rightfully asked, “To what extent is ‘transnational feminism’ a feminism of cosmopolitan feminist elites, urbanized and educated in the terms of Western academia, whether geographically located or politically identified with the global South or the global North?” (211). In large part, the answer to this question depends on what we include in our understanding of transnational feminist activity. From which locations are we exploring boundary-crossing engagements? In advocating scholar-activist engagement, the TBF framework insists upon a place-based transnationalism. Thus, even as feminist scholars are engaging across national borders, they continue to be rooted in a particular national and regional context. Sensitivity to the contexts in and across which transnational engagement takes place permits an understanding that “different modalities of transborder activism not only can have differential impacts on promoting desired policy changes, but also can have distinct political consequences for activist discourses and practices and for intramovement power relations on the home front” (Alvarez 2000, 32). Critical to being a scholar-activist is the ability to effectively build solidarity within the context of diverse communities. Changing the exclusive and elitist nature of IR comes with scholar-activist engagement. An intersectional analysis is helpful in understanding the nature

8

Calling for an IR Intervention

of marginalization, exclusion, and injustice. Collins described the relationship between intersectionality and justice work as follows: Intersectionality refers to particular forms of intersecting oppressions, for example, intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nation. Intersectional paradigms remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that oppressions work together in producing injustice. (Collins 2009, 21) In this way, the guiding TBF principles of intersectionality and scholar-activism are complementary. Further, the understanding of intersectionality should inform how we think of scholar-activism. All too often scholar-activism is understood in the additive sense (i.e., a scholar and an activist). Instead, what I suggest is an understanding of hybridity, wherein the scholar-activist enacts activism at the very site where they have the most power and privilege (i.e., in the academy). Thus, we, in the academy, must ask ourselves how we can advance the work of activists in other locations, which we may simultaneously occupy. Alongside the Movement for Black Lives, there should be a body of radical Black feminist texts that make the intellectual space for the understanding of our movement. We have a responsibility to act in solidarity with those movements with whom we fight for our freedom to ensure that we are taking risks to challenge the canons that write us out of existence. We must write as if our lives depended on it, alongside those who engage in other forms of activism. We must create an activist element within the academy, lest it go untouched by our fight for freedom. Kim D. Butler’s Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won (2000) embodied this principle in its efforts to “form a diasporan framework that will illuminate the role of African descendants in setting the parameters for freedom after the final abolition of slavery” (4). While her focus was on Brazil as a case study, she drew parallels between what was happening in Brazil and other parts of the “Afro-Atlantic diaspora.” She noted the challenges of developing any sort of unified Black community, given the heterogeneous nature of the hundreds of ethnic groups that actually constitute the group. She identified “patterns of black response based on discrete structural, historical, and personal factors” (Butler 2000, 219). In doing so, she distinguished between parallel Black communities in which dominant group institutions are reproduced (often in response to segregationist policies) or alternative communities that maintain distinctly unique cultural constructs and worldviews. In fact, these possibilities can exist alongside one another and in tension with one another, as they do in Honduran Garifuna politics discussed in Chapter 4. In articulating these distinctions, Butler makes the intentions behind diverse Black movements visible in a way that might not otherwise be acknowledged. As she wrote, “For Afro-Brazilian history, and that of the Afro-Atlantic in general, the analytical frameworks of diasporas help frame and address important questions” (Butler 2000, 226). Through her development of an analytical framework, a group of people become more visible in the eyes of the academy. The development of the

Calling for an IR Intervention

9

TBF framework similarly has the goal of removing (some of) the blind spots of IR with the articulation of a TBF lens. With transnational critical race and feminist frameworks, we understand more than what is happening over there (wherever “there” is); we understand how what is happening here is connected to what is happening there. Butler (2000) provided such a framework as did France Widdance Twine (2005) when she provided a typology of Afro-Brazilian strategic responses to everyday racism (135–153). Cheryl Sterling highlighted the identity politics implicated in such contestations between hegemonic structures and the Others they have created. Whether identity is constructed by national discourse, state ideologies, and dominant paradigms, or asserted by the speaking self, depends on the ability of social, cultural, and political subjects to cohere voice and assert who they are. (Sterling 2012, 206) When our struggles are tied to the struggles of others, we must use our scholarly voices to name that connection. Sterling (2012) wrote, “If we consider it retrogressive to speak of identity, then we cannot fully understand the potency of dissimilitude and the desire to construct subjectivity and cultural autonomy” (206). What is lost when we cannot name a Black feminist tradition in IR? The TBF framework centers a discussion of identity in a way that highlights the importance of identity as fertile ground for solidarity work. Solidarity bell hooks has distinguished between solidarity and support as follows: Solidarity is not the same as support. To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment. (hooks 1984, 64) In this way, solidarity implies a commitment to ideals and communities that live on beyond the life of a specific research or activist project. Solidarity complicates traditional notions of research projects that can be easily closed and completed. In Negras in Brazil, Kia Lilly Caldwell described tensions between activists in the Black women’s movement of Brazil and non-activists. One non-activist, Tereza, characterized the tension as follows: Tereza also faulted some activists for speaking on behalf of the black community, rather than having an ongoing relationship or dialogue with community members. Her criticism centered on many activists’ failure to develop trabalho de base (grassroots work). Tereza described trabalho de

10

Calling for an IR Intervention base as being an organic connection based on political work that seeks to educate and empower the povo negro (black community). (Caldwell 2007, 171)

In developing scholar-based solidarity, it is important not to lose these connections to the ongoing work about which we write. It is these relationships to grassroots organizing that allow us to stay connected beyond convenience and trending topics. A common thread in Black feminist texts that embody a TBF framework is persistent relationships between scholars and the communities they research. This is not to suggest that a researcher must (or should) create bonds of solidarity with every community researched. However, it does mean that one does not have the privilege of existing in a world apart from the research project. When issues of justice present themselves, the scholar-activist must ask whether or not it is appropriate to create bonds of solidarity. As Matte described, “Solidarity comes with an understanding of oppression and a commitment to act upon it with others and, when required, for others” (Matte 2010, ix). Such an understanding of oppression is, of course, facilitated by a position at the margins of society: This sense of wholeness, impressed upon our consciousness by the structure of our daily lives, provided us an oppositional world view—a mode of seeing unknown to most of our oppressors, that sustained us, aided us in our struggle to transcend poverty and despair, strengthened our sense of self and our solidarity. (hooks, 1984, ix) In this way, a TBF framework encourages the full participation of marginalized peoples, capable of seeing both margin and center. From diverse positions, which are to be explicitly named, a more nuanced picture of our shared reality is achieved. Because diversity of experience is important in the context of a TBF framework, it is important to recognize that solidarity does not presume sameness. It is, in fact, in the context of bonds across diverse communities that Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2003) defined the following characteristics of solidarity. I define solidarity in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here—to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of alliances. (7)

Calling for an IR Intervention

11

In the context of transnational feminist networks, solidarity across diverse communities requires that feminists of the Global South be able to hold feminists of the Global North accountable to shared goals, and vice versa. When focusing on the political struggles of the Global South, transnational feminists of the Global North have often neglected their role as advocates of shared goals from their geographical position. In an interconnected and interdependent world, there are important opportunities for such advocacy: “Women in the North can and should seek greater influence over their government’s policies around foreign affairs, military intervention abroad, foreign aid, immigration, support for the United Nations, and other arenas that affect women globally” (Tripp 2006, 310). Further, feminists, regardless of gender, have a responsibility to advocate for justice locally. A place-based transnationalism recognizes that transnational struggles are geographically rooted, and thus calls on geographically dispersed feminists to advocate for justice in multiple locations. How we understand the division between “us” and “them” hinges on our attention to the borders and boundaries that separate us. Attention to Borders/Boundaries Too often, the legitimacy or validity of state borders goes unquestioned by IR scholars in the US. Gloria Anzaldúa, however, encouraged us to critically examine what she called Borderlands, or places that exist “wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy” (Anzaldúa, 1987, preface). Borders can be used to define spaces, as well as people: Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its residents. (Anzaldúa, 1987, 3, emphasis in original) The US is a country of many nations and nationalities, with Borderlands throughout. The legacy of Jim Crow policies and forced racial segregation in the US ensure that in many major cities cultures continue to edge each other at the boundaries between neighborhoods, or across railway tracks. For this reason, it is critical that IR scholars not only question and examine colonial borders that have divided nations, but also remain attentive to the Borderlands that exist unmarked as such. In the US, Black freedom struggle is inextricably linked to the struggle of diverse groups within this country as well as the struggle of marginalized people in other countries. Black feminist scholar-

12

Calling for an IR Intervention

activist and freedom fighter Angela Y. Davis has long articulated such connections: The connections between the criminalization of young black people and the criminalization of immigrants are not random. In order to understand the structural connections that tie these two forms of criminalization together, we will have to consider the ways in which global capitalism has transformed the world. What we are witnessing at the close of the twentieth century is the growing power of a circuit of transnational corporations that belong to no particular nation-state, and that move across borders at will in perpetual search of maximizing profits. (Davis, 2012, 44) Just as individuals and communities are operating in ways that challenge borders, so too are corporations. In our international studies, we must be attentive to the “constant state of transition” of various Borderlands that divide groups and cultures. Transnational studies scholars have challenged the state-centric analysis of IR, pushing IR scholars “to theorize about the changing role and nature of the state by keeping state processes and structures within our frame of analysis and yet not confining our field of study within the borders of any one state” (Schiller 2005, 439–461). More specifically, the work of transnational feminists often has linked feminist individuals and organizations in the Global North and the Global South, which has led to elitist structures, as described above. In the context of a TBF framework, this potential pitfall is addressed with transparency about the situated and geographically-rooted positionality of feminist scholars engaging across borders. Calling for solidarity among these differently positioned actors, the TBF framework emphasizes one’s (geographic) position, even while challenging conventional separations between locations. In doing so, we are able to recognize transnational feminist networks that are constructed in ways that resist common hierarchies of (geographic and social) location. For example, we can contrast more elitist transnational feminist networks (described above) to the grassroots activists of the transnational Black Lives Matter movement, which is explicitly feminist, queer, and bottom-up. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza wrote the following about the movement’s unconventional approach to leadership: We want to make sure there is the broadest participation possible in this new iteration of a black freedom movement. We can’t afford to just follow one voice. We have so many different experiences that are rich and complex. We need to bring all of those experiences to the table in order to achieve the solutions we desire. (Guynn, 2015, 03B)

Calling for an IR Intervention

13

In fact, the movement has brought together (via social media) activists from around the world: “As #BlackLivesMatter gained momentum, social media campaigns like #Palestine2Ferguson connected the violent erasure of Palestinian lives in Gaza to the mistreatment of black people in Ferguson and the U.S. at large” (Khan 2015). These groups were connected at the base rather than through elites at the top of some hierarchy. Exploring borders with a critical lens, a TBF framework is a “feminism without borders” that “must envision change and social justice work across these lines of demarcation and division” (Mohanty 2003, 2). Christen A. Smith’s discussion of the “paradox of Black citizenship” in Afro-Paradise both highlighted a commonality of oppression and foregrounded the complex relationship between the state and Black people. In doing so, she examined the meaning of the “cartographic lines of a racial hierarchy” in the context of the Brazilian state: The state produces national frontiers of belonging along the cartographic lines of a racial hierarchy. This process is both macro as well as micro. The maintenance of racial democracy as a national ideology depends on the diffuse, mundane repetitions of violence in states, cities, and neighborhoods as well as the more spectacular moments of state terror that we associate with police violence. … If blackness in Brazil is caught somewhere between biopolitics and necropolitics, then the state’s project is not to produce black citizen-subjects but rather black national objects, and to exclude black people from the nation rather than incorporate them into the citizenry. As national objects, they are a territorial extension of the national landscape. This creates a paradox: black people are at once nationals and noncitizens. (Smith 2016, 79–82) If we understand the particularities of the implementation of racist ideologies to be controlled largely by the state, we must attend to the differences in how Black repression and oppression is engaged in different locations. Of course, we must simultaneously attend to the ways in which gender is used and manipulated by that state. In Sex Tourism in Bahia, Erica Lorraine Williams (2013) discussed antitrafficking strategies that restrict or prevent women’s migration, describing their vulnerability in the context of international law: “When the twin concepts of consent and morality cannot guarantee their status as innocent, unknowing victims, sex workers do not qualify as subjects of rights under international human rights regimes” (157–158). Even non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Humanitarian Center for the Support of Women or CHAME (using the Brazilian acronym), have a detrimental impact on the ability of Black women to be mobile: Even while espousing the rights of women to travel, the CHAME campaign materials unwittingly perpetuate the moral panic that situates the potential

14

Calling for an IR Intervention risk of trafficking as the ultimate representation of the fantasy of transnational mobility for working-class Brazilian women of African descent. (Williams 2013, 158)

This impact of a well-intentioned NGO highlights the importance of a Transnational Black Feminist framework that attends to the question of borders and other boundaries that separate people. A TBF framework critically examines borders, as it simultaneously engages the question of other types of boundaries, including those that seek to divide disciplinary knowledges. However, if we are to examine the boundaries between academic disciplines, we must also reckon with the divisions within them. In short, we must reckon with IR’s troubling past, which has shaped its current limitations. I address some of those issues in the sections below before returning to the fifth principle of radically transparent author positionality.

One Axis at a Time: Regional, Race and Gender Scholarship in IR There are three categories of IR scholarship that I can highlight as showing particular promise for opening up spaces for marginalized voices generally, and for a TBF framework specifically. In spite of this progress, there is still no recognized Black feminist tradition in IR. In the discussion below, I address the importance of an intersectional approach that attends to race, gender, and (nationalism within) regions. These are focus areas that have been developed by different groups of IR scholars, primarily along single axes. First, former International Studies Association (ISA) President (2014– 2015) Amitav Acharya called for a global IR, which would focus on regional worlds. Such an approach adds important nuance to a state-centric IR, but does not sufficiently problematize the fractured reality of the so-called West. This is particularly true in the US, which is ultimately a state within which there are multiple nationalities and ethnoracial groups that have lived in segregated spaces. Second, the contribution of IR scholars who speak specifically to the issue of race and racism often lacks sustained analysis of gender alongside the analysis of race with a few exceptions (Chowdhry and Nair 2004; Persaud and Sajed 2018). Thus, a TBF framework would be useful in expanding an intersectional analysis that incorporates racialized, gendered, and classed constructions impacting state (and non-state) actors. Third, much feminist IR scholarship does not include a sustained and rigorous analysis of race alongside gender. In this particular context, a TBF framework that seeks to build upon research in the Americas (specifically scholarship by US-based Black women studying Brazil), and thus in the West, is a meaningful contribution. Black political scientists have taken note of the extent to which intersectional approaches have been co-opted to explore the intersection of multiple categories without attention to the issue of race (Alexander-Floyd 2012, 11) and in ways that disregard the concerns that have fueled Black feminist projects (Carastathis 2013, 711).

Calling for an IR Intervention

15

Below, I explore the first two of these three IR traditions, seeing them as more amenable to the TBF framework than the third (i.e., feminist IR). Ultimately, the connections that I make to IR are much more deeply rooted in these two traditions because they are linked to material realities (i.e., regional alliances and racially segregated geographic regions) rather than imagined alliances (i.e., all women). A TBF framework compels IR scholars to engage simultaneous hierarchical structures, or the matrix of domination as Collins (2009) labeled it. As such, the TBF framework aims “to develop an understanding of race and racial oppression which encompasses structural dimensions, in order to account for the way in which global racial inequality is routinely produced” (Jones 2008, 908–909). In order to do this a gendered analysis and racialized analysis must be integrated and mapped with an understanding of nations, states, and regions. Global IR, Regional Worlds and Western Exports On March 27, 2014, ISA President Amitav Acharya called for “greater recognition to the places, voices, and agency of the non-western states and societies” (Acharya 2015). A global IR shifts the Western focus toward more inclusion of diverse perspectives, histories, methods, regions, and values. It draws significant attention to the study of regions and regionalism, however contested these concepts may be: “Regions are no longer viewed as fixed geographic or cultural entities, but as dynamic, purposeful, and socially constructed spaces. Regionalism today is less territorially-based or state-centric and encompasses an ever widening range of actors and issues” (ISA 2015). Although global regions may be less territorially-based and state-centric, the call for a global IR emerges from discussion about a West-Rest divide, with an emphasis on non-Western contributions to IR theory. In an article entitled “Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West,” Acharya articulated that “one cannot and should not seek to displace existing (or future) theories of IR that may substantially originate from Western ideas and experiences” (Acharya 2011, 620). In the context of a global IR, the goal is to subsume rather than supplant existing IR theory. Contrastingly, the TBF framework is intended as a direct confrontation, a historical reckoning. Just as Acharya has identified the regional incompleteness of IR theory, a TBF framework seeks to point to the incompleteness of “Western” IR theory in sufficiently capturing social realities, even in the West. The reluctance to engage and confront the ways in which systems of race- and gender-based discrimination are integral to the capitalist functioning of the West has resulted in a limited and distorted view of international and transnational relations emerging from the West. It is not inclusive with respect to diverse international or domestic actors. Such weaknesses must be challenged, along with the broad claims of a “Western” IR theory that does not incorporate Black Lives in the West, as an example. A responsible IR epistemic community should be “challenging the

16

Calling for an IR Intervention

grounds on which the theory of international relations has been constructed as a constitutive margin that simultaneously limits and affirms an historically specific account of political identity within a spatially bounded community” (Walker 1992, 180). The limitations of such theories and approaches should be made explicit, with appropriate re-labeling (e.g., white malestream Western theory). In that way, different approaches can be easily identified, instead of reinforcing the existence of a white, Western, patriarchal norm and only identifying by name approaches that diverge from that standard. Race (Men) in IR In the 2001 Alternatives special issue on “Race in International Relations” Persaud and Walker took note of IR’s silencing around the discussion of race: It has been especially silent about race, as about many other practices that cannot be quickly reduced to claims about the necessities of states in a modern states-system. … The primary problem that must be addressed is not that race has been ignored in IR (there is, in fact, a fairly significant literature on racial factors in world politics), but that race has been given the epistemological status of silence. (Persaud and Walker 2001, 373–374) This statement is significant in that it forces IR scholars to take responsibility for the silencing of race, rather than assuming that such silence is accidental or unintentional. Krishna echoed this sentiment that the inattention to race is an intentional act: “The discipline of international relations was and is predicated on a systematic politics of forgetting, a willful amnesia, on the question of race” (Krishna 2001, 401). This willful amnesia, as Krishna described it, is important to the discussion of both the explanatory power of IR theory with regard to racialized peoples (i.e., race in IR theory), as well as the analysis of who is engaging in IR theory (i.e., the racial identity of IR theorists). To the extent that these two issues are related (i.e., white IR theorists developing theories that explain the behavior of white-governed states, or regions in the international system), these issues must be discussed and addressed in the appropriate historical context. Krishna noted the power implications embedded in this politics of race: “Abstraction is never innocent of power: the precise strategies and methods of abstraction in each instance decide what aspects of a limitless reality are brought into sharp focus and what aspects are, literally, left out of the picture” (Krishna 2001, 403). Henderson similarly described how assumptions about race can “determine our view of what/whom we study and how we study it/them” (Henderson 2013, 78–79). In spite of the sensitivity of these authors with regard to the relationship between power and knowledge production, the scholarship on race is dominated by male scholars. Further, some of the most important recent IR

Calling for an IR Intervention

17

manuscripts dealing with race provide little in the way of gender analysis (e.g., Anievas, Manchanda and Shilliam 2015), or emphasize masculinist and patriarchal approaches to discussions of race (e.g., Vitalis 2015). Thus, it is rare to find a simultaneously gendered and racialized IR analysis, although there are exceptions (Chowdhry and Nair, 2004; Persaud and Sajed 2018). Nevertheless, a gendered analysis is not always a feminist analysis. Thus, the unique contribution of this text is a Black feminist engagement of the international. Such an approach moves beyond acknowledgment of female bodies in the world, and articulates a TBF framework for IR research and praxis.

Greater than the Sum of Others’ Parts Each of the three strands of IR mentioned above—global IR that focuses on regions, IR scholarship that engages issues of race and racism (often through global development and postcolonial perspectives), and (predominately white) feminist IR—have advanced the field of IR in significant ways. They encourage deeper investigation of regional solidarity, racist and power-laden foundations of the discipline, and gendered orderings within the international system. However, these three IR traditions do not necessarily move in the direction of a TBF framework, which is both explicitly confrontational (in relation to colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist approaches) and an embodied form of scholar-activism. First, the TBF framework highlights voices at the margins of IR scholarship, not simply to contribute to ongoing debates, but rather to interrupt and correct them. In this way, a TBF framework is marked by what Black feminist anthropologist Irma McClaurin called a “vindicationist thread” (McClaurin 2001b, 15). A TBF framework aims to correct the erasures, or willful amnesia, that have contributed to the development of an IR discipline that is wholly inadequate for discussing the diverse realities of the world, or even the diverse realities of the so-called West. IR scholars have much to learn from anthropologists in this regard: What marks IR out as unusual today is that unlike in many other fields— perhaps above all anthropology—there has been no moment of historical reckoning, of reflection in this deeply compromised historical lineage and what it entails for contemporary scholarly practices. (Bell 2013, 2) A TBF framework is not an approach to be added in an appendix or taught in the “critical approaches” section of an IR course; it is intended to infect and affect the conventional and hegemonic discourse. Second, the TBF framework is an embodied approach that requires that scholars and scholar-activists situate themselves in the context of their research and scholar-activist projects. Just as McClaurin (2001b) defined Black feminism as “an embodied, positioned, ideological standpoint perspective” (63, emphasis in

18

Calling for an IR Intervention

original), the TBF framework demands that researchers are explicit about the political nature of their projects and the solidarities they intend (or do not intend) to forge. In making the positionality and political allegiances of the scholar visible, it renders the researcher and the researched equitably vulnerable. It would be impossible for a scholar to engage the guiding principles—intersectionality, scholar-activism, solidarity, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality—without locating oneself in relation to the work they do in the classroom and in the field. In the section below, I describe how I have engaged this last principle of radically transparent author positionality.

Radically Transparent Author Positionality In “A Love Letter to Black Feminism,” Treva B. Lindsey (2015) wrote, At the core of the intellectual tradition founded and sustained by Black feminist, womanist, and gender progressive scholars is both the documenting of Black women’s stories and the sharpening of theoretical and praxes-based tools derived from the lived experiences of Black women. (1) It is in this Black feminist tradition that between 2010 and 2014, I conducted research with and about the autochthonous Black matrifocal Garifuna communities of Honduras. Born to Black, professional parents during the late 1970s in Washington, DC, I was nurtured in an African American extended community that concerned itself with the survival of Black people locally and within a larger diaspora. Because of its international nature at the seat of US government, I was always aware of and concerned with the politics of Black people from other places. Because of the city’s continuing colonial marginalization as the only city in the contiguous US that does not provide citizens with voting representation in the US Congress, I have always been acutely aware of the severe consequences of being ruled by a body in which one has no representation. The combination of these conditions in a city that was nicknamed “Chocolate City” at the time of my birth because of its large Black population made clear to me that the (predominately white and male) rulers of my country had decided that (Black) DC residents were incapable and/or unworthy of full democratic participation. This is my starting point, which is dramatically different from many of the stories told about the West. From this starting point, nobody should be surprised that I decided to embark on a study that would help me understand how other Black folks were managing in (predominately) white states that seemed to be indicating through a combination of policy and practice that Black folks are unfit for self-rule. Although I started my doctoral program in 2008, it was not until 2010 that I was clear that I would be working in the Garifuna communities of Honduras. Having spent time traveling in Guatemala and teaching at a bilingual high school in Honduras, I understood that my Blackness marked me as something

Calling for an IR Intervention

19

other than native in much of Central America. In the late 90s and early 2000s, I was sometimes followed in stores and asked where I was born during Central American travel. Once a woman tried to touch my dreadlocked hair. (These are all things that I had experienced in the US in predominately white contexts.) In fact, I came to know of the Garifuna people during a trip to Guatemala during which someone asked if I was from “the coast.” Soon after, I realized that: (1) many of the Black residents in these countries were along the coast, and (2) non-Black residents often did not make important cultural distinctions between various Black populations within the country. Intrigued by the unique history of the Garifuna as a Black population in the Americas that managed to evade enslavement, I could not resist the opportunity to learn how the community was engaging questions of “development” and/or (non-capitalist) postdevelopment. Around the same time that I was beginning my study of the Garifuna people, Escobar (2010) identified the rich potential for alternatives to development in Latin America within Afro-descendant and indigenous communities. I was setting out to explore such possibilities for the value that such information would have for Black communities throughout the diaspora, including the one into which I was born. After being awarded a Fulbright independent research grant, I conducted ethnographic research in the Garifuna ancestral villages of Honduras during the 2011–2012 academic year, using participant observation and semi-structured interview methods. My research was guided by an interdisciplinary committee of scholars with specialties in international political economy, development communications, biological and cultural anthropology and Spanish language and culture (specifically, Latin American poetry and literature). From the outset, the international development (and alternatives to development) research project had the goal of developing theory that would be useful for transdisciplinary international studies and for the communities that are the focus (or target) of development studies. My interaction with Garifuna villagers in Honduras is best understood through an intersectional lens. One might consider my relative economic privilege (i.e., entering poor villages with a student stipend larger than the salary of many working professionals) or subordinate generational status (i.e., living as a woman under the age of 40 with no children in a matrifocal society where mothers hold considerable power). My experiences were shaped by similarities to the Garifuna women who were at the center of my study (i.e., shared Black female identity) and differences (i.e., my US citizenship). Attention and sensitivity to these factors made easier my transition into a cultural context that was not my own. Prior review of literature helped me consider what factors might be significant in an intersectional analysis of community life. For example, in her study of the Garifuna people of Belize, Virginia Kerns (1983) noted intragroup variation among Garifuna women: “Differences emerge in ‘degrees of freedom,’ or autonomy in movement, association, and activity. Simply put, young women have less than men or older women” (191). During my time in

20

Calling for an IR Intervention

the Garifuna villages of Honduras, I similarly found that young women (especially those without children) did not share in the power granted older, child-bearing women in their forties. Prior literature, observations, experiences, and interviews all pointed to the significance of age as a category of analysis in my study. Thus, an intersectional analysis revealed a tremendous amount about power relations within Garifuna communities. In this transnational and matrifocal society, attention to boundaries and borders was critical to my understanding of state and regional differentiation. While there are ancestral Garifuna villages in the Central American countries of Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, there are important distinctions among the various communities. In particular, Honduran villages, which are the most populous and oldest in the region, are recognized for preserving the language and agricultural traditions that have sustained the community over time. However, Honduras’ mestizo (i.e., Spanish and indigenous and not Black) national identity has created a marginalized existence for the Honduran Garifuna people (Anderson 2013, 280; England 2006, 65). Furthermore, for the Garifuna woman, around whom Garifuna society is traditionally centered, economic and social status is shaped by the patriarchy of the Honduran state that devalues her role as compared with her status in traditional Garifuna society (Gargolla 2005, 137). Raised by a single Black mother, with a community of other-mothers, the principal adults in my childhood were community women. Patricia Hill Collins (2016) noted the pervasive nature of this structure within African American communities in the US. In African-American communities, the boundaries distinguishing biological mothers of children from other women who care for children are often fluid and changing. Biological mothers or bloodmothers are expected to care for their children. But African and African-American communities have also recognized that vesting one person with full responsibility for mothering a child may not be wise or possible. As a result, ‘othermothers,’ women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities, traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood. (318) Coming from this background, I felt very much at home in the Garifuna villages. Although I was coming from a different country, I found similar forms of community. In fact, being a woman in the Garifuna villages gave me access (though limited by my relatively young age) to this powerful network of women. In contrast to my familiarity with Garifuna matrifocal care, was my lack of experience with rural poverty. Raised in Washington, DC, and Durham, NC, I had spent my life in urban areas, without any deep connections to rural or farm life. During field research, I was struck both by vast differences between the poverty of rural subsistence farmers, rich in land and food and that of the

Calling for an IR Intervention

21

urban professionals who lived without ready access to land or food. I reflected on my own mobility, as I traveled between rural and urban areas in Honduras. In the US, my mobility was much more constrained by finances. However, because of the “power” of the US dollar in relation to the Honduran lempira, I was afforded a level of “freedom” that I did not have in the US. It seemed unjust that I should have so much power in that context. As a scholar-activist, I began to consider ways to use my US-based privilege in service of the Garifuna communities in which I was working. Ultimately, I decided on a web-based extension of my research project that would serve as an awareness-raising and fundraising campaign for community groups. The website (http://erebairiona.org) was developed with the organizations that make ereba (the Garifuna word for cassava bread) with profiles of organizations and their members being approved before the website was finalized. When I returned to the US after fieldwork, I began a fundraiser, which I announced at all my scholarly presentations so that audience members had the opportunity to give directly to my research community. This was awkward, given the traditional separation in IR (and most disciplines) between academics and activists (or organizers). In spite of this, I persisted, committed to a TBF framework that aims to address social injustice, even in the research context; I raised nearly 4000 dollars. In January 2015, I returned to Iriona to distribute the funds to the ereba-making organizations. The fundraiser, which has now ended, is an example of scholar-activist support; my ongoing commitment to the community, however, is about solidarity. That solidarity takes multiple forms, including partnering with Garifuna academics in Honduras to apply for grants, assisting Garifuna businesses that buy ereba to support the sustainability of the ereba market, funding a small educational grant for Garifuna women working in the city producing flavored cassava chips from ereba, and working with organizations that educate US citizens about the impact of US foreign policy in Honduras and elsewhere in Latin America. The terms of solidarity are open-ended and flexible, shaped by ongoing relationships. In 2017, I completed a (Spanish/English) bilingual photography project related to my research, and returned to Honduras to engage in photo-elicitation interviews, or interviews that use photography to evoke responses to questions. The goal was to engage the Garifuna women of Honduras in conversation about ereba-making throughout Central America. With the goal of making my US community visible to my Honduran community, I re-purposed the website to document my first failed attempt to distribute the photo books, during politically tumultuous times, followed by the successful research trip. My intention is to continue updating the website, when this book is released, with the goal of sharing information about how any book profits have been used to advance community work. The site, as dynamic as my ongoing relationship with the ereba makers, chronicles my connection to the Garifuna struggle for autonomy.

22

Calling for an IR Intervention

Conclusion Although IR scholarship that engages regional worlds, race, and gender are all signs of an opening for more diverse voices, the field of IR continues to be exclusionary and elitist, dominated by a “hegemonologue.” Beier (2005) defined the hegemonologue as that decidedly Western voice that speaks to the exclusion of all others, heard by all and yet, paradoxically, seldom noticed, the knowledges it bears having been widely disseminated as ‘common senses’ rather than as politicized claims about the world and our ways of being in it. (Beier 2005, 15) The question IR scholars face is how best to respond to the hegemonic narrative. Former ISA President (2014–2015) Acharya called for more emphasis on regionalism and inclusion of area studies; the discussion about race in IR has drawn attention to the history of colonialism and systems of racial hierarchy; feminist IR scholars have sought to theorize gender as part of the international system. Here, I have put forth a TBF framework that calls for an explicitly Black feminist and transnational response. It is a reflexive approach that unpacks the “West” and its historical baggage, calling on other IR scholars to be active and activist in their response. That is the only way to reckon with IR’s ugly past. The collectivity that identified itself as “the field of International Relations” in the US is tightly, organically bound to a particular place, history, and social formation. This inescapable fact, which applies equally across “schools” of thought and methodological “approaches”, goes far to explain why IR today has little to say about racism as an international institution or white supremacy as the identity of the American state that the field’s founders embraced and elaborated. Certainly, this problematique would provide a better explanation than one that would simply erase racism from the historical record else deny its importance. (Vitalis 2000, 355) The TBF framework is intended to guide the requisite response to these historical erasures. Rooted in transnational and Black feminist traditions, the TBF framework brings from margin to center the discussion of non-state actors engaged in international affairs and echoes the call of Black feminists who insist upon setting the historical record straight about racist and exclusionary disciplinary traditions. At the heart of the TBF framework are five guiding principles— intersectionality, scholar-activism, solidarity, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality. Intersectional analysis allows us to examine similarity and difference, as we study experiences at the intersection of multiple categories. Scholar-activism compels us to respond to the

Calling for an IR Intervention

23

injustice that we see, even when that injustice is in the middle of our research site. In the context of our activism, solidarity-building is the process of forming ongoing, sustainable relationships among a diverse community of individuals and groups similarly committed to issues of justice. Our attention to borders and boundaries allows us to identify unmarked Borderlands and remake (or redraw) the boundaries that separate us from those with whom we are in solidarity. Radically transparent author positionality is articulated in order to provide the level of transparency required for our analysis to reflect our partial perspectives and motivations. The TBF framework provides a way forward, firmly rooted in a social justice ethic that aims to ensure that the discipline’s ugly past is neither replicated and repeated in our teachings, scholarship, and activism nor expanded to regions beyond the so-called West. In the following chapters the TBF framework is elaborated through a case analysis of Honduras’ Garifuna ereba makers. Chapter 2 explains the cultural significance of ereba in the Garifuna community, and highlights ereba-making as an alternative to (traditional) development. Continuing the discussion of ereba-making, Chapter 3 makes clear the importance of a study of families in international studies. In Chapter 4, the matrifocal Black and indigenous Garifuna nation is discussed in the context of the mestizo patriarchal Honduran state. Chapter 5 focuses on transnational indigeneity in Latin America, and the significance of indigeneity for access to land rights. The sixth chapter examines opportunities for transnational solidarity, highlighting reproductive justice and food sovereignty movements. The book ends with an epilogue that locates this project as one of Black fugitivity in the academy.

References Acharya, Amitav. 2011. “Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West.” Millennium 39(3): 619–637. Acharya, Amitav. 2015. “Professor Acharya Delivered the Presidential Address to the 55th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association.” Accessed January 8, 2015. http://amitavacharya.com/?q=content/professor-acharya-deliveredpresidential-address-55th-annual-convention-international. Alexander-Floyd, Nikol G. 2012 “Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in a Post-Black Feminist Era.” Feminist Formations 24(1): 1–25. Alvarez, Sonia E. 2000. “Translating the Global Effects of Transnational Organizing on Local Feminist Discourses and Practices in Latin America.” Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 1(1) (Autumn): 29–67. Alvarez, Sonia E. and Kia Lilly Caldwell. 2016. Promoting Feminist Amefricanidade: Bridging Black Feminist Cultures and Politics in the Americas. Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 14(1): v–xi. Anderson, Mark. 2013. “Notes on Tourism, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Cultural Value in Honduras.” In Central America in the New Millennium. Edited by Jennifer L. Burrell and Ellen Moodie, 276–292. New York: Berghahn Books. Anievas, Alexander, Nivi Manchanda, and Robbie Shilliam. 2015. Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line. New York: Routledge.

24

Calling for an IR Intervention

Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Beier, J.Marshall. 2005. International Relations in Uncommon Places: Indigeneity, Cosmology, and the Limits of International Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bell, Duncan. 2013. “Race and International Relations: Introduction.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 26(1): 1–4. Butler, Kim D. 2000. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Caldwell, Kia Lilly. 2007. Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Caldwell, Kia Lilly. 2017. Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Carastathis, Anna. 2013. “Basements and Intersections.” Hypatia 28(4): 698–715. Chowdhry, Geeta and Sheila Nair. 2004. “Introduction: Power in a Postcolonial World: Race, Gender and Class in International Relations.” In Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class. Edited by Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair, 1–32. London: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2009. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2015. “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas.” Annual Review of Sociology 41: 1–20. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2016. “The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and MotherDaughter Relationships.” In Gender through the Prism of Difference, Fifth Edition. Edited by Maxine Baca Zinn, Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Michael A. Messner, and Amy M. Denissen, 315–324. New York: Oxford University Press. Conway, Janet. 2008. “Geographies of Transnational Feminisms: The Politics of Place and Scale in the World March of Women.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 15(2) (Summer): 207–231. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1998. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” In Feminism and Politics. Edited by Anne Phillips, 314–343. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Curwood, Anastasia. 2015. “Black Feminism on Capitol Hill: Shirley Chisolm and Movement Politics, 1968–1984.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 13(1): 204–232. Davis, Angela Y. 2012. The Meaning of Freedom. San Francisco: City Lights Books. Dunn, Kevin. 2008. “Interrogating White Male Privilege.” In Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations. Edited by Jane L. Parpart and Marysia Zalewski, 47–68. London: Zed Books. England, Sarah. 2006. Afro Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Escobar, Arturo. 2010. Latin America at a Crossroads: Alternative Modernizations, Post-liberalism, or Post-development? Cultural Studies 24(1): 1–65. Figueroa, Aurora Vergara and Katherine Arboleda Hurtado. 2014. “Feminismo afrodiaspórica. Una agenda emergente del feminismo negro en Colombia.” Universitas Humanística 78 (July–December): 109–134. Gargolla, Francesca. 2005. “Garifuna: A Culture of Women and Men.” Translated by Carlos Montoro. In The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders: Essays in Social Anthropology. Edited by Carlos Montoro, 137–158. Belize: Cubola Productions. Giovanni, Nikki. 1972. My House. New York: Quill.

Calling for an IR Intervention

25

Guynn, Jessica. 2015. “3 Women, 3 Words, a New Movement.” USA Today. March 5: 03B. Hall, Kia M. Q. 2016. “A Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) Framework: Rooting in Feminist Scholarship, Framing Contemporary Black Activism.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 15(1): 86–105. Harris, Duchess. 2011. Back Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Obama. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Henderson, Errol A. 2013. “Hidden in Plain Sight.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 26(1): 71–92. hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press. International Studies Association (ISA). 2015. “ISA 2015: Call for Proposals.” ISA. Accessed January 8, 2015. http://www.isanet.org/Conferences/New-Orleans-2015/Call. Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. 2008. “Race in the Ontology of International Order.” Political Studies 56: 907–927. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kerns, Virginia. 1983. Women and the Ancestors: Black Carib Kinship and Ritual. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Khan, Janaya. 2015. “Black Lives Matter has Become a Global Movement.” The Root. Accessed August 27, 2019. https://www.theroot.com/black-lives-matter-ha s-become-a-global-movement-1790860725. Krishna, Sankaran. 2001. “Race, Amnesia, and the Education of International Relations.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 26: 401–424. Lindsey, Treva B. 2015. “Introduction: A Love Letter to Black Feminism.” Black Scholar 45(4): 1–6. Lorde, Audre. 2007. Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. New York: Random House. Matte, Diane. 2010. “Preface.” In Solidarities Beyond Borders: Transnationalizing Women’s Movements. Edited by Pascale Dufour, Dominique Masson, and Dominique Caouette, vii–ix. Vancouver: UBC Press. McClaurin, Irma, ed. 2001a. Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. McClaurin, Irma. 2001b. “Introduction: Forging a Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics of Black Feminist Anthropology.” In Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics. Edited by Irma McClaurin, 1–23. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. McClaurin, Irma. 2001c. “Theorizing a Black Feminist Self in Anthropology: Toward an Autoethnographic Approach.” In Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics. Edited by Irma McClaurin, 49–76. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Perry, Keisha-Khan Y. 2004. “The Roots of Black Resistance: Race, Gender and the Struggle for Urban Land Rights in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.” Social Identities 10(6): 811–831. Perry, Keisha-Khan Y. 2009. “The Groundings with My Sisters: Toward a Black Diasporic Feminist Agenda in the Americas.” The Scholar and Feminist Online 7(2) (Spring). Accessed August 27, 2019. http://sfonline.barnard.edu/africana/perry_01.htm. Perry, Keisha-Khan. 2013. Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Persaud, Randolph B. and R. B. Walker. 2001. “Apertura: Race in International Relations.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 26(4): 373–376.

26

Calling for an IR Intervention

Persaud, Randolph B. and Alina Sajed, eds. 2018. Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Schiller, Nina Glick. 2005. “Transnational Social Fields and Imperialism: Building a Theory of Power to Transnational Studies.” Anthropological Theory 5(4): 439–461. Sharpe, Christina. 2016. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Shilliam, Robbie. 2015. The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggle and Oceanic Connections. London: Bloomsbury. Smith, Christen A. 2016. Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence and Performance in Brazil. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sterling, Cheryl. 2012. African Roots, Brazilian Rites: Cultural and National Identity in Brazil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tripp, Aili Mari. 2006. “Challenges in Transnational Feminist Mobilization.” In Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. Edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp, 296–312. New York: New York University Press. Twine, France Widdance. 2005. Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Vitalis, Robert. 2000. “The Graceful and Generous Liberal Gesture: Making Racism Invisible in American International Relations.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29: 331–356. Vitalis, Robert. 2015. White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Walker, R. B. J. 1992. “Gender and Critique in the Theory of International Relations.” In Gendered States: Feminist (Re)visions of International Relations Theory. Edited by V. Spike Peterson, 179–202. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Williams, Erica Lorraine. 2013. Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. “Human/Women’s Rights and Feminist Transversal Politics.” In Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. Edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp, 275–295. New York: New York University Press.

2

Honduras’ Ereba Makers Garifuna Foodways as Grassroots Alternatives to Development

In a TEDGlobal talk, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009) talked about “the danger of a single story.” She said, “It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. … Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” There is a risk, especially when sharing the stories of indigenous women who are preserving the ereba (or cassava bread) traditions of their community, to paint a single, glorified story. Below are quotes from interviews with Garifuna women from the Iriona region of Honduras that show a range of feelings about ereba work. The production of ereba, more for the single women of the community, has benefited us a lot. When there is a good market, then, from that [profit], we can buy food for our children. We can dress our families. And part of that [profit], even more of it, is for our children’s education. (Zoe)1 [Ereba] helps us when we sell it, with buying pencils for our children, with notebooks, with household goods. Sometimes we buy soap. When we sell the ereba from here, it gives us a little help. (Natalia) Ereba has a lot of importance because there are various people who, from the same ereba, have acquired homes. … The same ereba can acquire the professions of our children. It has given an education to our children, from selling the same ereba. (Julieta)

1

Pseudonyms are used for the names of individuals and towns. Although in other works, designed to draw attention to the communities, I have shared names, I decided to use pseudonyms here both because it was required during dissertation writing and because I am analyzing the words of others to make arguments with which they may or may not agree. Thus, it is a respectful distancing in the context of the current scholarly project.

28

Garifuna Foodways [Cultivating] cassava is hard work, very hard. Well, I want to abandon it, but as it is the legacy of my ancestors. Well, I have to continue until God takes me from here. (Amanda) This is barbaric work. Some people with machetes, others with shovels, still others with other types of tools. That is how we work, planting cassava, without machinery and without help from anyone. (Martina)

These opening quotes are a reminder of the complexity of feelings connected to the arduous ereba production work that is central to the agricultural labor of Garifuna women in the Iriona region of Honduras. Although I will argue that the ereba work of the Garifuna women constitutes what some have described as an alternative to development, I also want to acknowledge that it is other things as well. In this chapter, I share a brief her-story of the Garifuna people, with a focus on women’s ereba work, before engaging in a discussion about ereba-making as an alternative to (capitalist) development. This analysis of ereba work as an alternative is advanced using the principles of the TBF framework introduced in the previous chapter.

Garifuna Ethnogenesis and Migration The Garinagu (plural of Garifuna) came into being on the island of St. Vincent as a mixture of African people and Carib and Arawak Amerindians. The Amerindians were indigenous to the island. There were multiple sources of the African presence on St. Vincent during the second half of the seventeenth century, as Johnson (2005) described: “The African presence on St. Vincent derived from Carib raids on Puerto Rico and, from survivors of slaver shipwrecks near the island, and from the arrival of fleeing maroons from neighbouring Barbados” (45). What distinguishes the history typically relayed by the Garifuna people from the version told by others is that they identify themselves as one of a few (or the only) African descendants in the Americas who evaded enslavement; this is an important distinction for Garifuna communities in the telling of their own history and emphasis on their indigenous or Black identity at different points in history. Although initially the island of St. Vincent was occupied by the French, Britain continued to make claims on the territory until after the War of the Austrian Succession ended in 1748, at which point Britain left St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Lucia, and Tobago to their original inhabitants and removed white settlers (Fabel 2000, 148). However, in 1763, after the victory in the Seven Years’ War, the British decided to once again occupy the territory both as a response to French violations of the neutrality agreement and because of the vulnerability of the French state at that point in time (Fabel 2000, 148). As Anderson (2005) described, in the early years, the Africans and Caribs lived peaceably on the

Garifuna Foodways

29

island: “During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, St. Vincent remained outside the sphere of direct colonial control and provided a haven for African maroons and an indigenous people known by Europeans as Caribs” (103). When the British took control, everything changed. After the British gained control of St. Vincent in 1763, there were a series of battles over land disputes, during which the British denied land rights to the Garifuna. After the Second Carib War (1795–1796), during which the Garifuna allied themselves with the French, the British deported the group they called the “Black Caribs” (Gold 2009, 44–45). The separation of Black and Yellow Caribs, and the subsequent attacks on Black Caribs were rooted in the racist ideas of the British occupiers, as Gonzalez (1997) articulated: The British continued to separate and imprison those with the darkest skins, often releasing the lighter-skinned individuals who they felt were either innocent or unwilling accomplices of the blacks. There was a strong racist component to this separation. My studies indicate that by the middle of the eighteenth century the ‘Black Caribs’ of St. Vincent were culturally and biologically indistinguishable from the so-called Yellow Caribs. Yet European observers, burdened by a racist imagination and ignorant of Mendelian genetics, insisted on distinguishing between darker, more combative Caribs and lighter, more tractable ones—and in imposing policies that preserved the distinction. (202–203) The British have made such racialized divisions among groups in other contexts, including among the Miskito indigenous group of Nicaragua: “The British differentiated between those Miskitu who were supposedly ‘pure Indians’ (Tawira, or straight hairs) and those who were African Amerindian (Zambo)” (Gordon 1998, 34). The Blackness of the Miskitos was seen as being in competition with their Indian-ness. In fact, for both the Garifuna and the Miskito populations, the extent to which they have identified (or been considered) as Black has been used to diminish their Indian-ness. Some authors have excluded groups of Miskitos from indigenous groups, defining them as too Black: As a mixed racial group the Zambo-Mosquitos as a whole cannot be classified as Indians any more than mestizos, and this is particularly true for the Honduran sector of the Shore, where the negro influence was strongest. As such, the Zambos-Mosquitos are not regarded as Indians at the end of the colonial period. (Newson 1986, 12) These attitudes influenced the groups’ treatment (e.g., recruitment of Blacks for hard labor in tropical heat) and access to rights (e.g., communal land tiles for indigenous peoples) based on notions of race. From the very beginning of

30

Garifuna Foodways

their existence, the Garinagu had to contend with others’ classification of their race, and the consequences of being categorized as Black. Below I highlight some of the major events in that racialized history.

From St. Vincent to Honduras (1797 through Nineteenth Century) Because of the contentious history between the Garifuna and the British described above, in 1797, the British deported the Garinagu to the British-controlled island of Roatán, just off the coast of what is today mainland Honduras. During the brutal journey, which included a six-month internment on the island of Baliceaux, nearly half of the group died (Johnson 2006, 42). The deaths were due to overcrowding, lack of fresh water, disease, and inadequate food (Bateman 1998, 203). On the island of Roatán, the Garifuna had insufficient food and soil and battled a climate that was not favorable to their traditional agriculture (Gonzalez 1997, 205). As a result, shortly after arriving at Roatán, the Garinagu migrated to mainland Honduras and spread throughout the Caribbean coast of the Spanish territory of what is today Central America, creating settlements in current-day Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize. In the early 1800s, the Garinagu were classified as “Negroes” rather than Indians by the Republic of Central America (Bateman 1998). However, the racial and ethnic categorization of the Garifuna population was and is dynamic, taking on different meanings in response to the suppression of particular identities alongside the promotion of a national mestizo identity, during the height of banana production and, more recently, during attempts to incorporate Garifuna identity into the marketing of Honduran cultural tourism. Before discussing the Garinagu relationship to the Honduran government, it is useful to understand something of the ethnoracial politics of the (former) Republic of Central America. By the early 1800s, the entire American continent was in conflict with Spain over independence (Rosenberg 1986, 3). In 1821, the Central American provinces gained independence from Spain (Merrill 1995, xxv). For a short period from 1822 to 1823, the provinces were part of a union with Mexico (Haggerty and Millet 1995, 13). By 1823, however, the provinces had gained complete independence, as the United Provinces of Central America, and by 1824, each province had created a free and independent government and administration (Acker 1988, 40). Slavery was abolished in Honduras in 1824, giving Blacks and mixed-raced Hondurans citizenship and voting rights (Chambers 2010, 4; Euraque 2007, 89). From 1821 to 1838, Honduras remained a province of the Central American nation (Euraque 1996, 2). This union of Central American provinces, however, was ultimately dissolved: “Unable to maintain any form of central control, the federation dissolved in 1838, and Honduras became a sovereign state” (Merrill 1995, xxv). Honduras officially established its independence on November 15, 1838, and in January 1839 Honduras adopted an independent constitution, becoming the second state after Nicaragua to declare its independence from the United Provinces

Garifuna Foodways

31

of Central America (Haggerty and Millet 1995, 14; Morris 1984, 2). In 1859, the British ceded control of the island of Roatán to Honduras (Leonard 2011, xxiv). At that time, the Honduran population included a mix of people of Spanish, indigenous, and African descent. Concentrated along the northern (Caribbean) coast, the Garinagu participated in subsistence farming and fishing activities: “There they fished, grew cassava, worked on banana plantations, and used their skill as sailors to trade up and down the coast, living an existence that was culturally and socially tied more to the Caribbean than to the interior” (England 2006, 1–2). Johnson (2007), who discussed the multiple diasporic horizons across which the Garifuna engage in religious rituals, wrote about resistance to an African identity in the early years: Because Africa was associated with enslavement and linguistic assimilation, and because the absence of these were the exact two features by which Garifuna distinguished themselves from other groups of color, Africanness was an identification resisted as strongly by many Garifuna as it was by the nation-states in which they resided. (102) In spite of this sentiment among the Garinagu, they were often designated as Black, or moreno, by people outside the community: From the outset, the Spanish speakers on the Caribbean coast referred to the Black Caribs, or Garifuna, with the term moreno, which had a longer history as a euphemism for a black or negro. By the first decades of the nineteenth century, however, especially on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, the euphemistic reference associated with the word moreno lost ground… thereafter the term moreno was used as an ethnic reference for Black Caribs, not to be confused with moreno as a euphemism for ‘black’ in some other Latin American countries, or even in Honduras prior to the early 1800s. (Euraque 2007, 92–93) The colonial port of Trujillo, where the Garifuna initially entered the Honduran mainland, thus became racialized as Black. In addition to being a community racialized by outsiders as Black, the Garifuna community also has a unique gendered identity.

Contemporary Matrifocal Society and the Centrality of Ereba One of the major characteristics defining Garifuna culture and society is the matrifocal nature of the community, which England (2006) defined as follows: “It is a kinship system in which women, as mothers, serve as the foci of households, extended kin groups, and ritual” (67). As early anthropological work described, “To be a mother requires not only lifelong personal effort but

32

Garifuna Foodways

the help of other women as well” (Kerns 1983, 183). The literature about Garifuna matrifocality has focused on the consanguineal (i.e., related through the mother) household structure, whereby women related through their mother assist each other with household and child care responsibilities. Kerns (1983) described the household structure as follows: Households and nonresidential extended families are the basic social groups of the Black Carib. Women, as mothers, are structurally central to most households and to extended families. The focal female in an extended family is an older woman, and in most households either a young woman (with dependent children) or an older woman (whose children are grown). She provides a common focus of affection and exchange, and usually acts as the redistributor of food, other goods, and money within these groups. If the focal woman leaves the household permanently (as happens when a couple separates and the woman does not own the house), or if she dies, the household usually breaks up, often immediately. (120) Gonzalez (1969) described this matrifocal structure as an adaptive mechanism that was developed as a response to male seasonal work: “The consanguineal household seems to be formed by default rather than as a positive mechanism oriented toward reinforcing solidarity among members of a matrilineage in which the loss of males would be fatal to the system. Males are, of course, important in many ways to a Black Carib household, but it matters little to the unit as a whole whether its male members occupy the role of brotheruncle or husband-father” (15). Within the consanguineal household structure women and men related through mothers often help to fill the role gap left by migrating men. Gonzalez (1969) described the relationship as follows: A woman may have several consanguineally related males (especially brothers, mother’s brothers and sons) to whom she may turn for help in child rearing, housebuilding, and clearing of fields. Although at any given time some of these men will be absent, usually there will be at least one upon whom she may call. (12–13) While Gonzalez understood matrifocality as an adaptive feature in response to extended male absences, England (2006) supported anthropologist Virginia Kerns’ argument that Garifuna matrifocality had deep cultural and ideological roots (Kerns 1983, 71). Further, England studied how matrifocality was reflected in a transnational context. England (2006) described the historical importance of matrifocality as follows: This importance is manifested in a kinship structure that places more emphasis on maternal consanguineal ties (blood relations on one’s

Garifuna Foodways

33

mother’s side) than on affinal or conjugal ties (with one’s in-laws and husband). It puts women at the center of family ritual and household affective relations, is bolstered by the common practice of matrilocal residence, and establishes women as the primary redistributors of resources within the household. … This is not to imply that matrifocality is the opposite of patriarchy or that women and men face equal sets of opportunities and constraints. Rather, matrifocality is intertwined with elements of patriarchal social structure and ideology, especially because men have an advantage in employment opportunities in the gendered labor market and in political power within the patriarchal state. (68) I concur with the views of Kerns and England that the matrifocality of the community existed prior to later seasonal labor migrations of men. Kerns, who saw women’s autonomy as rooted in the traditions of the Island Caribs, presented a compelling argument for the history of matrifocality. She looked specifically at work patterns and attitudes: “There is no cultural resistance to female employment. Many Black Carib women claim to be eager to work for wages, and very few men state an opposition to the notion or to the fact of their employment” (Kerns 1998, 139). Gargolla (2005) similarly pointed to cultural traditions among both the Carib Indians and Africans in which there was equal valuation of male and female tasks, which points to Garifuna matrifocality as a tradition more organic than reactive. What is clear is the importance of matrifocality in the organization of Garifuna society: “The principle of matrifocality, whether enacted in economic kinship obligations, support networks, or ritual, is an important social glue that holds Garifuna society together” (England 2006, 10). Blackwood (2006) has warned that discussions of matrifocality cannot be reduced to discussions of male absence: Although ostensibly about women, the concept of ‘matrifocal households’ is an ongoing conversation about the ‘missing’ man. Matrifocal households were identified and designated as nonnormative forms of household because of the absence not just of a permanent married heterosexual couple, but, more precisely, the absence of a husband. (77) Blackwood (2006) argued that these households have to be understood and analyzed in their own right, and not just in relation to heteronormative assumptions. The matrifocality of Garifuna society is central to understanding the importance of motherhood, which can be foundational to collaborative work: “Parenthood has profoundly different cultural meaning and social consequences for Black Carib men and women. Maternal obligations are more broadly defined and strictly enforced (largely by women). They provide the

34

Garifuna Foodways

basis for collective action by women” (Kerns 1983, 184). Kerns (1983) also described the nature of women’s collective work: Female responsibility to lineal kin serves as an organizing principle of Black Carib kinship and ritual, and as the focus of female unity and collective action. Maternal obligations are primary, broadly defined, and lifelong. As mothers, women share common concerns and a valued identity, one that commands respect (not only from their children). Motherhood connotes strength, the capacity and duty to protect others. Women act together to achieve this end. (183) In rural agrarian life, ereba-making exemplifies the ways in which women work together. Although there are men who are involved in the ereba production process, it is considered “women’s work” and, in the realm of ereba-making, men are considered assistants to the primary owners of the process, the women. Most of the ereba-making women with whom I interacted were at least in their forties. Their daughters were often away in the cities, at least temporarily, to study. I mention the age of the women because this study aims to highlight intersectional variation among the experiences of Garifuna women. Also, historically, post-reproductive women have been critically important to the collective work and action of the Garifuna community, as Kerns (1983) noted: In the Black Carib communities I studied, older women are not bound by most of the culturally defined and socially enforced restrictions that apply to women of childbearing age. Instead, they act as the primary enforcers of those ‘rules.’ Beyond the increased autonomy that they enjoy, older women (especially the mothers of grown children) exercise greater power, largely through their collective action and the use of a public forum in pursuit of common good. (194) One of the ways in which these older women (and especially mothers) in their forties can be seen working together for the benefit of the community is through the making of ereba. The making of ereba has long been part of the Garifuna culture, dating back to life on the island of St. Vincent. Taylor (2012) wrote the following about ereba-making on St. Vincent: “In the clearings in the woods the women raised cassava (the root crop also known as manioc or yucca) in small gardens among the stumps of trees felled by men” (13). Taylor (2012) described cassava as an indispensable staple food for the Garinagu (13). Gonzalez (1969) identified the important role of women in ereba work:

Garifuna Foodways

35

A woman’s responsibility did not end with the harvest – she also processed the foods produced and converted them into edible form. For bitter manioc, this involved the laborious task of expressing the poisonous acid, and the manufacture of areba, or cassava bread, the main staple. (46) In her discussion of traditional foods, Gold (2009) also mentioned ereba production: Another classic example is the preparation of casaba or ereba, a staple food among the Garífuna made from the bitter yucca root (the ‘sweet’ yucca is also eaten), which is poisonous until it is processed to express the bitter juices. The extraction process involves peeling and grating the root and then pressing it through a long sieve called a ruguma or culebra (snake). Flour made from the dried starchy root is the basis of the thin, flat bread known as casabe.2 (50) Of the multiple accounts of the centrality of ereba in Garifuna culture, Gonzalez (1988) is among the few to address its cultural significance. In Sojourners of the Caribbean, Gonzalez (1988) discussed the changes within the ereba production process, pondering the tradition’s future. The Garifuna diet will no doubt change as new foods become available or as some items become difficult to obtain. It will be interesting to observe the future of the most salient Garifuna food symbol of all, areba. The unleavened flatbread has not changed, though recently there have been improvements in grating and baking techniques introduced by development agents. As the men who make the traditional basketry implements for compressing and sifting the manioc pulp die, and as the art disappears, substitutes will probably be adopted, as they have been elsewhere. Throughout the Caribbean manioc grated on perforated tin slabs has long been squeezed through ordinary white cloth by non-Garifuna peoples, and today it is made in factories for sale both locally and in the United States. But nowhere else outside of parts of lowland South America does it have the ritual and ethnic meaning with which the Garifuna endow it. (107) Ereba, with its deep cultural roots, is one of the most powerful symbols of the grassroots collaborative work among rural Garifuna women. It also connects

2

Casabe is the Spanish translation of ereba, which is a Garifuna word; ruguma is also a Garifuna word, while culebra is the Spanish translation.

36

Garifuna Foodways

rural and urban communities, since Garifuna people who have migrated to the cities do not have the land or resources to cultivate cassava and make ereba. Ereba production is growing and changing in the context of the different local spaces where Garifuna people are living. Gonzalez (1988) noted signs of a growing ereba market in Honduras due to the recent introduction of improved clay ovens with waist-high built-in griddles about three feet in diameter—the appropriate size for making areba. In some towns a gasoline-driven grater has been introduced, which reduces from three to two days the time needed to make a batch of the bread and saves many woman-hours of heavy labor. (108) This time and labor savings is particularly important for the generation of ereba makers in their forties, the primary bakers of ereba in the Honduran villages. In the next section, I explore the question of “development” in order to understand the economic and political significance of this culturally important work.

Gender and Dependency Within and Post-Development The “development age,” following World War II, was characterized by the desire to help economically poor countries (Rist 2008, 70–71). Rooted in economic theory, development of the 1950s and 1960s was shaped by modernization theories that envisioned development as a phased, progressive process of Europeanization or Americanization (So 1990, 33–34). Herzfeld (2001) wrote the following about the Eurocentric bias of development: The very framework of ‘development,’ no less Eurocentric than its nineteenth-century evolutionist predecessors such as ‘civilization,’ has made possible a cultural politics of domination over the Third World that arguably reproduces the patterns of colonial expansion in the previous century. (161) The Eurocentrism of international development, however, is masked as a universal construct: Development as a practice and discourse embodies the European Enlightenment’s implicit project of making specific local world-views and values, those broadly described as modern and Western European, into universals. … A place-based perspective provides a fruitful standpoint from which one can understand life projects, become more open and receptive to their visions, and refuse the Enlightenment pretence of universalism. I believe that this pretence is fulfilled when the world-views and values of

Garifuna Foodways

37

modernity that are promoted by development are taken to be disembedded from place, made entirely abstract and equated ultimately with ‘the global’. (Blaser 2004, 28) It is because such place-based values are masked as universal that it is challenging for IR scholars to face the historical truths of the discipline. Especially in explorations of development, or analyses of “developing countries,” there tends to be a subtext that harkens back to modernization theories, embedded with gendered and racial bias. Chin (2009) described the racial underpinnings of such thinking: There is seen to exist ‘proto-whites’ who, if given the correct encouragement, guidance, blueprint, and so forth, have the capability of organizing their societies and relating to others much in the same way as those in the so-called industrialized west. This belief is informed by and informs its corresponding schema of a linear developmental trajectory on which to identify, position, and evaluate people and societies. (93) Quite often, one can identify the racialization of various state and regional actors. Think, for example, about references to the “dark continent.” What is not always as explicit are gendered references to countries and regions, although that subtext is also present. Much gendered analysis has tended to focus on the participation of women in male-dominated “development” structures, as described in the section below. Gender within Development Practice Over time, there have been diverse approaches to the inclusion3 of women in development practice. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, women were included through a Women in Development (WID) approach that targeted the inclusion of women into already established development activities: “This approach assumes that the global political economy is sound and that Southern nations need to model themselves after the North and also make sure that women are assimilated into the system at all levels” (Aulette and Wittner 2012, 206).4 This 3

4

It is important to note that when one is engaging “inclusion” frameworks, one has a starting point of previously exclusive, or exclusionary, contexts. If one is focused on the inclusion of women, one must first acknowledge that there was prior male dominance. I am presenting this framework as a means of engaging an exclusionary IR discipline. However, it should be noted and recognized that women existed and were participating in their own and others’ “development” even as men were constructing and planning various interventions. When there are quoted references to Northern vs. Southern, or Western vs. nonWestern nations or states, one should read the racial and class connotations. The West, or North, is always (predominately) white and well-to-do. Communities in the

38

Garifuna Foodways

approach focused on women, but it did not attend to gender as a construct or to systems of inequality that might be embedded within development institutions. The advocates of this approach sought to expand existing programs to women (Moghadam 1999, 246). Next, an approach labeled Women and Development (WAD) was developed in the 1970s and was critical of the gendered nature of work and development (Bhavnani, Foran and Kurian 2003, 5). WAD questioned the assumptions of a modernization theory that suggested all countries should emulate the West: [WAD advocates] argue that a range of possible paths to economic development should be created to avoid some of the pitfalls of Western capitalism, such as environmental degradation and huge gaps between the rich and poor, as well as inequities between women and men. (Aulette and Wittner 2012, 207) The WAD approach usefully suggested that all knowledge might not be generated in the West. It opened up the possibility of knowledge construction and active development participation from so-called developing countries. This socialist feminist approach stressed that patriarchy and capitalism limit women’s options (Moghadam 1999, 246). A third approach to women’s inclusion in development, called Gender and Development (GAD), emerged by the mid-1980s (von Braunmühl 2002, 58–59). The GAD approach challenged the essentialized and homogenized “woman,” pointing to the importance of a discussion about different experiences among women: “[GAD advocates] point to the enormous differences in women’s experiences by race, ethnicity, social class, and nation and call for a conceptual model and policies that recognize the diversity among women” (Aulette and Wittner 2012, 207). This approach is also marked by its attention to men, in addition to women: GAD also argues that we cannot talk about women in isolation but rather must think of the relationships between women and men—gender relations. In addition, we need to think of gender as not just a force that shapes women’s lives but one that creates masculinities as well. (Aulette and Wittner 2012, 207)5

5

geographic West (or North) that are non-white and/or poor often experience interventions much like the efforts aimed at other countries that intend to “develop” them. Of course, IR, in its persistent focus on state actors tends not to acknowledge such similarities in domestic and foreign policy, preferring instead to maintain a homogenized picture of the state actor. Especially when working to understand indigenous nations within colonial states, this logic breaks down. Although not part of the initial considerations of a GAD framework, trans, genderqueer and non-binary identities can be accommodated in this approach, as the framework involves questioning essentialized, biological, and social constructions of gender.

Garifuna Foodways

39

Of the above approaches, the GAD approach is the only one through which Black women can be considered intersectionally in terms of race, gender, and class. This is important since race and gender shape work opportunities: Gender and racial ideologies have been deployed to favour white male workers and exclude others, but they have also been used to integrate and exploit the labour power of women and of members of disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups in the interest of profit-making. (Moghadam 1999, 249) While the WID approach called for the inclusion of an undifferentiated and essentialized “woman” into patriarchal structures, the WAD approach challenged the patriarchal structure. While the WAD approach led to a critique of women differently positioned in terms of geography and identified knowledge outside the West, women within the context of particular states remained homogenized. The GAD approach introduced diversity among groups of women, even within particular states, and within specific economic classes in those states, by examining intersections of race, ethnicity, and social class. Thus, the GAD approach made visible the diverse effects of particular development policies on different groups of women, which is especially important in the analysis of policies that may help one group of women while harming another. Bhavnani, Foran, and Kurian (2003) criticized all three approaches for an interpretation of “Third World women as victims in need of rescuing from their cultures, assumed to be static and unchanging” (6). In fact, “development” as discussed in these models is mostly top-down. While the bureaucrats may change the policies, the women (and men in the case of GAD) are the passive recipients of such decisions. Indigenous knowledges and livelihoods are ignored in such approaches. The Western colonizer remains the authoritative voice, evoking the question that postcolonial scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak so famously asked: “Can the subaltern speak?” (Spivak 1988). International relations and international development scholars have systematically silenced voices of the colonized “other.” Black feminist Elizabeth V. Spelman (1988) called for an acknowledgment of both the ways in which women are oppressed and the range of responses to that oppression: It is crucial not to see Blackness only as the occasion for oppression—any more than one sees being a woman only as the occasion for oppression. No one ought to expect the forms of our liberation to be any less various than our forms of oppression. We need to be at least as generous in imagining what women’s liberation will be like as our oppressors have been in devising what women’s oppression has been. (132) Spelman’s words capture the importance of attention to women’s diversity, both for understanding development challenges and for finding solutions.

40

Garifuna Foodways

While these gendered approaches focused on changing the development apparatus, dependency theorists sought to detach from it. As is evident in the discussion below, in a narrow focus on state-level economics, they often lost sight of many other important issues, including gender. Dependency Theories In the late 1960s and 1970s, the dependency school emerged as a response to modernization theories. It identified processes that were increasing the wealth of “core” countries at the expense of poor countries at the “periphery” and it advocated de-linking the latter from the global economy (So 1990, 104–105). Reacting to the modernization theories of the 1950s, many saw the dependency theories as a mere reversal of that line of thinking: “Whereas one saw integration with the global economy as a pre-requisite for development, for the dependistas, or specialists in dependency theory, this would mean simply ‘development of underdevelopment’” (Munck 2010, 22). Although multiple versions of dependency theories were developed by a range of scholars, the leading dependency theorists came from Latin America. Thus, these approaches are often referenced in discussions about development in the region. Generally, this theory explains underdevelopment throughout Latin America as a consequence of outside economic and political influence. More specifically, the economy of certain nations is believed to be conditioned by the relationship to another economy which is dominant and capable of expanding and developing. Thus the interdependence of such economies assumes contrasting forms of dominance and dependence so that dependent nations might develop as a reflection of the expansion of dominant nations or underdevelop as a consequence of their subjective relationship. (Chilcote 1994, 114) Whether one agrees with the consequences of such deep interdependence of national economies, the intractable interdependence is obvious. One of the early dependency scholars, Theotonio dos Santos (1970), described the dependency relation as follows: “By dependence we mean a situation in which the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected” (231). Dependency scholar Cardoso (2001) described the basic dependency thesis as follows: “The underlying hypothesis was that the international process of capitalism adversely affected conditions for development. It did not prevent development, but made it unbalanced and unjust” (248). The system was seen as intentionally unequal, designed to exploit dependent countries: We must see it as part of a system of world economic and financial centers over others, or a monopoly of a complex technology that leads to

Garifuna Foodways

41

unequal and combined development at a national and international level. Attempts to analyze backwardness as a failure to assimilate more advanced models of production or to modernize are nothing more than ideology disguised as science. (dos Santos 1970, 231) Considering the exploitative nature of the system, many scholars advocated a complete withdrawal from the international global economy (So 1990). There is an important distinction made between undeveloped and underdeveloped countries within the dependency model: It does not view underdeveloped as an original condition, but instead assumes that nations may once have been undeveloped but never underdeveloped and that the contemporary underdevelopment of many parts of Latin America was created by the same process of capitalism that brought development to the industrialized nations. (Chilcote 1994, 122) Thus, the natural undeveloped state is preferred to the underdeveloped one that results from the exploitation of dependent states. As Frank (1972) indicated, the underdeveloped state should not be understood as an earlier version of the developed state: Even a modest acquaintance with history shows that underdevelopment is not original or traditional and that neither the past nor the present of the underdeveloped countries resembles in any important respect the past of the now developed countries. The now developed countries were never underdeveloped, though they may have been undeveloped. (4) In this way development and underdevelopment are understood as two sides of the same coin, while the undeveloped state exists outside of the development process. Further, underdevelopment is often understood as an extension of other forms of subjugation: The concept of dependence, as it has been elaborated in recent years, refers to the situation that the history of colonialism has left and that contemporary imperialism creates in underdeveloped countries. Dependence is imperialism seen from the perspective of underdevelopment. (Johnson 1972, 71) In addition to an emphasis on continuity of exploitative systems, dependency theorists also focus on the historical context of Latin America’s dependence.

42

Garifuna Foodways After political independence from Spain, dependence perspectives highlight how other colonial powers, especially Britain and British-based companies maintained important economic influence over the region. By the end of the nineteenth century this influence was being steadily replaced by the hegemonic role of the United States and its companies and banks in the economic and political affairs of the Western hemisphere. (Hunt 2010, 93)

In this way, the intrusion of the multinational fruit companies in countries such as Honduras can be understood as an extension of prior forms of exploitation. The major problem with dependency approaches, in terms of understanding development, is the exclusive attention to state-level economics. The desired outcome for the dependency scholars is detached, independent capitalist development for Latin American states, which has mixed outcomes for populations of different classes in relation to production: This form of development, in the periphery as well as in the center, produces as it evolves, in a cyclical way, wealth and poverty, accumulation and shortage of capital, employment for some and unemployment for others. So, we do not mean by the notion of ‘development’ the achievement of a more egalitarian or more just society. These are not consequences expected from capitalist development, especially in peripheral economies. (Cardoso and Faletto 1979, xxiii) Thus, if one is focused exclusively on state-level economic measures such as gross domestic product, then dependency theories might be adequate. However, if one is concerned with broader concepts of development (or alternatives to development) that include political, cultural, and social components, these approaches are sorely lacking in analytical power, leaving them open to the criticism of feminist scholars. Although race and ethnicity are implicit within dependency theories at the state level, sub-state characteristics of the population are not considered in these models. The core states tend to be Euro-American and white in terms of national identity, while the dependent Latin American states have a mestizo Euro-indigenous identity. In this way, the core-periphery relationship mirrors a colonizer-colonized relationship. Questions of gender are neglected. Tickner (1992) criticized the lack of attention to gender within dependency theory: While dependency theory claims that the continued marginalization of those in the subsistence sector is a structural consequence of the dualisms produced by capitalist development, it does not acknowledge the disproportionate numbers of women among the marginalized, nor the fact

Garifuna Foodways

43

that the status of women relative to men has been declining in many parts of the Third World. (88) Ultimately, the dependency theories have a narrow focus on state-level economic measures and a narrow definition of development that hinders broader analyses. Post-Development Identifying the Western, capitalist bias of development theories, post-development scholars, similar to dependency scholars, call for a detachment from development institutions (Pieterse 2000, 181). Arturo Escobar (1997b), the scholar best known for advocating this approach, described the hegemonic form of development as follows: The coherence of effects that the development discourse achieved is the key to its success as a hegemonic form of representation: the construction of the poor and underdeveloped as universal, preconstituted subjects, based on the privilege of the representers; the exercise of power over the Third World made possible by this discursive homogenization (which entails the erasure of complexity and diversity of Third World peoples, so that a squatter in Mexico City, a Nepalese peasant, and a Tuareg nomad become equivalent to each other as poor and underdeveloped); and the colonization and domination of the natural and human ecologies and economies of the Third World. (92–93) Escobar’s characterization of the dominant development discourse is hard to deny, and it challenges us to push beyond the boundaries of traditional development discourse into new territory. While scholars have advocated different methods for the inclusion of women, or the delinking of Latin American economies from the global capitalist system, Escobar suggested that the system was too entrenched with bias to repair. Escobar (1997b) wrote about the bias embedded in development approaches: Development assumes a teleology to the extent that it proposes that the ‘natives’ will sooner or later be reformed; at the same time, however, it reproduces endlessly the separation between reformers and those to be reformed by keeping alive the premises of the Third World as different and inferior, as having limited humanity in relation to the accomplished European. (93) These biases are especially prominent in the early years of development studies, when the focus was on modernization approaches. Although Escobar

44

Garifuna Foodways

does not write explicitly in terms of race, he refers to the same colonial legacies that scholars such as Jones (2008) described: The massive impoverishment of the majority of African peoples today, as well as millions in Asia and Latin America – normalized as a question of development – is not simply a humanitarian tragedy, but, in part, the product of a racialised international order, a form of global structural racism. (924–925) The post-development literature thus speaks to a racialized history of development, implicitly if not explicitly. Questions of class are explicit, but attention to gender wanes in the discourse. Unlike other approaches described above, post-development was not intended to improve development. Instead, Escobar (2012) articulated three intentions of post-development: “to decenter development; that is, to displace it from its centrality in representations and discussions about conditions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America” (xii); “to think about the end of development. In other words, it identified alternatives to development, rather than development alternatives, as a concrete possibility” (xiii); and “transforming the ‘political economy of truth,’ that is, development’s order of expert knowledge and power. To this end, it proposed that the more useful ideas about alternatives could be gleaned from the knowledge and practices of social movements” (xiii). Escobar (2012) usefully pointed out the gaze on the Third World “other,” suggesting an exit from “development” as we have known it, and a re-evaluation of the prevailing knowledge hierarchies. A TBF framework intends to engage in precisely such decentering by highlighting the voices of scholars who have gone unrecognized in IR (e.g., Black feminists writing about Brazil) as well as women outside of the academy who have substantial knowledge in regard to their own communities’ alternatives to development (e.g., ereba makers). After working with Honduras’ ereba makers, I agree with Escobar that we need to attend to alternatives to development. However, I do not arrive at his conclusion that we abandon “development” altogether. This disagreement is, in part, discursive. Academic debates are largely about struggles over ideas and concepts. In his abandonment of “development,” Escobar gives over the idea of political, economic, and social improvement to the Western institutions and organizations he criticizes. What then happens when indigenous groups, who often are advancing change without the assistance of Western institutions, want to call that progress development? These groups have been improving their communities long before outsiders entered with various interventions, and should maintain ownership of the idea of incremental change and progress in their communities. If anyone should own the term “development,” it should be the communities themselves. In handing over the very term “development,” Escobar reifies the authority of the West. Also, I want to challenge Escobar’s argument on a more practical level. It is unlikely that organizations such as the United States Agency for

Garifuna Foodways

45

International Development (USAID) will cease to exist because of such development critiques. For academics to be in solidarity with community activists, are we not the best qualified to help communities access so-called development funds? Who is more qualified to translate the interests of communities into the language of development agencies? Some of the cassava cooperatives, or galpones casaberos, with which I worked in the Iriona region of Honduras received and benefited from such funds. There is a risk in being so righteous that as academics we neglect the less radical (and partial) solutions that benefit the communities with which we work. As such, I believe that development alternatives and alternatives to development sometimes have to be considered alongside one another, if the primary consideration is to be the people who stand to benefit. In addition to the ideals that one might articulate as a vision for the future, there are the everyday compromises that one makes to survive until the vision is within reach. In spite of these practical considerations, I do agree with Escobar’s critique of scholars (e.g., anthropologists) who have embedded themselves in development institutions. Focusing on development professionals (especially anthropologists) and institutions of the West, Escobar (1991) argued that “development institutions are part and parcel of how the world is put together so as to ensure certain processes of ruling” (674). The post-development literature thus focuses, somewhat narrowly, on Western institutions of development such as USAID. Post-development scholars ignore the overwhelming majority of grassroots “development” efforts that are small in scale and not (yet) at the level of what most would call a social movement. Grassroots development is not directed by large, Western institutions: “Grassroots development is a process in which disadvantaged people organize themselves to overcome the obstacles to their social and economic well-being” (Kleymeyer 1994, 4). The value of this bottom-up, small-scale development is not captured by the post-development critique. In this way, the local agency of grassroots development actors is rendered invisible. Given the macro-level bias of development studies, more generally, this is not surprising. A TBF framework corrects for this in its attention to (and solidarity with) grassroots activists and community workers. Other scholars have noted and criticized this inattention to agency within post-development: In viewing development as all too hegemonic, the post-structuralist critics tend to reduce the so-called beneficiaries of development to passive objects who are simply acted upon. ‘Third World’ people are made the hapless victims of an all-powerful Western-led development discourse. (Friedman 2006, 204) This book aims to highlight the agency of everyday community women, who arguably have the most profound and enduring impacts on community change efforts. This stands in contrast to the approach of post-development scholars who focus on the large Western institutions that dominate public

46

Garifuna Foodways

discourse: “Development is portrayed as a singular, globalizing and totalizing ‘project’ of capitalist modernization and geopolitics” (Simon 2007, 208). This analysis does not honor the diversity of development initiatives; nor does it claim the idea and concept of development for those populations with the deepest investment—the actual community members living in those spaces. Generally speaking, post-development puts a broad range of approaches in the same category; this includes grassroots development. Escobar (1997a) acknowledged that “not everything that has been subjected to the operations of the development apparatus can be said to have been irremediably transformed into a modern, capitalist instance” (510). In spite of this admission, he tends to paint “development” with a broad brush. Those of us working with organizations that may at times benefit from Western development initiatives have to walk a fine line, lest we disadvantage those groups with whom we work and for whom we advocate. In spite of my challenge to Escobar’s approach to postdevelopment, I think that the post-development discourse, in many ways, creates a false choice. Many organizations accept money from people with whom they do not entirely agree. Ultimately, I think grassroots organizations should be wary of Western institutions, benefit from their “offerings” when it is possible to do so with minimal compromise to long-term visions, and simultaneously develop alternatives to development, with the understanding that any support from Western institutions is unlikely to constitute (long-term) solidarity and will thus be occasional (support). The relationship between academics and community workers6 should expand, not contract, opportunities. In the previous chapter, I discussed the understanding of a scholar-activist through an intersectional, rather than additive, lens, as a scholar who writes in ways that pave the intellectual and scholarly path for activist work. One of the most striking critiques of post-development challenges its abdication of any responsibility for development solutions: “Post-development parallels postmodernism both in its acute institutions and in being directionless in the end, as a consequence of its refusal to, or lack of interest in, translating critique into construction” (Pieterse 2000, 187). A TBF framework, with its commitment to scholar-activism and solidarity work, requires a stronger commitment to research communities than is demonstrated by this inattention to development issues and the communities that are potentially helped (or harmed) by such initiatives. Murphy (2011) called on post-development scholars to actively engage feminist critiques, and this text is one effort to enact such engagement. Marisol de la Cadena (2008) aptly named the material dangers of a development discourse that goes unchallenged:

6

I do not assume here that academics are not also community activists. However, I do distinguish between the two roles that one person may embody. Certainly, USbased academics are not systematically rewarded for activist work, and instead have other criteria by which they are judged professionally. It is difficult to be successful in both roles, and a scholar-activist is constantly blurring the boundaries between the two, with an eye on liberation.

Garifuna Foodways

47

Albeit constantly changing, the discourse of development has been actively influencing national imaginations, knowledges, and social relations since at least the 1950s when it emerged to renew modernizing policies already in-place. Thereon, development gradually cloaked public policies with scientific authority. (278) If we understand the policy implications of scholarly withdrawal from dominant development discourses, we must engage this discourse, as one among many ways that we are contributing to alternatives. In the section below, I explore ereba work as an alternative to development with the potential for Black feminist futures.

How a TBF Framework Highlights Garifuna Alternatives to Development In his ovarian7 article, Arturo Escobar (1992) offered that “a critique of the discourse and practice of development … can help clear the ground for a more radical collective imagining of alternative futures” (22). In the article, the concept of alternatives to development (that challenge the underlying assumptions embedded in development institutions and scholarship) was highlighted instead of development alternatives (that explore the various ways one might achieve “development” as traditionally understood). Escobar (1992) challenged entrenched understandings of development by reminding us of the relatively recent construction of such ideas. To think about ‘alternatives to development’ thus requires a theoreticopractical transformation of the notions of development, modernity and the economy. … the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America did not always see themselves in terms of ‘development.’ The history of development is relatively recent; it goes back only as far as the early post-World War II period, when the apparatuses of knowledge production and intervention (the World Bank, the United Nations, bilateral development agencies, planning offices in the Third World, etc.) were established and when a whole new political economy of truth – different from that of the colonial or pre-war period – was set into place. (22–24) Escobar suggested that we search for alternatives to development within social movements of the “Third World” both because of the way in which 7

Instead of using seminal, I have adopted the term ovarian, which I first heard from my faculty-colleague Annabelle Nelson at Fielding Graduate University. It seems appropriate that an analogy that seeks to suggest the birth of ideas would reference female organs involved in the production of new life.

48

Garifuna Foodways

economic and social transformation are linked in these contexts as well as the culture of politicized resistance to dominant politics and knowledge. I argue that we might find evidence of alternatives even before (or below) social movements, in the everyday community work of the Garifuna women of Honduras. In particular, the galpones casaberos of the Iriona region of Honduras embody principles that challenge conventional notions of development. Fieldwork with the Galpones Casaberos of Iriona In the Iriona villages I worked with four galpones. 8 In Cuenca, I worked with “Women’s Traditions” and “Community Cassava.”9 “Community Cassava” was the first galpón in Cuenca.10 It was started with the cooperation of all the families and was intended to serve the entire community. “Women’s Traditions” developed later, when a group of women within the community felt they would be better served by opening their own molino, or cassava-grinding workshop; it was an all-women’s organization. While initially there was some competition between the two organizations, at the time of my fieldwork (2011–2012) they were working together, alternating days when their molinos were open, so that the ereba makers always had a place to grind and strain cassava using the available technology. I often encountered members from one galpón at the other galpón’s molino because it was closer to their cassava field, cookhouse, home, or friends. As an example, Emma was a member of “Community Cassava;” however, I often found her peeling cassava at “Women’s Traditions.” Although the president of “Women’s Traditions,” Valeria, had a clear mission related to serving single mothers and single women, married women were also included in the group. In addition to working with the galpones in Cuenca, I also worked in the nearby villages of Zafra and Carmona. In Carmona, I worked with the mixed-gender galpón “Fish to Cassava” that was cooperatively run by a group of cousins. Finally, in Zafra, I worked with “Women Warriors,” which was an all-women’s organization. In order to work with these organizations, I would ride the local bus to the villages in the morning, and then return to Cuenca in the afternoon. In Zafra, I became very close to a woman I will call Sofia. She (or her daughter) prepared lunch for me every day, and I would wait for the bus at her home, while learning about life in Zafra. Through my connection with Sofia, I built a rapport with women in Zafra. My first visit to Zafra was with a neighbor from Cuenca, Joaquin, who I came to think of as a grandfather; he was in his nineties, and we regularly went on walks together, during which he would tell me 8

Galpones is a shortened form of galpones casaberos, the term used to identify the cassava cooperatives in the region. 9 Names of the towns and groups have been changed. Iriona, however, is the actual region of the groups discussed. 10 Galpón is the singular form of galpones casaberos, the term used to identify the cassava cooperatives in the region.

Garifuna Foodways

49

the history of the villages. His daughter, Gabriela, was the president of “Women Warriors” and Joaquin took me to meet her and a woman named Mariana within weeks of my arrival in Cuenca. With these multiple connections, it was relatively easy to connect with “Women Warriors.” Contrastingly, building rapport with “Fish to Cassava” came slowly. It was the only group whose introduction did not include a family connection with a Cuenca neighbor. Instead, I had to build relationships with the group while working in the fields and in their molino. Working with “Fish to Cassava,” I realized that participating in cassava cultivation was critical to my integration into the community. Women would talk to me in the fields, even if they were not interested in doing one-on-one interviews. While some women agreed to do interviews, others thought of it as something that the more educated representatives of the group should do. There were several milestones in my interaction with “Fish to Cassava” that let me know I was being accepted as part of the group. There was the day when I was given the responsibility of recording the names of clients at the molino and the weight of each client’s cassava load; another day, I was invited to the cabo del año, or one-year anniversary, of the death of a member’s grandfather. With each milestone, I grew closer to the group and learned more about its members. This was important since the galpones were organizing the important work of ereba production in the villages. Galpones Organizing Alternatives Arturo Escobar (1992) and Sonia Alvarez (2000), separately and together (Escobar and Alvarez 1992) have written about the importance of social movements in understanding Latin American politics, governance, and development. Clearly, social movements are excellent contexts to explore alternatives to development. In this book, I am concerned with everyday practices, potentially prior to social movements or possibly not politicized enough to reach the level of social movements. While social movements call for organizing around impersonal collectivities, this is an exploration of interpersonal (e.g., familial) groupings. Life in Garifuna communities centers around the family unit. Individuals are known by their family affiliations; in fact, one’s last name signifies the family’s ancestral village. The very nature of making ereba, from harvesting to baking requires the coordination of families, and the galpones are the groups helping to organize families to that end. Valentina, one of the members of “Community Cassava,” said the following: “We work united. We work united when we pick cassava. We unite to peel that cassava. We help one another mutually. Almost all the Garifuna work is done communally. It is united, communal.” As such, the galpones open the space for and affirm the collective work of ereba-making. Especially in the case of older women who have health problems, the technology of the molinos provides an opportunity to make ereba that would otherwise not exist.

50

Garifuna Foodways

The galpones further structure the opportunities of families by promoting communal sharing, central to many long-held traditions. Some galpón members were concerned that the community was losing these collective work values. However, the galpones reinforced the tradition of sharing among families. Within these organizations, members found tremendous support. Samantha said, “In the cooperative, we are all united.” Diego emphasized collective work: “There is a lot of collective work. The people always help one another do things for the benefit of the community’s development.” And Julia talked about the galpones’ promotion of peaceful living: “We live peacefully and united. … We get along well. We understand one another.” For each of these galpón members, the galpón represented the desire to maintain communal living and shared traditions. If ethnographic data highlights the collective values and orientation of the Garifuna people, a TBF framework highlights the nuanced significance of the community’s work. Further, the TBF framework complicates the role and boundaries of researchers. If a scholar is not simply investigating a phenomenon, but instead is part of it, we may engage in the co-creation of alternatives to development. Below, I describe how the TBF principles can be used to explore the case of the Garifuna ereba makers. TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality When several Garifuna communities in Honduras won an Inter-American Court of Human Rights case for collective land ownership, it was hailed as a win for “indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples.” No report that I found talked about the victory for women’s rights or women’s collective land ownership. Given the matrifocality of Garifuna society, this victory could have been seen as critically important to issues of gender equity and justice. While Garifuna indigeneity may have been the most salient aspect of the community’s identity in the winning of the case, the profound implications can only be understood when one takes into account that the consanguineal, or women-centered, household is the dominant one in the Garifuna villages. A single-axis analysis misses the important and historic implications for Black indigenous women’s access to land.11 Thus, a TBF framework looks beneath the most superficial layer of an event to understand the multiple, complex impacts on people, with 11 Single-axis analysis is not simply an issue in academia. This tendency to flatten an individual’s experiences can also be found in much international and transnational advocacy work. Sometimes the ability to win a case depends on a convincing argument about a group’s indigeneity, as understood in the most simplistic, primordial sense. International discussions about the human rights of indigenous peoples rarely include consideration about the racialized nuances of indigenous experiences. The courts that have the power to change the fate of vulnerable communities often rely on oversimplified accounts of complex lives. The “danger of a single story,” however, is that we come to believe that a group is defined by that oversimplification.

Garifuna Foodways

51

attention to gender, class, race, age, ability, and other axes that represent marginalizing and oppressive forces at play. TBF Principle #2: Solidarity There are aspects of the challenges faced by Black women farmers that can be understood in a context of racism that crosses national boundaries. Too often, an international development scholar studying Black female farmers in Latin America is encouraged to focus on the “underdevelopment” of the Latin American state. A TBF analysis explores transnational Black feminist links. In my case, I have been involved with Soul Fire Farm, a farm in upstate New York (US) working to end racial injustice in the food system. In 2018 cofounder and co-director Leah Penniman published, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Given the participation of the US government in the displacement of so many Black farmers, and Honduras’ complicity in the “land grab” that has threatened Garifuna territories, there is great potential for collaborative resistance to such policies in their current configurations. In my solidarity with both Soul Fire Farm and Iriona’s ereba makers, I am expressing a commitment to Black and indigenous land ownership in the Americas. It is not a fleeting or superficial support, but rather a deep commitment to movement-building that will result in increased collective land ownership for groups of Black, Latinx, and indigenous people. In moving between interactions with the Garifuna people of Iriona and Soul Fire Farmers, I carry lessons from Garifuna victories in international resistance to Honduran government-supported usurpation of land, as well as Soul Fire Farm’s lessons for the development of programmatic support and institutionbuilding in the context of small farms. Too often in the field of IR, the world is divided in ways that do not facilitate a discussion of “development” or “alternatives to development” in the US, and the ways in which solidarity work is critically important for marginalized communities on both sides of colonial state borders. A TBF framework activates bonds of solidarity when and where they are needed by the people, challenging hierarchical divisions. TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism As mentioned in the introductory chapter, scholar-activism is not meant here in the additive sense (i.e., being both a scholar and an activist). Instead, it is used in the intersectional sense of understanding how these identities work together. Ultimately, the question is how scholars use the privilege afforded that role to advance activist goals of a community. During fieldwork in Iriona, I discussed with research participants my resource limitations and access. In the end, the community asked me for the following: first, they asked that I return to Iriona, indicating that other researchers had come with promises and left them with nothing, never to

52

Garifuna Foodways

be seen again. Second, we decided that I should share the stories of the galpones and their aspirations to develop a market for ereba, giving people in the US the opportunity to contribute to that effort. Before returning to the US from my initial fieldwork, I co-created an awareness-raising and fundraising website about the work of the ereba makers. This required going to the city to work on the website, and printing out web pages that could be reviewed by the groups. When I returned to the US, I presented at as many academic conferences as possible. At each conference, I shared a link to the website, giving audience members the opportunity to donate to the work of the galpones casaberos. 12 Extending requests for donations to friends and family, I raised over $3,700, which I distributed to the four galpones on a return visit. All of this was documented on the website I created so that community members in Honduras could track my activities. More recently, I created a bilingual Spanish/ English photography book using images from my time in Iriona.13 I printed copies to distribute, which were stolen in the midst of Honduras’ November 2017 post-election protests. On my website, I talked about the repression in Garifuna communities, and launched another awareness-raising and fundraising campaign. Using two university research grants, I was able to re-print copies of the book for original research participants, return to Iriona to distribute them, and do follow-up interviews with a research assistant. The activities highlighted above are about more than research; they constitute a community-informed action, rooted in my access to the resources of the US academy. They constitute a form of scholar-activism.

12 It is difficult to describe to people outside of academia how taboo such an act is in the context of an academic conference. If I had to make a comparison, I would liken it to passing around a church collection plate at one’s corporate business meeting. There was discomfort and confusion each time I asked people to consider donating. In spite of this, I persisted, remembering my promise to my research community. 13 Thank you to Emilie Boone for reading an earlier draft of this chapter. As a historian of photography, this section gave her flashbacks of the works of early (USbased) anthropologists taking photographs of the indigenous “other.” I should make clear that I did not photograph the aspects of community life that would be interpreted as the most “exotic” by non-Garifuna people. Instead, I captured images that are similar to farm work in the US. Also, I was inspired by an early conversation with Valeria from “Women’s Traditions.” She shared that someone had visited the village and photographed her dancing. The photo was posted on a social media website, and when her relatives in the US saw it, it became a joke. She was scarred by it because most of her days were spent farming, but several minutes of dancing had come to define how friends and family viewed her life. In that vein, I was trying to capture images that embodied everyday agrarian life. Also, the images were a way for me to represent the tone with which I present the community to others. I hoped they would see the care with which I curated their stories.

Garifuna Foodways

53

TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries The ways in which a TBF framework is challenging state borders and typical boundaries between groups that actually overlap (e.g., Black and indigenous peoples) should be clear. In our attention to borders/boundaries, we should define the most critical separations by analyzing how the people on either side of those borders/boundaries are living (or are able to live). In the context of my research in Iriona, my life in the village of Cuenca was defined by my US citizenship. Although there were other areas of difference (e.g., educational level and language), my citizenship had a dramatic impact on my access to resources and mobility as compared to villagers. By the time I had completed fieldwork and was preparing to leave the village, several children had asked me whether they could go to the US with me. Although I could come back and forth to Honduras as often as my finances would allow, many of the villagers had relatives in the US that they would never be able to visit because of the challenges of obtaining the proper visa. Desperate for greater employment opportunities, young people often left the villages for Honduran cities. Many of them hoped to arrive in the US at some point. My citizenship, in this context, stood out as an unfair advantage, and unearned privilege.14 Not having such an advantage, created (often insurmountable) barriers to villagers’ desires for mobility and access to greater professional opportunities. An analysis of the cleavages in the landscape of opportunities across borders and boundaries should inform more IR scholarship. TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality What no one would ever know about my research in the Garifuna community unless I were writing it here is that my community access hinged on my relationship to one person, Dr. Santiago Ruiz. Ruiz is a cultural anthropologist and native Honduran Garifuna man, who had recently returned to Honduras, at the time of my fieldwork, after teaching in the US. I reached out to him because I was applying for a grant to study the Garifuna language before starting fieldwork. 14 When I submitted the proposal for this book to series editors, I was asked about the role of class. In the context of village life, the class differences were not as pronounced as one might expect. While it was true that I was a rare case of a woman living alone, it was not possible to buy electricity or other amenities that did not exist in the villages. At the house I was renting, I had a solar panel, but did not have a generator. During any particular month, there could be Garifuna US citizens visiting their homes, which were much better constructed and furnished than my residence. While in some contexts economic class would have been the defining divider, here that was not the case. My social class status was not particularly high, since as a woman without children, I was seen as less than a mature adult. Also, villagers had clear paths to getting money and climbing the ladder of economic privilege, if that was their goal, in a way that they could not easily access the privilege related to my citizenship.

54

Garifuna Foodways

Although I did not get that grant, he became my primary resource once I had a Fulbright grant. He sent someone to pick me up from the airport on the day I arrived in Honduras, introduced me to the network of Hondurans who would enable my work in the country, and permitted me to live in his family home in Iriona. Too often, research scholars do their work behind a veil of smoke and mirrors that obscures our most critical connections. Focusing on our analyses and insights, we rarely reveal the detail(s) that made our entire project(s) possible. If we are to write with communities, instead of about them, we should attempt a more honest account of our journeys. In addition to connecting me to Honduran colleagues, friends, and family, Ruiz also opened the doors of cultural anthropology to me. He was the first person to share a copy of Faye V. Harrison’s Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age. It is because of this introduction that I began to take more seriously the connection between IR and Black feminist anthropology. He set me on the journey that would allow me to attend the American Anthropological Association conference, and have a paper receive an award from the Association of Feminist Anthropology. He has given me his personal and detailed account of the history of the creation of various (Honduran) national and (Central American) regional organizations that have supported Garifuna autonomy. He continues to support my research and writing by constantly putting me in dialogue with other scholars, most recently through an invitation to present at an academic conference, hosted by the Honduran national university in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Radically transparent author positionality identifies the structure that makes a scholar’s work possible. It acknowledges that intelligence is not enough, that one’s good idea must come at the right time and place to be translated into scholarly production. It is a humbling act that has the potential to transform the relationship of IR to other academic disciplines and to communities outside of academia.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have briefly outlined the unique history of the Garifuna people who inhabit the coastal villages of Honduras. It should be clear from this description that the important role of women is unquestioned. The rural Garifuna woman does many things, but one of her primary activities is subsistence agricultural work. Ereba-making is the exclusive cultural activity of the Garifuna woman, and as such lends itself to the exploration of women’s work in the villages. In an effort to stretch the narrow state purview of IR toward an exploration of Garifuna alternatives to development, I discussed some of the history of international development. Ereba work centers collective women’s labor in a way that builds upon communal values, decentering a narrow “development” focus on economic benefits. Finally, I explored the ways in which the TBF principles can broaden and deepen an analysis of the Garifuna villages. An intersectional frame allows us to see the villages as simultaneously Black, indigenous, and matrifocal.

Garifuna Foodways

55

Solidarity allows connections to be made between the Garifuna villages of Honduras and Black farmers in the US. A scholar-activist ethic employs the resources of the academy to support the work of communities beyond institutional walls. In the case of this project, it has made Black indigenous Garifuna women’s work more broadly visible. Attending to the significance of borders/boundaries, there is a recognition of the unavoidable privilege of my US citizenship, as I write this manuscript in times when a caravan of migrants has spent over a month walking from the most dangerously violent city in Honduras, San Pedro Sula, to the US border (BBC News 2018). The current US administration has responded by further militarizing the US-Mexico border, in spite of the relationship between US foreign policy and the violent circumstances that are the impetus for the migrant caravan (Democracy Now! 2018). Finally, a radically transparent author positionality exposes the ways in which the development of this intellectual project hinged precariously on my relationship with one person. Considering these factors together, I have articulated the principles of a TBF framework that intends to create better life opportunities for Black and indigenous women (and their families) in Garifuna villages and elsewhere. Women’s collective interests and initiatives are at the core of this project. In the next chapter, I will explore Garifuna matrifocal folkways, as a way to highlight the value of centering family as a unit of analysis in IR studies.

References Acker, Alison. 1988. Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic. Boston, MA: South End Press. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2009. “The Danger of a Single Story.” Accessed November 24, 2018. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_ of_a_single_story. Alvarez, Sonia E. 2000. “Translating the Global Effects of Transnational Organizing on Local Feminist Discourses and Practices in Latin America.” Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 1(1) (Autumn): 29–67. Anderson, Mark. 2005. “Bad Boys and Peaceful Garifuna: Transnational Encounters Between Racial Stereotypes of Honduras and the United States (and Their Implications for the Study of Race in the Americas).” In Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos. Edited by Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler, 101–115. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Aulette, Judy Root and Judith Wittner. 2012. Gendered Worlds, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Bateman, Rebecca B. 1998. “Africans and Indians: A Comparative Study of the Black Carib and Black Seminole.” In Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations, Volume 1: Central America and Northern and Western South America. Edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr. and Arlene Torres, 200–222. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. BBC News. 2018. “Migrant Caravan: What Is It? And Why Does It Matter?” BBC News, November 21, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45951782.

56

Garifuna Foodways

Bhavnani, Kum-Kum, John Foran, and Priya A. Kurian. 2003. “An Introduction to Women, Culture and Development.” In Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture and Development. Edited by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, John Foran, and Priya A. Kurian, 1–21. London: Zed Books. Blackwood, Evelyn. 2006. “Marriage, Matrifocality, and ‘Missing’ Men.” In Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future. Edited by Pamela L. Geller and Miranda K. Stockett, 73–88. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Blaser, Mario. 2004. “Life Projects: Indigenous Peoples’ Agency and Development.” In In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization. Edited by Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit, and Glenn McRae, 26–44. London: Zed Books. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Enzo Faletto. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. Translated by Marjory Mattingly Urquidi. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 2001. Charting a New Course: The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation. Edited by Mauricio A. Font. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Chambers, Glenn A. 2010. Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890–1940. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Chilcote, Ronald H. 1994. “Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature.” In Essays on Mexico, Central and South America: Latin America’s International Relations and their Domestic Consequences. Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, 114–139. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Chin, Christine. 2009. “Claiming Race and Racelessness in International Studies.” International Studies Perspectives 10: 92–98. de la Cadena, Marisol. 2008. “Commentary on ‘Agricultural Hybridity and the “Pathology” of Traditional Ways …’ The Challenges of Translation Analysis for the Ethnography of ‘Development.’” The Journal of Latin American Anthropology 9(2): 278–283. Democracy Now! 2018. “Noam Chomsky: Members of the Migrant Caravan are Fleeing from Misery & Horrors Created by the U.S.” Democracy Now! November 22, 2018. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/22/noam_chomsky_members_ of_migrant_caravan. dos Santos, Theotonio. 1970. “The Structure of Dependence.” The American Economic Review 60(2) (May): 231–236. England, Sarah. 2006. Afro Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Escobar, Arturo and Sonia E. Alvarez, eds. 1992. The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Escobar, Arturo. 1991. “Anthropology and the Development Encounter: The Making and Marketing of Development Anthropology.” American Ethnologist 18(4) (November): 658–682. Escobar, Arturo. 1992. “Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements.” Social Text 31–32: 20–56. Escobar, Arturo. 1997a. “Anthropology and Development.” International Social Science Journal 49(154): 497–515. Escobar, Arturo. 1997b. “The Making and Unmaking of the Third World through Development.” In The Post-Development Reader. Edited by Majid Rahnema and Victoria Bawtree, 85–93. London: Zed Books.

Garifuna Foodways

57

Escobar, Arturo. 2012. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third Worlds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Euraque, Darío A. 1996. Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Euraque, Dario. 2007. “Free Pardos and Mulattoes Vanquish Indians: Cultural Civility as Conquest and Modernity in Honduras.” In Beyond Slavery: The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Edited by Darién J. Davis, 81–122. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Fabel, Robin F. A. 2000. Colonial Challenges: Britons, Native Americans, and Caribs, 1759–1775. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Frank, André Gunder. 1972. “The Development of Underdevelopment.” In Dependence and Underdevelopment: Latin America’s Political Economy. Edited by James D. Cockcroft, André Gunder Frank, and Dale L. Johnson, 3–17. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Friedman, John T. 2006. “Beyond the Post-Structural Impasse in the Anthropology of Development.” Dialectical Anthropology 30: 201–225. Gargolla, Francesca. 2005. “Garifuna: A Culture of Women and Men.” Translated by Carlos Montoro. In The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders: Essays in Social Anthropology. Edited by Carlos Montoro, 137–158. Belize: Cubola Productions. Gold, Janet N. 2009. Culture and Customs of Honduras. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gonzalez, Nancie L. Solien. 1969. Black Carib Household Structure: A Study of Migration and Modernization. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Gonzalez, Nancie L. 1997. “The Garifuna of Central America.” In The Indigenous People of the Caribbean. Edited by Samuel M. Wilson, 199–205. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Gonzalez, Nancie L. 1988. Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Gordon, Edmund T. 1998. Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African Nicaraguan Community. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Haggerty, Richard and Richard Millet. 1995. “Historical Setting.” In Honduras: A Country Study. Edited by Tim L. Merrill, 1–61. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Herzfeld, Michael. 2001. Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. Hunt, Sarah. 2010. “Overcoming Dependency and Reducing Poverty in Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua.” In Power, Place and Representation: Contested Sites of Dependence and Interdependence in Latin America. Edited by Bill Richardson and Lorraine Kelly, 93–109. Oxford: Peter Lang. Johnson, Dale L. 1972. “Dependence and the International System.” In Dependence and Underdevelopment: Latin America’s Political Economy. Edited by James D. Cockcroft, André Gunder Frank, and Dale L. Johnson, 71–111. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2005. “Migrating Bodies, Circulating Signs: Brazilian Candomblé, the Garifuna of the Caribbean and the Category of Indigenous Religions.” In Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations. Edited by Graham Harvey and Charles D. Thompson, Jr., 37–51. Burlington, VA: Ashgate. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2006. “Joining the African Diaspora: Migration and Diasporic Religious Culture among the Garífuna in Honduras and New York.” In Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance.

58

Garifuna Foodways

Edited by R. Marie Griffith and Barbara Dianna Savage, 37–58. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2007. Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. 2008. “Race in the Ontology of International Order.” Political Studies 56: 907–927. Kerns, Virginia. 1983. Women and the Ancestors: Black Carib Kinship and Ritual. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Kerns, Virginia. 1998. “Structural Continuity in the Division of Men’s and Women’s Work Among the Black Caribs (Garifuna).” In Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations, Volume 1: Central America and Northern and Western South America. Edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr. and Arlene Torres, 133–148. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Kleymeyer, Charles David, ed. 1994. Cultural Expression and Grassroots Development: Cases from Latin America and the Caribbean. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Leonard, Thomas M. 2011. The History of Honduras. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood. Merrill, Tim L. 1995. “Introduction.” In Honduras: A Country Study. Edited by Tim L. Merrill, xxiii–xxx. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Moghadam, Valentine M. 1999. “Feminisms and Development.” In Feminisms and Internationalism. Edited by Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy, and Angela Woollacott, 246–253. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Morris, James A. 1984. Honduras: Caudillo Politics and Military Rulers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Munck, Ronaldo. 2010. “La segunda independencia: Nationalist Nostalgia or Twentyfirst Century Socialism?” In Power, Place and Representation: Contested Sites of Dependence and Interdependence in Latin America. Edited by Bill Richardson and Lorraine Kelly, 17–32. Oxford: Peter Lang. Murphy, Julia E. 2011. “Feminism and the Anthropology of ‘Development’: Dilemmas in Rural Mexico.” Anthropology in Action 18(1): 16–28. Newson, Linda. 1986. The Cost of Conquest: Indian Decline in Honduras under Spanish Rule. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Penniman, Leah. 2018. Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. 2000. “After Post-development.” Third World Quarterly 21 (2): 175–191. Rist, Gilbert. 2008. The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, Third Edition. Translated by Patrick Camiller. New York: Zed Books. Rosenberg, Mark B. 1986. “Honduras: An Introduction.” In Honduras Confronts Its Future: Contending Perspectives on Critical Issues. Edited by Mark B. Rosenberg and Philip L. Shepherd, 1–19. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Simon, David. 2007. “Beyond Antidevelopment: Discourses, Convergences, Practices.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 28: 205–218. So, Alvin. 1990. Social Change and Development. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications. Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1988. Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271– 313. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Garifuna Foodways

59

Taylor, Christopher. 2012. The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University Press. von Braunmühl, Claudia. 2002. “Mainstreaming Gender – a Critical Revision.” In Common Ground or Mutual Exclusion? Women’s Movements & International Relations. Edited by Marianne Braig and Sonja Wölte, 55–79. London: Zed Books.

3

Understanding Black Women’s Families The Value of Centering Family in IR Studies

During an interview with longtime church leader and community activist Mariana,1 I asked her about her hopes for the future of the community. It was during this interview that I first heard the Garifuna village described as a community of families. For my Garifuna brothers and sisters, I would like for us to forge ahead, forge ahead helping, first, one another. First, asking God to give us strength and patience. And one waits to see the development of our communities, more that of the family, the development of the family, because we cannot talk of communities if we do not mention the family because the families are what forms the community. So, right now, each family already knows how it is managing. In each family, there is development and I hope that God continues blessing us. (Mariana) Mariana was a member of the administrative board of “Women Warriors”— one of the four galpones casaberos with which I worked. She also had experience working with a number of nonprofit organizations that had implemented projects in the community, and had assisted in collecting and recording census data for the villages. Thus, Mariana was very much in touch with how the community understands itself in contrast to how others might 1

This chapter would not exist without the community-based knowledge that was shared by Mariana. For me, there is a tension in that the structure of US scholarly authorship does not allow the community elders of Iriona to be co-authors. What I share at the beginning of this chapter would be known by anyone in the region. Yet, I am in the position to receive “credit” for this important Garifuna indigenous knowledge about the centrality of families in understanding community structure. This is an all-too-familiar, yet uneasy, relationship between US-based researchers and indigenous “subjects.” My point is not just to share this unease, consistent with the TBF principle of radically transparent author positionality. However, it is to open a discussion of how to move US scholarly writing toward alternative forms of co-authorship that would not co-opt community knowledge and would engage the TBF principle of scholar-activism by giving research participants more direct access to participation in scholarly debates.

Centering Family in IR Studies

61

see it. No outside organizations worked in Zafra without Mariana knowing about it, and being involved. Her home was one of the first that I was brought to when I entered the community; she was one of my first interviews. As a community leader, she helped nonprofit organizations to implement various projects in Zafra, and led community-based efforts to improve living conditions. Thus, when she says that community development is family development, she speaks from a history of engagement with externally- and internally-initiated community-based projects. She is articulating a community value. Community initiatives are not designed to simply advantage individuals; they are created to empower families. I was able to witness and interact with Mariana in her family life. Her household was one in which everyone helped with all family activities, from clothes washing to land cultivation to dish washing to ereba baking. Mariana’s home was one of the few places where I saw a man helping a woman who was baking ereba. Only women do the actual baking; however, her husband sifted the cassava flour to prepare it for her baking.2 On one occasion, when I went with Mariana to her cassava field, we returned to find her husband washing clothes. I am not sure whether I actually asked the question, or if it was simply because of the surprised expression on my face, but Mariana explained that when he goes to the fields, she washes clothes, and when she goes to the field, he washes. She said that everyone pitches in. This was early evidence that tasks were not assigned to individuals, but rather to families with shared commitments. Of course, there was other evidence of the importance of the Garifuna family as a unit of analysis. One of the most interesting aspects of Garifuna families was how they were socially constructed, or what events created a family unit. Too often when families, especially indigenous or traditional ones, are discussed, family boundaries are described in ways that are rigid and fixed. Outside onlookers can construct traditional and indigenous families in terms of bloodline alone. Elsewhere, I describe in detail how oftentimes the family unit is the smallest possible unit for understanding what I describe as joint capabilities, or the ability of individuals who are simultaneously and interdependently committed to be and do what the group values (Hall 2017). To understand the shared commitments of family, one must also understand who constitutes a family. In the sections below, I describe three different non-biological paths to family in the Garifuna context. Then, I explore the importance of family analyses in the field of international relations, broadly speaking. Next, I focus on Black feminist conceptualizations of Black women as a collective. More specifically, I examine

2

To see men helping in this way was rare. Mariana, however, was a strong community and family leader. Her husband displayed a willingness to assist her in all household matters to an extent that I did not often see in other households. The gendered nature of family roles was blurred in this context. In spite of the husband’s willingness to assist, he was not interested in being photographed performing these typically female tasks. When I asked to photograph him sifting cassava flour, he declined.

62

Centering Family in IR Studies

the work of Black feminist anthropologists studying Brazil. Finally, I outline what a TBF analysis contributes to a discussion of family.

Iriona Family Example #1: Daniel’s Sister-Cousin During my time in the villages, I did four rounds of interviews. The first three rounds of interviews were with members of the galpones; during the last round, I interviewed adult children of the members. At the point when I was interviewing the children, I had spent a significant amount of time in the villages and knew a lot about the members of the galpones. The point of interviewing the adult children was to identify possible generational shifts in the strong communal ethic. Since so many of the children had spent time in the cities, either working or going to school, I took seriously the possibility that the older generation, who lived in villages before the unpaved highway was carved out, when transportation by boat was the only way to get to the city, might think differently about commitments to family and community. Mariana had a son named Daniel, who I interviewed. While normally I tried to interview individuals alone, there were times when doing so was not possible or not appropriate. In particular, I often interviewed males in the company of women because social convention would have made it inappropriate for a woman of my age (mid-thirties) to be in a private space with a married man, or even a single man who I was not dating. On this particular day, I was interviewing Daniel in the family home, while Mariana was listening. I asked Daniel, whether he had ever lived with relatives other than his parents or had relatives come and live with him. My intention was to better understand how family networks factor into child rearing. He said that he had a cousin who grew up living with his family. Mariana immediately and harshly corrected Daniel, indicating that the “cousin” who had lived with them for 16 years since she was two years old was his sister, not his cousin. She first scolded him for suggesting that this young woman could be anything but his sister, and then turned to me to say that Daniel was referring to her adopted daughter and that he should have indicated that it was his sister. How should we interpret this? Who is telling the truth? What is an ethnographer to record? As I explored how other families were constructed, I found similar stories. Because family is about a commitment to a particular group of people and shared goals—in Mariana’s house this included household maintenance and land cultivation—then the body of individuals jointly committed is defined and treated as family. At least it is defined as such by the middle-aged women of the Garifuna villages. The question of whether that conception of family will persist within the younger generation remains to be seen. Also, the intersectional analysis of what family means to villagers who are young and Garifuna and male will likely produce a different response than that of the typical Garifuna ereba maker, who is female and middle-aged.

Centering Family in IR Studies

63

Iriona Family Example #2: When I Became Family In addition to having the benefit of Mariana’s insights about family, I had my own experience of “becoming family.” During my fieldwork, I stayed in two different homes of one family. First. I stayed with the brother of the person whose home I was renting, because the house needed to be cleaned (and exterminated). Then, once the home was ready, I moved into the house I was renting. The rented house was across from the home of the owner’s sister, which was the old family home, where all the children were raised. I was living alone, which I thought would be preferable, considering my schedule and the confidentiality of my interview and observation notes and documents. The owner’s sister, Emma, lived with her son, Benjamin, and daughter, Nicole. After I moved into her brother’s home across the path, there were immediate signs that I was more than just a neighbor; I was considered part of the family. During my first week living in the house, Emma offered to have Benjamin live with me. Initially, I thought that she was offering to have him stay for the first couple of nights, thinking that I might be scared to be in the house alone. To my surprise, she was actually offering to have Benjamin live with me for the entire (nearly ten-month) period that I planned to stay in the village. I certainly had noticed that it was rare for women to live alone; in fact, I cannot recall any women who were living alone in the villages. However, I was still taken aback by what seemed such an extreme offer. Who allows their youngest child to stay with a stranger for practically an entire year? He was not even 13 yet. What I came to understand was that Emma did not see me as a stranger, or a renter; she saw me as an addition, however temporary, to the family. She often shared food with me. Within my first week in the house, the other members of her family came to welcome me. She watched the house when I was away in the city.3 It was not simply Emma’s behavior that signaled my entry into family; it was the behavior of the entire family. Benjamin started calling me his sister. It took me some time to realize this because he did not say it in Spanish. He would say it in the Garifuna language as we were walking through the village. When I realized that he was often repeating the same Garifuna phrase, I asked him what he was saying, and he explained that he was calling me his sister. It was striking that even his communication about our relationship was embedded in Garifuna culture. He was not saying it for my benefit; he was not even saying it in our shared language. He was saying it in his native language, and in front of people who would know that I was not his blood sister. In addition to saying that I was his sister, he began to treat me like family. He came to the house and helped out with chores; he and his uncle—the one with whom I stayed before moving into the rented house—cleared a bat infestation. When Benjamin had ripe

3

Once when I was away in the city, someone who knew the house was empty tried to steal the solar panel. Emma, armed with a flashlight and machete, boldly scared away the intruder.

64

Centering Family in IR Studies

coconuts, he would bring one to the house to share. He would even come to the house in the afternoons to do his homework. In turn, I responded by treating Emma, Benjamin, and Nicole as family. When I had fresh fruit, which was both hard to find and hard to preserve without electricity, I would share it with the family. When possible, I would go with the family to work in the cassava fields. My relationship with this family was the context through which I was integrated into community life and activities. When people asked who I was or why I was in the community, initially I went into long explanations about my research. Later I realized that people were attempting to identify me in relation to a family, and Emma’s family was my family. When I mentioned them, my presence made sense to villagers. The research information was interesting to some people, but it did not explain my presence in the village; my link to a family did. Nicole, Emma’s daughter, similarly thought of me as part of the family, which became clear during an outing to the fields. Although many days I worked with galpones in the two neighboring villages, there were days when I was in my home village of Cuenca. On these days, I would ask to go with a family to the fields. Although no one wanted to take me during the rainy season (September to January) for fear that I would slip and fall, on several occasions I went with Emma’s family to their cassava plot during the dry season. On this particular day, Emma, Benjamin, Nicole, and I had been working for several hours pulling cassava roots from the ground. Before heading back to the village, about a mile away, we filled the sacks with cassava root. With “fancier” sacks that had straps, Emma and Nicole strapped the cassava to their foreheads with the sacks swinging back and forth against their backs. Without a proper strap attached to my sack, I carried my load by moving it from one shoulder to the other every few minutes to stop the sack digging into my flesh from cutting through the skin. On the walk back to the village, Nicole and I passed a young man, who asked who I was. Without any hesitation, Nicole answered (in Spanish) that I was her sister. To my surprise, the young man accepted her answer without question. I thought that certainly he must know that I don’t speak Garifuna, which I would speak if I were her sister. For Nicole, as with Emma and Benjamin, I was functioning as family—living in the village, in her family’s home, eating her mother’s cooking, helping to cultivate the family’s land; I was part of the family, and she was my sister. Although this example, similar to that of Daniel’s sister-cousin, was defined by village life, I also encountered examples that transcended village life.

Iriona Family Example #3: Host Families & Family Homes Diego was a local math teacher in Cuenca and a member of the “Community Cassava” galpón. During his interview, we talked about his daughter who was studying in the city. I asked with whom she was living. He said, “She is living with some relatives we have out there.” I asked how he was related to the

Centering Family in IR Studies

65

people with whom his daughter was staying. I asked this question because where students study often determines what they study, since universities offer different career options. I was trying to identify patterns in the family-education networks. When I asked Diego how the people were related to him, he said, “They are people who care for her, not close relatives that we know. No. Rather they are people who we know host students. So, she is staying with them.” How could the people who are caring for his daughter be anything but family? They are committed to the care of his daughter. In the case of the ereba makers, families create and access certain opportunities as a unit. A village child who has an uncle in a major Honduran city has better access to education than the rural student without any urban family connections. If we understand the potential to build and extend one’s family, we can understand how an extended family unit can access greater opportunities. The entire family shapes the opportunities available to individual family members. Often, the kinds of opportunities available in a particular locale are shared by a family member in that place. For example, a person might share information about study or job opportunities with other family members. At the same time, the extended family has greater resilience because when there are challenges (e.g., medical need, financial troubles), the family unit is a primary resource base. It is with this fluid and flexible understanding of family that I move on to a discussion of the importance of the family unit in IR analyses. Family is not a matter of bloodline, although you may be blood-related to some members of your family. Rather, family is constructed through a sense of interdependence, shared goals, and communal values. There are no geographic limitations. Historically, many Garifuna men have worked on (tourist, shrimping, and cargo) ships, so often they are absent for many months out of a year. However, that does not impact the sense of them being part of families. Interestingly enough, when I asked Mariana how such movement complicated census counts, she said that it was not an issue, since the community knew who lived in the various houses (even if they were not in the houses at the time). When one considers the importance of groups being counted in the census, as a way to impact public policy, the link between Mariana’s community knowledge and her national influence becomes clear. This example demonstrates the durability of family, that it can persist even when someone is away for years. My personal experience also reflects this, as I continue to be part of the families that I came to know in Iriona, receiving regular updates and news of important events. Given how important the family is in shaping community life, it is not surprising that there is reason to take seriously the importance of family in shaping global politics, international relations, and grassroots development.

Family Analysis in IR Although there has been significant study of individuals and states in IR, there has not been much attention paid to the power and agency of families,

66

Centering Family in IR Studies

as a unit of analysis. Even though political scientists are aware of certain powerhouse families, such as the Kennedys or the Clintons in US politics, family units are rarely studied directly as a part of IR. However, the family has the ability to operate both nationally and transnationally, depending on patterns of migration and mobility. Although studies about crime have paid some attention to families in the Mafia or families involved in drug trafficking, which has a direct relationship to state security, the study of families has been largely left to sociologists, or other social scientists. Even when families are discussed in IR, the emphasis tends to be on the family as a collection of individuals, as dictated by a liberal tradition that defines the individual as the simplest unit for analysis. In the liberal tradition, families are viewed as a collection of individuals, with little effort to understand how families may be operating as a unit in ways that are irreducible to an individual-level analysis. The claim made here is that IR would benefit from attention to families as more than the sum of their individual members. Calhoun (1997) argued that nationalism encourages individuals not to understand themselves in the context of families, but rather through more abstract and impersonal categories: “It promotes categorical identities over relational ones, partly because nationalist discourse addresses large-scale collectivities in which most people could not conceivably enter into faceto-face relationships with most others” (46). This is absolutely not the case in the Garifuna nation. As previously mentioned, Garifuna communities imagine themselves as communities of families. Some feminist critiques call for the inclusion of the family in discussions of nationalism and the state. Haney and Pollard (2003) called for an analysis of the relationship between states and families. This is important because of the ways in which states have evoked the image of families and called for the action of families to meet various political ends: Sometimes the family has been deployed as a metaphor for imagining the state; at other times, the family has been used in more concrete terms as a model for state-building. At still other times, the family has been used to move state policies in new directions or as a vehicle for state goals. (Haney and Pollard 2003, 1) This manipulation of the family trope by the state is both gendered and racialized as in the mestizo, heteronormative family ideal of the Honduran state, discussed in the next chapter. Waltner and Maynes (2004) identified the household as a “key site where world-historical processes unfold” (48). Similar to Haney and Pollard (2003), Waltner and Maynes (2004) recognized that families are critical to the political projects of states and that “family relations have the capacity to uphold or undermine social and political order” (56). The authors linked global development to family activities:

Centering Family in IR Studies

67

World historical change involves the activities of families—that is, small groups linked by ties of marriage, descent, or adoption, normally constituting fluid coresidential households. Global encounters and major processes of global development are structured by systems of kinship— that is, socially recognized relationships between people in a particular culture who are (or are held to be) biologically related or who are given the status of relatives by marriage, adoption, or other ritual. (Waltner and Maynes 2004, 48) This statement highlights that family is not below or beyond the boundaries of state policies and politics; family relations are integral to them. This was certainly obvious in the presidential politics of Honduras, when the wife of ousted president Manuel Zelaya, Xiomara Castro, ran for president in the November 2013 elections (BBC News 2013). This is an important example, among multiple examples within Latin American states, in which the familial relations between men and women have had important implications for power and status within the state. Yuval-Davis (1997) noted this interdependence: In different societies and states, family affiliations and structures, especially within the elite, can determine more or less the structure and power relations in the state and civil society. When they do, then even those who are relatively powerless within the family, like women, can gain power positioning over the state as a whole and become queens or prime ministers. (92) This pattern can be seen throughout Latin America, dating back to the first female president in Latin America, Isabel Peron, who took over as president of Argentina (1974–1976) when her husband, three-time president Juan Domino Peron, died; the pattern continued with Mireya Moscoso, who was the widow of three-time president Arnulfo Arias before becoming president of Panama (1999–2004); and the recent president of Argentina (2007–present) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took over the presidency after her husband, Nestor Kirchner, left office (BBC News 2010). In their discussion of gender and nationalism in Latin America, Radcliffe and Rivers-Moore (2009) articulated how this trend is as much about gender as it is about race: “The association of femininity with national leadership in a small number of countries reflects the ongoing power of whiteness and urban identity that transcends gender, especially in more ethnically homogenous countries” (143). In this way, it is possible to see how the family unit can help us to understand the racialized and gendered politics of the state. Examining the relationship between family and state, Sinha (2004) called for an examination of how the family is appropriated by the state, in ways that both naturalize the family and invent the nation.

68

Centering Family in IR Studies The family—constructed as a ‘natural’ heterosexual and patriarchal unit—performs a variety of critical ideological services in the constitution of the nation. The first, perhaps most obvious, function is in representing the nation as an innate or organic community whose members, like those of the family, are constituted by ‘natural’ ties rather than by mere accident or choice. The familial imagery thus offers the ‘invented’ nation as a powerful legitimizing language of naturalization. In order to do so, however, the institution of the family itself is first removed from history and made into a timeless and natural unit of social organization. The family is thus depoliticized in the discourse of the nation; it is constructed as prior to history and thus immune to political challenge or to change. (247)

While Sinha described a family constructed as a patriarchal unit, the matrifocal Garifuna case demonstrates that there are alternative gendered constructions of the family. What does it mean to be a matrifocal society in a patriarchal state? Sinha (2004) explored multiple gendered roles, including the role of mothers, through which women can emerge as national actors. Collins (1998) convincingly argued that intersectional analysis can be used to understand the relationship between family and nation: “Intersectional approaches view institutionalized racism, social class relations, gender inequalities, and nationalism expressed on both sides of state power as analytical constructs that explain family organization in general, and Black family organization in particular” (27). In the next chapter, I examine shifts in nationalist gender roles “on both sides of state power” as Collins terms it, by looking at the interaction between gender norms within the matrifocal Garifuna society as they interact with the patriarchal Honduran state. Fouron and Schiller (2001) identified the importance of “women’s work” in the imagination of the nation: Household and family life are surveyed, disciplined, and inhabited by the political regime. Therefore, as people create family and household they produce gendered individuals whose activities, beliefs, and identities as women and men are part and parcel of the ways in which the nation is reproduced and its links to the state are re-envisioned. To the extent to which the family and home simultaneously are defined as women’s domains and the site of national honor and virtue, when women do women’s work, they become committed to the ideas and imagery that build the nation. (542) As described in Chapter 2, ereba-making is undoubtedly “women’s work.” However, it is also one of the most powerful symbols of Garifuna culture. This women’s work dominates rural Garifuna livelihoods. In this way, we can understand rural life as gendered, and centered around women’s households and women’s labor. Women organize the family for productive labor and shape

Centering Family in IR Studies

69

access to (political, social, and economic) opportunities outside of the household. This is why an analysis of the family in international studies has great potential for understanding how groups are working as a unit to achieve familial and community goals. The family needs to be studied because it introduces a level of nuance that is overlooked in discussions of agency and capability that do not address families. Ortner (2006) articulated the double-edged sword of social embeddedness such as that exemplified by families: On the one hand the agent is always embedded in relations of (would-be) solidarity: family, friends, kin, spouses or partners, children, parents, teachers, allies, and so forth. It is important to note this point because some of the critics of the agency concept, those who see agency as a bourgeois and individualistic concept, focus largely on the ways in which the concept appears to slight the ‘good’ embeddedness of agents, the contexts of solidarity that mitigate agency in its individualistic and selfish forms. On the other hand the agent is always enmeshed within relations of power, inequality, and competition. (130–131) Ortner (2006) highlighted the complexity of embedded agents with both positive and negative implications. Generalizations about the patriarchal and/or oppressive nature of family for women are not very useful for understanding the particularities of the Garifuna case. Not only is it an oversimplification that requires more nuanced analysis; in many cases, the generalizations are simply inaccurate. For many Garifuna couples, “sharing a home” does not imply living 12 months of the year in the same house. With the seasonal migration of many men for work on (fishing and tourism) boats, women spend significant portions of the year without their spouses in the same house. The men continue to consider these houses home; they do not consider the boats where they do seasonal work home. The couples see themselves as leading shared lives, even when one person is away for long durations. In these long-distance unions, women have significant power and control over family resources. Some scholars emphasize how women can be disadvantaged in “cooperative conflicts” that occur within a household. However, with the long history of male migration in the Garifuna community, women have had considerable control over the distribution and re-distribution of resources. Thus, these women often act as a hub that connects male migrants overseas to children in the country; the women are empowered through the interdependent web of the family and funnel resources on the basis of communal values. As such, Garifuna migration has reinforced the matrifocality of Garifuna society. While the idea of a “deprived” woman may be an accurate characterization of some scenarios, it is not appropriate for the discussion of Garifuna households.

70

Centering Family in IR Studies

Agarwal (2009) provided an alternative interpretation to the deprived woman who is disadvantaged by cooperative conflicts in family contexts: The idea that women tend not to have a clear perception of their individual interests in societies such as India—that is, that they suffer from a form of ‘false consciousness’, in effect making them complicit in perpetuating their unequal position—is interesting, but debatable. The empirical evidence that can be culled points more to the contrary. (165) In her own work, Agarwal (2009) linked property ownership to both the empowerment of women and the deterrence of male domestic violence: “Property ownership can therefore reduce her risk of suffering violence by increasing her economic security, reducing her tolerance of violence, and providing a potential escape route should violence occur” (171). Considering the importance that Agarwal has placed on property ownership in relation to female empowerment, we have reason to consider how cooperative conflicts might play out in Garifuna society, given women’s history of land ownership. What are the tensions between middle-aged women with significant power? How are younger women participating in power struggles? Collins (2000a) has argued the importance of the study of the tensions within a diverse and heterogeneous group of Black women: A Black women’s collective standpoint does exist, one characterized by the tensions that accrue to different responses to common challenges. Because it both recognizes and aims to incorporate heterogeneity in crafting Black women’s oppositional knowledge, this Black women’s standpoint eschews essentialism in favor of democracy. (28, emphasis in original) In recognizing the realities of the Black Garifuna woman, it is critical to analyze the family context in order to fully understand the creation of both shared goals and oppositional tensions. Such analysis need not oversimplify the complexities of the family unit. Instead, it should highlight both intersectional relations and the interaction between agency, structure, and power. As Schortman and Urban (2012) articulated, “Structure, agency, and power are thus interrelated in that political formations are continually taking shape and being challenged through the actions of individuals who manipulate the assets provided by the structure” (500). Black feminist analyses are instructive in navigating the complexities of the family unit in national and international studies.

Centering Family in IR Studies

71

Black Feminist Conceptualizations of Women A TBF approach understands Black feminist sensibilities and sensitivity to the critical importance of contextualized groups, or collectives. Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins (2000a) emphasized the importance of understanding the diverse and heterogeneous nature of Black women’s experiences: “Since Black feminist thought both arises within and aims to articulate a Black women’s group standpoint regarding experiences associated with intersecting oppressions, stressing this group standpoint’s heterogeneous composition is significant” (28, emphasis in original). Building upon the extensive (US-based) Black feminist tradition rooted (primarily) in the experiences of Black women in the US, this section explores similarities between the experiences of Black women in the US and Honduras, as well as differences. Black feminist scholarship supports the idea that analyzing women within the context of family relations is important. Collins (2000b) has articulated this analytical value as follows. Viewing African American families as the unit of analysis allows for construction of social class categories around actual historical material relations. Individuals may come and go, but the racial families that have been constructed from biological families persist across time. Using the individual as the unit of analysis elevates the importance of male income for Black political economy. But moving from individuals to families as another unit of social class analysis shifts the gender equation and makes women more central to class analysis. It also reveals the importance of collectively held, historical family assets to contemporary patterns of affluence and poverty. (50–51) Using families as the unit of analysis gives a different perspective than a focus on individuals. In the case of the Garinagu, it brings into view communal land titles, shared decision-making, and links between relatives in different locations that provide the family with a network of opportunities. A family analysis highlights different race and gender dynamics not only when engaging in economic class analysis, but also in broader analyses of development that include cultural and social development. Ereba-making is an important cultural activity that is at the center of rural Garifuna women’s agricultural work. It is also a mechanism through which women pass on ancestral traditions and stories to younger women. In both African American families in the US and Garifuna families of Honduras, the historical record demonstrates that examining agency at the level of the family captures critical information that would otherwise be lost in individual-level analyses. One example in Garifuna villages is the community response to the absence of men, typically for six to eight months at a time, working on fishing boats and cruise ships. When I initially asked

72

Centering Family in IR Studies

villagers about these extended absences, I expected to hear stories of despair about the difficulty of surviving without men because of gender-differentiated tasks, especially in relation to field cultivation. Instead, I heard the following comments about male absence in the community. Camila said, “There are always men [here] for whatever emergencies,” suggesting that the absence of particular men was not a major event. When I asked village men, I received similar responses. Sebastian said, “We [men] leave but not for much time, sometimes for three, four, or five months maximum. Afterwards, we return to our community.” Matias told me, “There are some that leave. There are others that stay here. So, the women, when the men aren’t here, well, things always go well because we [men] help when we are away. We send them money as a means to survive.” The question of men’s presence or absence was treated in a very casual manner. In interviews and discussions, community members consistently emphasized the fact that not all the men would leave the community at the same time, suggesting that male absences were coordinated at the family level, if not community level, to minimize disruption. Many people said if a husband was absent, brothers, cousins, uncles, or other family members (on the woman’s side or on the man’s side) would “fill in” while the man was away. Thus, land cultivation is managed by the family, not by an individual. Other male family members handle gender-specific activities in the absence of a particular male, in order for the absence to have minimal impact. For the rural, Garifuna family, working the land is of primary importance. In the past, a family could sustain itself through a combination of farming (organized primarily by women) and fishing (done primarily by men). As villagers have become increasingly dependent on goods from the city, it is no longer the case that villagers live entirely off the land. However, many of them continue to identify the agricultural work they do as their primary profession. Especially for the women, who are often dependent on the sale of ereba that is the end product of their agricultural work, money from sales provides economic empowerment equivalent to wage work. It allows them to send their children to cities for education, which is one of the top priorities of villagers.

Black Feminist Anthropologists Writing about Black Brazilians In considering Black feminist traditions of engaging international studies, I found that there was significant recent scholarship on Brazil that embodied the TBF principles. Although I have not seen this anthropological work heavily cited in IR, this body of work represents an example for a potentially emergent Black feminist tradition in IR. Why link to the work of Black feminist anthropologists? It is because the group of feminists to whom I refer understands that our project is distinct from individualist scholarly pursuits. We are engaged in a deep learning about our own condition in the US (academy and society) through our research engagement with groups of Black women (and their communities) throughout the Black diaspora. At the same

Centering Family in IR Studies

73

time, we are educating ourselves (and others in the US) about parallel histories and struggles, all too often ignored in an ethnocentric and imperialistic US education. There are two distinct points that I am making here related to the question of family. First, this writing process intends to mark a specific scholarly community (or family) among Black feminists, including and especially between Black feminist anthropologists and sociologists and Black feminists in disciplines where Black feminist theory is less likely to be valued and respected (e.g., international relations).4 Second, Black feminist anthropologists are closing the (perceived) gap between themselves and the Black Brazilian women about whom they write, resulting in a familial closeness, rooted in solidarity in struggles against oppression. In both of these contexts, the relevant family is not formed by blood or marriage. Instead, family is being created through shared commitments to struggle. Within that creation of family, there is revolutionary potential. Referring to her book, Black Women Against the Land Grab, Perry (2013) wrote, “My focus on the gendered dimension of black women’s activism forces us to rethink black resistance, as well as reconsider how blacks offer alternative views on how African diasporic communities operate and should operate” (xvii). Thus, scholars outside of Black feminist traditions should understand that Black feminist scholarly projects are not focused exclusively on the academy. There is much more at stake in these engagements that seek to understand and remedy historical and ongoing forms of oppression. In the first sense of naming a Black feminist scholarly family, it is critical that academics within various disciplines understand that Black feminists are writing to and with each other in a way that cuts across disciplinary borders and boundaries, while also informing multiple disciplinary fields. This is out of necessity. We are collectively asserting that racism is best understood trans-disciplinarily and transnationally. Even if one is to understand racism in the US, including how it is experienced in the US academy, one must be able to locate the US within a broader geopolitical context. As a Black feminist community, we further insist that our experiences, and those of the Black women whom we are engaging in our studies, are best understood through an intersectional lens that takes into account race, gender, class, and other axes within a matrix of domination that oppresses people globally. Thus, if we are to understand something about the context from which we write as US-based Black feminists, we must engage in a broad-based conversation about race and gender. In Black Women Against Land Grab, Perry (2013) wrote, “Despite critiques maintaining that American black scholars can understand the reality of race and racism from only a U.S. perspective, this book defends 4

In an early review of this manuscript, I was given the feedback, “Brazil should be dropped.” I responded, “This community of Black feminist scholars (and their relationships to the Black women about whom they write) exemplify the transnational Black feminist tradition that I aim to write into the international relations canon. Without them (and the Black women’s experiences they honor through their collective works), there is no book.”

74

Centering Family in IR Studies

the possibility of discussing gendered race and racism within a diasporic continuum” (xiv).5 In this statement, we understand that a Black feminist anthropological perspective is necessarily a transnational perspective. In Afro-Paradise, Christen A. Smith (2016) wrote about “necessarily diasporic processes, lending a transnational perspective to our discussion of Afro-paradise. In other words, scenarios of racial contact, through transtemporal violence, link one moment and time in the black Atlantic experience to another” (12). In articulating the commonalities between violence against Black people in the US and Brazil, as well as engaging diasporic links through her own travel to Brazil as a Black woman, she highlighted the transnational. She also explicitly named her connection to other “activist anthropologists” and her intent to “decolonize anthropology as a field” (27). Scholarly family is significant and worthy of being named. Erica Lorraine Williams (2013) wrote about being “deeply influenced by feminist anthropology, queer studies, and activist anthropology” (9). This manuscript calls in (rather than calls out)6 the transnational Black feminist family, knowing that the naming of an explicit tradition assists in the work of decolonizing multiple disciplines from within. Second, we can understand the “family” being created between Black feminist anthropologists and the Black Brazilian women whom they engage in their research. Perry (2013) articulated “the need for international solidarity with grassroots movements throughout the black diaspora. Research and writing on social movements are crucial aspects of waging struggle” (xx). Scholars are thus critical companions in the struggle of contemporary social movements. In Negras in Brazil, Caldwell (2007) outlined the complexities of doing research in African diasporic communities as a person with shared heritage. The field experiences of anthropologists of African descent who conduct research in African diaspora communities highlight the challenges and possibilities of moving from the symbolic ideal of diaspora to the concrete realities of diaspora. While the symbolic ideal of diaspora involves the imaginative task of envisioning a transnational community of belonging, the concrete realities of diaspora point to the difficult work of making the ‘imagined’ real, in political and existential terms. In many ways, anthropologists of African descent enact our beliefs in the imagined community of the African diaspora through our scholarly endeavors. Field research takes this act of faith one step 5

6

I would adjust this statement to say USAmerican, or estadounidense, since it is quite important when we are working in the Americas as Black feminists from the US to not take up so much space as to push out the fact that South and Central America are part of the Americas. Even within the context of North America, too often Mexico is often excluded as not quite northern enough. I have reproductive justice scholar-activist Loretta Ross to thank for introducing me to a “calling in” practice that avoids the typical antagonism of scholarly and activist debate. Instead of the public shaming of a “call out” culture, Ross (2019) advocates for a “call in” culture rooted in love.

Centering Family in IR Studies

75

further by inserting us into the communities which are considered to be part of the African diaspora. By embracing transnational notions of diasporic belonging, anthropologists of African descent often display a common identification with populations that we study. (xxi–xxii) Simultaneously belonging and being an outsider heightens the understanding of intra-group heterogeneity among and inter-group diversity between Black communities. In many ways we have to be more attuned to our biases doing such research, so that we can disentangle experiences and assumptions of our own communities from those that we study. At the same time, we often have access to firsthand experiences in the context of fieldwork that highlight the structural racism and sexism that is critical to our understanding of struggles faced across diverse Black communities. Caldwell (2007) encouraged other anthropologists to build upon the advantage created by this access. I would urge diasporic anthropologists to take advantage of the situated ethnographic knowledge afforded by our positioning as scholars of African descent. Moments of insiderness and outsiderness provide rich insights into the cultural, social, and political dimensions of African diaspora communities. Moreover, in our attempts to develop socially and politically engaging academic projects, it is crucial that diasporic anthropologists recognize how the specificities of our personal identities position us vis-à-vis our research populations and in the societies that we study. Reflexive examination of our multiple identities and positionalities is essential to developing theory and practice that is informed by and relevant to the realities of African diaspora communities. (xxii) Our shared heritage and experiences mark our familial insiderness. Our privilege and mobility as scholars marks our outsiderness. Of course, even within biological families, there can be a sense of outsiderness. Often, our closest bonds are with those individuals and groups with whom we share a political conviction. As Smith (2016) articulated, the connection is “not simply based on historical ties to the African diaspora or our skin color and shared African features, but because of our shared, expressed political convictions” (212). In that way, a transnational Black feminist engagement goes beyond simple embodiment, and affirms a political commitment to shared struggle. Inspired by a scholarly family of transnational Black feminists doing research in solidarity with Black activists of the diaspora, the next section describes how a TBF analysis transforms the ways we understand family. It is hoped that this articulation will encourage more IR scholars to center the family as a relevant and important unit of analysis in their work.

76

Centering Family in IR Studies

TBF Analysis of Family In the above sections, I have described some of the nuances of family construction and socialization in the Garifuna communities of Iriona, highlighted how family analyses have been engaged in international relations, and examined how Black feminists conceive of and engage with heterogeneous groups of Black women. With that context, we can consider what a TBF framework contributes to the discussion of the family. Below I outline how each of the guiding principles enhanced my research process in the Garifuna villages of Honduras. The outcome has been that although I went to Honduras shortly after my father passed away, which created a crisis of home and family for me, I exited fieldwork with a much more expansive understanding of the concept of family and home, rooted in these principles. TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge (2016) identified six core ideas that are central to intersectional frameworks: social inequality, power, relationality, social context, complexity, and social justice. One of the reasons that I initially went to Iriona, Honduras is because a number of Garifuna people had indicated to me that Iriona was the home (and heart) of Garifuna culture. Having read about consanguineal (i.e., women-centered and intergenerational) households (Kerns 1983), I had some idea of the social context I would be entering. People warned7 me about the basic living. I expected to witness Black women empowered in the context of everyday community life, in the greater context of a white, patriarchal state. In many ways, Iriona did not disappoint. The cassava cooperatives were led by women, sometimes in collaboration with men, but always with definitive power for women. Even when the leadership was male, there was considerable participation and leadership by women. However, in this particular context, one needed to also examine closely nuances in power to fully explore intersectional difference. One of the first things I noticed was the extent to which organizations were an extension of families. The “Fish to Cassava” cooperative in Carmona, for example, was formed by a group of cousins. Once I understood that the organizational structures were mapped onto familial structures, I had to interpret organizational dynamics as an extension of family relations. This was critical to my ability to understand relational dynamics within organizations. The organizations were not simply locations for work. People would see the same people at a family funeral on the weekend as they would in their cooperative farming. This created deeper commitments and impacted power dynamics. There were married couples working together in organizations, and the relative power of women in the context of family life 7

It was clear that people assumed, probably because I was coming from the US, that I was accustomed to regular access to electricity and other creature comforts. Many people were concerned that I would not be able to stay in Iriona because of the simpler living standards and lack of access to a number of amenities.

Centering Family in IR Studies

77

transferred to organizational power in these family-based work structures. When the wife of the male president of “Fish to Cassava” became ill and needed financial support to seek medical care in the city, her husband advocated for a loan from the cooperative and her relatives supported the decision. In many ways the deep, caring relationships of the group seemed ideal. When attending to the question of social inequality, however, it was clear that the structure disadvantaged younger Garifuna women. In the same way that the relative power of the female household head translated to organizational power, the lack of familial power of the younger Garifuna female child resulted in minimal organizational power for young Garifuna women, surrounded by older relatives. In an organizational structure that was not rooted in family relations, this same young woman might have had an opportunity to demonstrate superior leadership skills as compared with older colleagues. Thus, it was through an intersectional framework that I came to understand the importance of attention to age (or generation) in the context of the rural Garifuna agrarian work of the galpones. As I came to understand the complexity of these relational, power-laden, and overlapping social contexts, the social justice implications became clear. Although I was a younger Black woman, I had some power because I entered from the US with prestige (in the form of a university affiliation), mobility (represented by my movement between Honduran villages and cities), and resources (exemplified by my ability to rent an entire house without others living with me). Given this awareness, what was my obligation to highlight this inequality, and possibly shift it? At the very least, I knew that it would be important to deepen my relationships with the younger Garifuna women, so that I could understand what they wanted and needed. It was at this point when I was sure that I had to include interviews with the children of the ereba makers as part of my research. Considerations of the young Garifuna women of Iriona continue to inform ongoing academic and justice-oriented engagements. TBF Principle #2: Solidarity When I had completed my dissertation research, it was critically important for me to consider ways to remain connected to the Garifuna women of Iriona. Early in my time in the region, I had been told about past researchers who had come, gotten what they needed for their projects, and left without returning. An older Garifuna woman had leaned toward me, finger pointing at me, and let me know she expected more from me (as a young Black woman). Having gained a deep understanding of the (socially constructed, transnational, and diasporic) Garifuna family, I realized that there would be expectations that would follow me home. There are many Garifuna people in the port cities of the US (most notably Bronx, NY, Los Angeles, CA, and New Orleans, LA) because of the many men who work in various careers on (shipping, fishing, and cruise) boats. I had become family in Iriona, and I would return to the US as an integral part of several families.

78

Centering Family in IR Studies

In Cuenca, I had become family with Emma and her children Benjamin and Nicole. Nicole was close to my age, but other than that we didn’t have much in common. Benjamin had helped to exterminate the bats from the house where I stayed. Emma was divorced, and without the educational benefits that her younger brothers received with the support of the whole family. Before leaving, I asked her what would help her most, what she wanted most of the years she had left. Her concerns were with her children, and her biggest anxiety was her ability to pay for Benjamin’s education. From the US, I sent her money for school fees until Benjamin had completed schooling in the village, at which point he went to live in the city with his brother.8 In Zafra, I became family with Sofia and her daughter. They made sure that I had daily meals when I was outside of my home village of Cuenca, which was a big deal since there were no local restaurants that were reliably open. Sofia connected me to all the women who were part of my research in Zafra, often walking me to their homes and encouraging them to be part of the study. Her only request when I left was that I call periodically, and stay connected. Our connection is well known in the community, as she brags about having an “American daughter.” She has my number in case anyone wants to reach me. Since my fieldwork has ended, I have helped to pay for important medical visits and treatment for my “Aunt Sofia” and her daughter. Also, I am supporting the education of her niece, who was a child in the village at the time of my research and often walked me to the distant houses of women I was interviewing. As I am writing this chapter, she is continuing her education in the city, where she resides with Sofia’s daughter. Another new family member was one of the daughters of a Cuenca resident. When I travelled to the city in order to write and give updates to my dissertation committee in the US, I would connect with Lara. Lara, who was my age, was not part of my study. She was a lawyer and activist, and helped me to think through challenges in the village. Our friendship has persisted, even though the Honduran corruption that severely limited her professional prospects has driven her from her home country. In her new place of residence, she is without the documentation that would provide a lot of educational and work opportunities. However, she has decided to start again in this place. Using her Spanish and Garifuna language skills, my friend has been a transcriptionist and translator for my ongoing research, which has provided her with much-needed financial support. We plan to co-author Spanish-language journal articles in the future. Defining solidarity “in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse 8

Some will see this action as not supportive of women because it resulted in the transfer of a benefit to a young boy. However, this chapter intends to highlight the indivisibility of the family unit, even amidst social inequalities. Many of the village women worked primarily to send children—boys and girls—to school. Being able to support Emma’s efforts to support her son’s education allowed her some financial, physical, and emotional respite.

Centering Family in IR Studies

79

communities” (Mohanty 2003), it is possible to understand how the above deeds represent acts of solidarity. First, mutuality is embodied in the fact that all of these relationships were (and are) rooted in reciprocal care and compassion that began in Honduras. We “became family” because of the ways in which we were responding to one another’s needs with care. Second, we are accountable to one another, in part, because of how we hold different levels of power and influence in our communities. As I continue to be engaged with the rural villages of Iriona, these women help me to keep my promise not to be another researcher who grabs the data and runs. They stand to substantiate or denounce my research “findings” and are aware of how and where I am presenting information about the community. I am holding them accountable in the sense that I am pushing them to consider deeply how we might change the relative vulnerability of younger Garifuna women. The common interest is to create a world where Black women and our communities can thrive. TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism As mentioned above, families are often critically important in determining one’s access and mobility. In this chapter, I have described two kinds of family in which I am implicated. The first is the family of Black feminists (especially anthropologists) who embody a scholar-activist engagement. In this way, I am calling them into the IR family into which I have been indoctrinated, so that their more expansive and liberatory practices may become part of IR research praxis.9 Second, I am naming the Garifuna women who became family during my fieldwork in Honduras. Tying together our fates and trajectories, I am ensuring that the academy serves them as it serves me. My Garifuna family is not just the subject of research; they are research assistants, translators, guides, interpreters, and (future) co-authors. In that way, I have expanded my identity as a scholar to include a new collective voice, a Garifuna familial voice through which Garifuna women may share their experiences with the US academy by using my credentials and access. Thus, family is doubly implicated in how I am engaging the principle of scholar-activism. TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries Because of the ways that “family” connects me to other locations, I am acutely aware of the inadequacy of the “international” in identifying, analyzing, or acknowledging family as articulated here. Linda Carty and Monisha Das Gupta (2009) describe the limitations of an international framework as follows: 9

In call-and-response traditions, one does not always know whether the audience will respond. In this predominately white, US-centric context, there is some risk of rejection when calling in this community of Black feminist anthropologists in this public way. My hope is that the response will reverberate throughout other academic disciplines in a way that creates greater community and freedom for Black feminist scholar-activists across disciplines.

80

Centering Family in IR Studies The international conceptually expresses a scale and level that stands above nations, which remain discretely cordoned-off spaces defined through political sovereignty. The international realm continues to be tied to the development of the modern nation-state, which in the West was powered by slavery, industrial capitalism, and colonialism. Thus, the term international remains invested in the mythical intactness of the nation-state and legitimizes various types of violence by accepting sovereignty as axiomatic. International does not capture the transformations of the nation-state wrought by cross-border flows of labor, capital, information, culture, laws, rights, and social justice agendas. (100)

The TBF framework enacts and engages notions of (chosen) family that challenge and disrupt state borders and boundaries. In that way, the “transnational” is privileged over the “international.” Carty and Das Gupta (2009) wrote: In our mind, transnational feminism, to be effective, has to foster a political consciousness about the salience of borders to understand and respond to the interpenetrations that confound the boundedness of national spaces and the political markers of the nation-state. (101) In this way, the TBF framework claims a politicized notion of (chosen) family that intends to redistribute privileges and access traditionally linked to state citizenship and/or residence. TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality What I know from talking to others who have done ethnographic work is that many of us are transformed by it. That transformation comes not from what we seek to learn, but from what we incidentally learn about ourselves in the process. The journey to Honduras came at a time when I was vulnerable, shortly after my father had died. In a way, I needed family and the Garifuna women of Iriona took in a woman whose pain and sorrow they could likely sense. Maybe they saw me in the mornings, facing the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, talking to my father and the Ancestors who I hope are caring for him. Too many people in the US have made comments to me about how “nice” (i.e., charitable) it is that I have kept in touch with the “poor women of Honduras.” I want to be clear that there is no charity involved. The women who have become family supported me through one of the most challenging periods of my life. We have continued to support each other, not out of obligation, but rather because we are family.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have described family as operationalized in the rural Garifuna villages of Honduras, explored how families are engaged in the discipline of IR,

Centering Family in IR Studies

81

and articulated Black feminist conceptualizations of Black women. In particular, I have highlighted how Black feminist anthropologists writing about Brazil can be understood as a distinct scholarly family—one which I intend to extend beyond the world of anthropology. Further, they are writing with Black women in a way that might be understand as creating (chosen) family. In this way, the concept of family is important both in understanding the community of scholars who embody a TBF framework and their relationships with Black women (and their communities) with whom they do research. In considering the contribution of a TBF framework to our understanding of family, an intersectional analysis of families becomes critically important when familial and organizational structures overlap. In some cases, a kind of solidarity is central to the creation of family. The TBF framework engages people in the contexts of their (birth and chosen) families, leveraging their positional power in the development of relationships that are mutually beneficial, accountable, and rooted in common interests. The family, thus, becomes a site for solidarity-building and scholar-activism, as traditional academic boundaries are challenged by the emergence of researcher-researched “familial” connection. Ultimately, such connections challenge the limiting bounds of the international and privilege the transnational, cutting across states. Even in the midst of new family configurations, a radically transparent positionality demands an interrogation of power and privilege, especially during moments of vulnerability. In the next chapter, I explore contributions of a TBF framework beyond familial bonds by examining the Garifuna nation in the context of a Honduran state.

References Agarwal, Bina. 2009. “Engaging with Sen on Gender Relations: Cooperative Conflicts, False Perceptions and Relative Capabilities.” In Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen, Volume II: Society, Institutions, and Development. Edited by Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur, 157–177. New York: Oxford University Press. BBC News. 2010. “The Women Presidents of Latin America.” BBC News. Accessed February 6, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11447598. BBC News. 2013. “Honduras Election: Hernandez Declared Winner.” BBC News. Accessed February 5, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25132240. Caldwell, Kia Lilly. 2007. Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Calhoun, Craig. 1997. Nationalism. Minneapolis, MN: Open University Press. Carty, Linda and Monisha Das Gupta. 2009. “Solidarity Work in Transnational Feminism: The Question of Class and Location.” In Activist Scholarship: Antiracism, Feminism, and Social Change. Edited by Julia Sudbury and Margo OkazawaRey, 95–110. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. “Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation: Some Implications for Black Family Studies.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring): 24–36.

82

Centering Family in IR Studies

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000a. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Second Edition. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000b. “Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy.” The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science: The Study of African American Problems: W.E.B. Du Bois 568 (March): 41–53. Collins, Patricia Hill and Sirma Bilge. 2016. Intersectionality. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Fouron, Georges and Nina Glick Schiller. 2001. “All in the Family: Gender, Transnational Migration, and the Nation-State.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 7(4): 539–582. Hall, Kia M. Q. 2017. “Introducing Joint Capabilities: Findings from a Study of Development in Honduras’ Garifuna Ancestral Villages.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 18(1): 60–74. Haney, Lynne and Lisa Pollard, eds. 2003. Families of a New World: Gender, Politics, and State Development in a Global Context. New York: Routledge. Kerns, Virginia. 1983. Women and the Ancestors: Black Carib Kinship and Ritual. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ortner, Sherry B. 2006. Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power and the Acting Subject. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Perry, Keisha-Khan. 2013. Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Radcliffe, Sarah A. and Megan Rivers-Moore. 2009. “Gender and Nationalism in Latin America: Thoughts on Recent Trends.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 9 (1): 139–145. Ross, Loretta. 2019. “I’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call Out Culture is Toxic.” New York Times. Accessed August 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/op inion/sunday/cancel-culture-call-out.html. Schortman, Edward M. and Patricia A. Urban. 2012. “Enacting Power Through Networks.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31: 500–512. Sinha, Mrinalini. 2004. “Gender and Nation.” In Women’s History in Global Perspective, Volume 1. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith, 229–274. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Smith, Christen A. 2016. Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence and Performance in Brazil. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Waltner, Ann B. and Mary Jo Maynes. 2004. “Family History as World History.” In Women’s History in Global Perspective, Volume 1. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith, 48– 91. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Williams, Erica Lorraine. 2013. Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender & Nation. London: Sage Publications.

4

Honduran Garifuna Nation A Black Matrifocal Society in a Mestizo Patriarchal State

If we are to understand the leaders of everyday rural community work in the Garifuna villages of Iriona, Honduras, we must understand that those leaders are mothers. The ereba makers are women who labor from before sunrise until sundown for the futures of the community children. The ancestral ereba traditions are a legacy connecting foremothers to granddaughters through mothers. Garifuna lives and traditions represent a form of resistance to oppression, past and future, and that resistance is led by mothers in ancestral villages along the coast, who embody a kind of “revolutionary mothering.” As Williams (2016) described, “Some mothers stand on the shoreline, are born and reborn here, inside the flux of time and space, overcoming the traumatic repetition of oppression. Our very existence is disobedience to the powers that be” (41). The ereba mothers have been struggling for generations in order to secure a better life for the community. In Chapter 2, I provided some historical context for how the Garinagu came to be living in what is today known as the state of Honduras. This chapter explores more deeply the challenges of a Black matrifocal indigenous nation in the context of a mestizo patriarchal state. The first section focuses on the “banana years” during which multinational fruit companies played a crucial role in shaping the racialized and gendered nature of wage labor. Anti-Black legislation and sentiments in the Honduran state mark the historical marginalization of Black (Garifuna and non-Garifuna) citizens and residents. Next, I look at race, ethnicity, and nationalism, since this chapter confronts the particular challenges of a Garifuna nation in a Honduran state. In this section, the two most prominent Honduran Garifuna organizations are introduced. Both have advocated for Garifuna rights and privileges in the context of the Honduran state and beyond. The following section highlights human rights challenges during state emergencies, from Hurricane Mitch to the 2009 government coup d’état. In particular, this section focuses on the increased vulnerability of marginalized communities during such times. Finally, I end by outlining the contribution of a TBF framework in understanding these complex realities.

84

A Black Matrifocal Society

Racialized and Gendered Hierarchies in the Banana Republic Given that Honduras is often referred to as the quintessential banana republic, it is important to discuss the role of multinational fruit companies in shaping Honduran labor, identity, and culture. Enloe (1989) characterized the “banana republics” as: countries whose land and soul are in the clutches of a foreign company, supported by the might of its own government. A banana republic’s sovereignty has been so thoroughly compromised that it is the butt of jokes, not respect. It has a government, but it is staffed by people who line their own pockets by doing the bidding of the overseas corporation and its political allies. (133) This describes the economic and political entanglements of the Honduran government during the heyday of the multinational fruit companies. The 1870s and 1880s marked the beginning of considerable foreign investment by mining and fruit companies, encouraged by state concessions (Rosenberg 1986, 4). Even when working to exploit the vast natural richness of the country, “economists have declared that Honduras is rich in natural resources but has been unable to harness those resources to its own collective benefit” (Gold 2009, xi). The banana companies are typical of this relationship of underdevelopment and exploitation, with their history of “buying off, threatening, and manipulating national governments as aggressively as they initially seized the lands of peasants who resisted their incursions” (Frank 2005a, 11). In spite of increasing banana production over a period of decades, Honduras’ profits were minimal: As their giant plantations spread across the North Coast, and the company’s control of internal transportation and foreign shipping soon monopolized the industry, the companies extracted further concessions. Until the onset of the Great Depression in 1930s, bananas were the chief Honduran export, but given the concessions, brought little prosperity to the country. (Leonard 2011, 5) In the early years of banana production, the Garinagu acted as small-scale producers who would sell to the large fruit companies that eventually overtook smaller Honduran producers: “In the 1890s, approximately one hundred Honduran producers of bananas emerged. However, aided by support from the Honduran state and by greater access to capital, three North American companies took complete control of the banana export production by 1911” (McKelvey 1999, 197). When the fruit companies began to buy land for banana plantations, the Garinagu continued their relationship with the fruit

A Black Matrifocal Society

85

companies as preferred laborers (England 2006, 42). These corporations played an important role in characterizing and racializing Garifuna labor. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Garifuna began to be referred to as morenos, both by the Honduran state and in documents produced by the fruit companies. England (2010) described the use of the term as follows: In much of Latin America the term moreno, meaning brown, is used as a polite way to refer to Afro-Latinos without actually calling them black. It places one on the colour continuum somewhere near the bottom but with the suggestion that there is some mixture on the way to whiteness. (201) The Garinagu were thus identified as moreno on the banana plantations. They constituted a significant part of the workforce at the height of banana production in the country: In 1915 morenos—a term commonly applied to Black Caribs in Central America—made up ten percent of the Standard Fruit Company’s employees. In 1929 out of the 5,125 employees of the Trujillo Railroad Company, 463 (or nine percent) were described by the company as Honduran Caribs. This was near the peak of the Honduran banana industry. (Taylor 2012, 156) The fruit companies used racial designations to develop a hierarchy for different types of workers, and began importing Black West Indians because of a shortage of Black labor that was supposedly better suited to hard work in tropical conditions (England 2006, 42). The recruitment of Black laborers occurred throughout Central American plantations along the Atlantic coast: Most of the workers on the Atlantic plantations were black, and lynch law reigned with perfect impunity to silence individual bursts of rage against white managers as well as collective worker actions. Labor conflict predictably took shape along divisions of race. (Forster 1998, 200) The Black, English-speaking laborers were given preferable jobs as crew heads (England 2006, 42). England (2006) described the positions that were considered suitable for the Garifuna laborer as follows: “They were hired in positions that would have made the accumulation of wealth difficult, positions that enabled them to maintain their valued positions as ‘good labor’ but did not enable them to engage in capitalist entrepreneurship” (43). The entrepreneurial work that shaped the Garifuna community’s early experience as smallscale banana farmers from the 1870s to the 1890s was made impossible with the dominance of the fruit companies in the 1910s: “Their very presence also retarded the emergence of an independent entrepreneurial class in the

86

A Black Matrifocal Society

country” (Rosenberg 1986, 5). Garinagu were thus marginalized as good workers but incapable entrepreneurs. The fruit companies were not only interested in the labor relations that directly impacted them; they involved themselves in all aspects of government: “The companies became deeply involved in national political life, encouraging influence-peddling by unscrupulous politicians while making direct payoffs to legislators, presidents, and military officials” (Rosenberg 1986, 5). Euraque (1998) argued that as a response to the lack of control over state affairs, Honduran elites aimed to control the one thing they were empowered to control—the vision for Honduran national identity: Elites in Tegucigalpa, and especially within the Honduran state, were too weak politically and economically to challenge or reject foreign capital; thus they attempted to reassert their dominance, at least in the ideological sphere, by asserting a national identity based on a homogenous Honduran mestizo race (which included or blended in native descendants or black slaves, the pardos and mulattos) but excluding black West Indian immigrants brought in by the banana companies, and the indigenous north coast Garifuna populations, or the morenos, as they continued to be called into the 1930s and 1940s, and well into the 1960s. (Euraque 2007, 100) Evidence of this manipulation of the Honduran national identity, in response to the dominance of foreign fruit companies, can be seen in the implementation of immigration laws. Anti-Black Legislation and Sentiments From the 1910s to the 1930s, there was an anti-immigration legislation trend that can be linked to both a vision of a racially homogenous, mestizo country and the rise of the banana industry on Honduras’ north coast. Euraque (1998) made the following argument: The anti-immigration legislation of 1929 and 1934, as well as antiblack labor legislation introduced into Congress between 1923 and 1925, must be seen in the context of changes in the way the government counted and classified the population—eliminating entire categories of people and reducing Honduran ethnicities to an all-encompassing mestizo—and in the context of intellectuals’ and politicians’ attempts to define the nation for themselves and for the population in a way that reaffirmed Honduran identity in a society and economy increasingly dominated by foreigners. The legislation established the racial and ethnic parameters for the acceptable homogenous, mestizo Honduras, thus also flattening a more complicated narrative of twentieth-century Honduran history. (152)

A Black Matrifocal Society

87

The 1929 immigration legislation required a $2,500 deposit from undesired ethnic and racial groups entering the countries, including Blacks; article 14 of the Immigration Law of 1934 prohibited the entry of specific racial and ethnic groups, again including Blacks (Euraque 2007, 100). As the Honduran government fortified a mestizo vision of Honduran identity, in response to increasing foreign control over the national economy, both legislation and census categories changed to conform to that vision. Racial distinctions that existed in 1910, for example between ladinos and mestizos, had disappeared by the 1930s. Euraque (1998) discussed the distinction between these racial categories: The distinction between ladino and mestizo is important for a number of reasons. During the colonial period ladino implied a heterogeneity, inherited from the first years of the conquest, that included a range of mestizos, that is, racially mixed peoples. (154) By eliminating the ladino category in favor of the category of mestizo on the census, the Honduran government helped with the blanqueamiento, or whitening, process of the country. As the mestizo category took on greater significance in terms of the designation of a racially homogenous state, the type of people included in the category narrowed: “Mestizo slowly came to represent a particular kind of ‘mixed’ person, that is, a person of ‘Indian’ and ‘Spanish’ miscegenation and hence different from the broader range of miscegenation suggested by ladino” (Euraque 1998, 155). The creation of a mestizo Honduran state is linked to the interaction between the residents of Honduras’ north coast and the transnational fruit companies: “The emergence of a mestizo Honduras in official census data reflects a transformation that took place in the imagination of the country’s official elites, a transformation tied to social, political, and economic events on Honduras’s north coast” (Euraque 1998, 155). Ultimately, the racialization of Garinagu as moreno within the fruit company labor hierarchies distinguished the Garinagu as a different kind of Honduran resident. Simultaneously, there were events external to the fruit companies that contributed to anti-Black sentiment in Honduras: In 1925 presidential candidate General Tiburcio Carías Andino pledged to oppose immigration of Black workers to the north coast; the 1929 Immigration Law discouraged Black immigration; in 1930, the Klu Klux Klan was established in San Pedro Sula, the north coast’s industrial center; and in the same year an immigration office was established, in part to help promote white immigration (Euraque 1998, 158–159). Although the intended target of much of the anti-Black legislation was the West Indian immigrant, it had a negative impact on native Garinagu, who were the victims of border patrols aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration:

88

A Black Matrifocal Society Many Honduran authorities based black identity solely on phenotype and did not consider the complex historical and cultural realities of class and color in the Caribbean. Therefore, it was inconceivable for some authorities to distinguish the Garífuna from the West Indian, despite the clear ethnic and cultural distinctions between the two groups. (Chambers 2010, 132)

In this way, the construction of a mestizo state made a Black indigenous Garifuna Honduran unimaginable. Further, there was also an attempt to erase the important role of Blacks in the history of Honduras. By the 1930s and 1940s, the histories of municipalities that were initially primarily Black settlements began to be displaced amidst the promotion of mestizaje (Euraque 2007, 90). Honduran national identity was increasingly embodied by an “all encompassing indo-Hispanic mestizo” (Euraque 2007, 101). This identity excluded Black people generally, and thus marginalized the native Honduran Garifuna population. Simultaneously, many Garifuna people were rejecting their own classification as moreno by the state and by multinational fruit companies, to join with a broader Black population in a struggle against racism. England (2010) wrote, “Unlike moreno, negro is used by Garifuna as a conscious political, cultural and racial identification with the African diaspora” (England 2010, 202). A Woman’s Touch In addition to constructing racialized work divisions, the banana plantations were also gendered labor contexts. Enloe (1989) described the plantations as being built upon “alliances between men of different complementary interests: businessmen and male officials of the importing countries on the one hand, and male landowners and government officials of the exporting countries on the other” (128). With mestizo men as the power holders and architects of a racialized and gendered Honduran workforce, there were clearly defined roles: “To clear the land and harvest the bananas they decided they needed a male workforce, sustained at a distance by women as prostitutes, mothers and wives” (128). The plantations were thus created with men as the focal point, and women as part of the periphery. Enloe (1989) described how executives imagined the plantation workforce: Banana-company executives imagined that most of the jobs on their plantations could be done by men. Banana plantations were carved out of wooded acres. Clearing the brush required workers who could use a machete, live in rude barracks, and who, once the plantation’s trees were bearing fruit, could chop down the heavy bunches and carry them to central loading areas and from there to the docks, to be loaded by the ton on to refrigerator ships. This was men’s work. (133–134)

A Black Matrifocal Society

89

Women represented the unpaid and sexual labor required for the plantation work to go smoothly (Enloe 1989, 137). Enloe (1989) argued that the masculine space of the banana plantation created a pride all men felt: Even male banana workers employed by a foreign company that, in alliance with local élites, had turned their country into a proverbial banana republic, could feel some pride. … Whether a smallholder or a plantation employee, a banana man was a man. (135, emphasis in original) Even if united in their male-ness, there were certainly racial differences in how men understood their roles in the labor hierarchy. Thus, the gendered labor hierarchies to which Enloe (1989) referred also had important racial dimensions. England (2006) described how the “placement” of the Garinagu within the labor hierarchy is inextricably linked to race. In Central America, multinational fruit companies depended on racialized assessments of different labor pools to determine which jobs would be given to whom. They saw Garifuna men as ‘good labor’ because of their association with Black West Indians and willingness to work for wages. Though they were a preferred workforce, Garifuna were hired only in certain capacities, limiting their chances of becoming significant capitalist entrepreneurs or landowners. This same construction of them as good workers based on their blackness had more negative repercussions, however, vis-à-vis the Honduran state and national society, for whom blackness was equated with foreignness, thereby excluding them from full status as ‘native sons’ and from national belonging. (65) In this way, a “banana man” was not simply a man. He was a man of a particular class and race. The Blackness of the Garifuna population is thus important to understanding their treatment within the Honduran state, and as workers for multinational fruit companies. There was a hierarchy among men on plantations, and some men were lesser men, in the sense that they were less able to provide for their families. An important historical event, the 1954 workers’ strike, challenged some of the entrenched class, race, and gender norms of fruit plantations. 1954 Workers’ Strike There are moments in a country’s history that dramatically change society. Given the dominance of the multinational fruit companies in shaping labor hierarchies and influencing national politics, the workers’ strike of 1954, lasting from May to July, was one such event:

90

A Black Matrifocal Society A series of strikes broke out against the United Fruit Company operations on Honduras’s Caribbean coast. Within a few days, the strike spread to include the Standard Fruit Company operations, bringing the banana industry in the country to a near standstill. (Haggerty and Millet 1995, 33–34)

The 1954 strike forever changed labor relations in the country: “The banana workers of the United Fruit Company went on strike, stimulating what was to be a sixty-seven-day nationwide general strike. The result of the strike was a settlement which recognized the right of workers to organize” (McKelvey 1999, 197). This transition did not happen without significant involvement of the US, whose corporate interests were at stake. The US Department of State pressured fruit companies to recognize the unions, which were largely controlled by US interests; the unions shut out leftists and supported corporate interests in the country (Frank 2005a, 22–23). Before the strike, men of all racial categories worked “what’s called the ‘agriculture’ side of the banana production—the arduous labor of tromping through the fields cutting down 75- to 12-pound stems and carrying them to cables leading to the packing plants” (Frank 2005a, 13). Although all men worked on the plantations, as mentioned above, there was a hierarchy in which Black men were considered better suited for hard labor in the tropical heat and mestizo men were considered better managers. Women were only hired as secretaries to plantation executives. After the strike, women were able to join the workforce in other capacities. In the 1960s, when packinghouses became part of banana plantation work, women were hired to cut stems, wash bananas, and pack the bananas into boxes (Soluri 2005, 187). It is not clear what the particular racialized hierarchy among women working within the packinghouses was, but it likely mirrored that of the men.1 However, the gendered division of labor had financial consequences. Women were not employed in so-called “skilled trades on the plantations, such as tractor driver, carpenter, or crop duster mechanic—all of which pay far better than work in the packing plants” (Frank 2005a, 13). Although women were restricted from the agriculture side of the plantation, men were not excluded from packinghouse jobs:

1

One of the challenges of conducting intersectional research is finding historical data that identifies the ethnicity or race of groups of women. Based on photographs I have seen, the early hires in the packinghouses appear to be predominately mestizo. This would be consistent with the fact that many Garifuna women stayed in home villages when men migrated for seasonal work and many West Indian men immigrated without their wives. However, more recent photos of female banana workers are more racially diverse, consistent with an increased feminization of low wage labor.

A Black Matrifocal Society

91

In the packinghouse, by contrast, men and women work in many of the same jobs such as ‘deflowering’ the fruit (picking off dead little flowers at each banana’s end), cutting up clumps, or washing them. Other jobs are still gender specific: only women stick on brand-name labels; only men cut up the initial big stems or move boxes into shipping containers. (Frank 2005a, 13–14) Enloe (1989) discussed the important role of women, even outside of full-time employment: “They perform certain crucial jobs – as seasonal weeders, as processing-plant workers – and they supply cheap, part-time labor, to be called on when the world price drops for the company’s product” (149). Since only men were hired in supervisory roles, women were vulnerable to sexual harassment (Soluri 2005, 191). Because women began working on the banana plantations after the 1954 strike when unions had considerable strength and power, they received benefits in the workplace, including job security, pay equal to men, paid vacations, pensions, holiday and health care benefits (Frank 2005a, 15). Born out of the 1954 strike, the Union of Workers of the La Tela Railroad Company, or Sindicato de Trabajadores de La Tela Railroad Company (SITRATERCO) created a “women’s committee” that got women elected to union office positions and provided training about gender politics (Frank 2005b, 88–89). In addition to the racialized and gendered division of labor, there was an age bias. Fruit companies hired young, healthy women, who could stand on their feet all day. The women tended to be single mothers, in contrast to men who tended to have female companions to cook, clean, and care for children (Frank 2005a, 16). Facing discrimination on and off the banana plantations, Garifuna men and women struggled to receive the treatment given to the Honduran mestizo citizen. In order to understand the nature of the struggle for Garifuna rights in the context of the Honduran state, I explore the relationship between race, ethnicity, and nationalism in the section below. Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism While the discipline of international relations focuses attention at the level of the state, there are certain phenomena that simply cannot be understood through an exclusive analysis of the state. Peterson (1995) usefully noted how a unitary state model forecloses certain types of questions: A number of questions regarding agency and the formation of group objectives cannot be asked. Rather, state-centric models take nation-state political identity as a given; they fail to problematize and therefore do not analyze questions of who in fact is acting and in the name, interests, and objectives of what group. (176)

92

A Black Matrifocal Society

A TBF analysis encourages the deconstruction of a state focus, revealing nationalist interests that compete and co-exist within a single state. In short, it rejects the false equivalence of nation and state. Acknowledging the existence of multiple (ethnic) nations within a state, a discussion about governmental power and control is possible. Nira Yuval-Davis (1998) pointed out that “often the citizenship rights and duties of women from different ethnic and racial groupings vary” (24). This speaks to the different positions of ethnic and racial minorities within the history of a state. Yuval-Davis and Anthias (1989) have also noted that even when feminist scholars engage in intersectional analysis that speaks to some of these differences, they tend to steer clear of issues of ethnicity and nationality: There has been a tendency to treat women as a homogenous category or where differences are recognised they are those of class, sexuality, family situation or place in the life-cycle (although not enough work has been done on this either). Issues of ethnicity and nationality have tended to be ignored. (1) It is this kind of omission that makes the case of the Honduran Garifuna ereba makers an ideal case with which to make an intervention in studies of the state that do not acknowledge indigenous nations and Black natives. In Honduras, there are two organizations that have embodied the fight for Garifuna rights. Below, I explore the divergent paths of the two groups, and their different racialized and gendered understandings of an ideal Garifuna nation. Black and Indigenous Garifuna Organizing By the 1970s the Garinagu began to create organizations that made demands on the state for access to land rights and other opportunities. One of the two major Garifuna organizations in Honduras, Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH), was founded in 1977. OFRANEH started with a focus on fighting racism, but by the 1990s was very much focused on land rights issues (England 2006, 161). The Garinagu who formed this organization emphasized the indigenous roots of the community and aligned themselves with other indigenous groups in the fight for land rights: Garifuna activists articulate autochthonous claims that include recognition of a primordial status within the nation, recovery and titling of lands and territories, promotion of Garifuna language and culture through bilingual and intercultural education, direct political representation in the national congress, and recognition of traditional forms of organization. This program aligns Garifuna with other indigenous groups of Honduras,

A Black Matrifocal Society

93

with whom they have affiliated in the panracial Confederation of Autochthonous Peoples of Honduras. (Gordon and Anderson 1999, 291) Thus, particular aspects of identity are highlighted in relation to specific claims. For rural Garifuna communities, land is extremely important and indigeneity is often emphasized as a part of one’s identity in the ancestral Garifuna villages. In cities and in the larger diasporic community, where land is scarce, there is often less emphasis on indigenous identity.2 While the Garinagu emphasize their indigenous identity in relation to land rights, they often use the term “autochthonous” to avoid assumptions about racial identity: “The careful use of the term autochthonous (autóctono) as opposed to indigenous (indígena)—with its connotations of biological Indianness—allows Garifuna to make primordial claims while maintaining a racial distinction” (Gordon and Anderson 1999, 291, emphasis in original).3 In the context of the Honduran mestizo state, the indígena identity is the primary signifier of racial difference (England 1999, 16). However, this difference is not imagined to be (potentially) Black, as Blackness has been almost entirely excluded from the national identity. Although the Garinagu were often rejected as Honduran natives in the early and mid-twentieth century, during the 1970s, it became trendy to use cultural difference to promote Honduran tourism (Anderson 2013, 280). During this period, the state promoted events that featured Garifuna dance and music. However, rather than negating Honduras’ racist history, this promotion has been consistent with the neoliberal economic goals of the state that aim to privatize and commodify everything, including Garifuna culture, in a free market. As Anderson (2013) wrote, “The promotion of Garifuna culture—compatible with ongoing forms of racism and the normalization of the mestizo subject as representative of the nation—remains key to the making of Honduras and the North Coast 2

3

During my Fulbright grant application process, I had a member of one of the major Honduran Garifuna organizations, who was working in Washington, DC, review my application. He deleted all references to the Garifuna community as indigenous, instead describing the group as Afro-descendant and autochthonous. Doing so made it difficult to maintain coherent comparative analyses between the Garifuna and other “indigenous” groups. The decision by some Garifuna organizations not to use the term indigenous is both intentional and political. Typically, it is paired with an emphasis on the Afro-descendant heritage, or Blackness, of the Garifuna community and linked with a political agenda that develops alliances with other Afro-descendants globally. I use the word indigenous throughout this book for disciplinary clarity; while in anthropology, the term autochthonous is commonly used, within international relations the term indigenous is better known. Thus, the term is useful in connecting to the scholarship within international relations written about other “indigenous” groups.

94

A Black Matrifocal Society

as tourist destinations” (280). For the most part, the Garinagu do not have ownership over the commodification of cultural elements. Instead Garifuna culture is appropriated by state and private agencies with minimal buy-in from the Garifuna communities.4 The purpose of such efforts is not to enrich the Garifuna community, but rather to give international investors access to yet another one of Honduras’ “natural resources.” The same Blackness that is commodified in tourist promotion was at one point an obstacle to acknowledgment of the Garinagu as indigenous. However, by the 1990s the Garinagu were recognized by the Honduran state as indigenous and had equivalent institutional status within the Honduran state (Anderson 2009, 109). In spite of that, the Garinagu continued to encounter barriers to land rights within the Honduran state. In 1990, the Honduran Congress passed a decree that would allow foreigners to purchase properties designated by the Ministry of Tourism as tourism zones (Brondo 2013, 42). Previously, it had been unconstitutional for foreigners to own coastal or island territory. In 1992, the government passed a second decree, designed to promote foreign and domestic investment that accelerated land titling by enabling cooperatives to break up holdings into small plots to be sold as private land (Brondo 2013, 42). The policies encouraged the encroachment on Garifuna ancestral lands. Brondo (2013) highlighted some of the challenges faced by the Garifuna communities in obtaining land titles from the National Agrarian Institute (INA): Before 1992, none of Honduras’s Garifuna communities held definitive land titles. The first titles to be granted to Garifuna communities were titles of occupation, issued by the INA in the 1970s when their communities attempted to formalize holdings to avoid further ladino encroachment. However, titles of occupation are not secure documents; they merely state that a group of people occupies the land. They do not grant ownership of that land to those people. Titles of occupation include only the areas in which homes and community infrastructure are constructed. Thus, cultivation lands, harvest lands, and territories of spiritual significance are not included in the titles. (41) As Brondo (2013) noted, the lack of definitive land titles created tremendous pressure on Garifuna villagers: “According to Garifuna activists, the lack of 4

In a visit to one of the major northern coastal cities, I encountered a tourist agency called Garifuna Tours. The agency was not Garifuna-owned, nor did the organization have any strong relationship to the nearby Garifuna communities. Worse, they only employed a couple of Garifuna people at the time, so the name of the agency was quite misleading. During my time in the city, I talked to Garifuna residents in the area about this appropriation of Garifuna cultural images to sell tours. Coincidentally, I met the cousin of a Garifuna man featured in one the brochure images, who indicated that his cousin was upset that the image was being used without his permission and without compensation.

A Black Matrifocal Society

95

definitive property titles led national and international businessmen, military, and politicians to harass Garifuna into abandoning their land as well as strategically declare ancestral harvest and cultivation lands for tourism development” (43). The Garifuna organizations responded. In 1992, Organización de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario (ODECO), the second of the two prominent Garifuna organizations involved in Honduran politics, coordinated a march with other indigenous groups and popular organizations to demand the ratification of Convention number 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which provides protection for the collective rights of indigenous people (England 1999, 20). It became an annual march, and in 1994, Honduras signed into law ILO Convention number 169. England (2006) described the significance of this: The basic philosophy of ILO Convention 169 is that indigenous and tribal people due to their cultural difference, have a special relationship to the land that conflicts with the western notion of land as merely a commodity that is individually and privately owned. (161–162) ILO 169 protects territory used for cultivation hunting, collection of medicinal plants and use as sacred sites. This legislation gave Garifuna activists the mechanism needed to fight for land rights. In addition to land rights, the convention also advocated for bilingual education, political and economic autonomy, and fair labor practices for indigenous groups (England 1999, 18). OFRANEH also pressured Honduras to ratify ILO Convention number 169. Although OFRANEH hoped that the signing would advance the titling of Garifuna communal lands, by 1995 only 14 of the 48 Garifuna communities had received definitive land titles, and even these titles did not cover the historical landholdings of the communities (Brondo 2013, 45). As England (2006) indicated, these titles were far from adequate in terms of protecting the full scope of land traditionally used by the communities: While the communal titles provide an extra safeguard against the invasion, expropriation, and private sale of land where Garifuna actually live and where they are cultivating, the area covered by these titles is rarely enough to provide for the needs of the whole community. (230–231) England (2006) also noted that the land titles “do nothing to redress the invasions of the past and do not provide for future growth of the community” (231). In 1996, an estimated 4,000 Garinagu marched on Tegucigalpa to pressure the government to expand the community titles (Leonard 2011, xxviii; Thorne 2004, 25). As a result of the march, additional monies were allocated for the titling of Garifuna lands and from 1997 to 2002 most

96

A Black Matrifocal Society

Garifuna communities received titles for a significant portion of their land (Thorne 2004, 25). Living along coastal lands initially provided protection from foreign takeover because of laws restricting the purchase of Honduran coastal lands by foreigners. However, over the years, the Honduran government has amended laws in favor of the promotion of foreign investment and neoliberal policies. Both OFRANEH and ODECO participated in the fight against such legislation. Anderson (2009) described their efforts: OFRANEH and ODECO immediately protested on the grounds that the reforms would facilitate the usurpation and sale of lands within or near Garifuna communities, violating their collective rights and threatening their collective existence. They were careful to emphasize that they did not oppose tourism but a model of capital-intensive tourism in which the only role for Garifuna would be as cultural entertainers and unskilled workers. OFRANEH staged a series of protests outside of the National Congress, joined by ODECO and an environmental organization. They secured an agreement from the president of the Congress to hold further discussions. (131) Amidst these negotiations, Honduras experienced one of the country’s worst hurricanes, Hurricane Mitch. Even before the hurricane the country was challenged by economic and environmental crises. As is often the case when a state is experiencing an emergency or crisis, the rights of marginalized groups became more vulnerable than ever.

Human Rights Challenges in a State under Pressure From the 1920s to the 1940s, amidst the anti-Black legislation described above, there was a general trend throughout Latin America in favor of the promotion of a mestizo nation: With a few exceptions in Latin America, European culture has been valued over indigenous or African culture, and a group’s phenotypical features have often been conflated with ‘culture,’ understood not only as a way of life but also as a set of significant accomplishments. (Yelvington 2005, 239) During this period of anti-Black immigration, the banana industry was hit by the devastating impact of the Panama fungus, also called sigatoka, and the 1929 collapse of the stock market, followed by a worldwide depression (Stonich 2000, 44). Under the weight of these environmental and economic crises, anti-Black legislation resulted in increased layoffs, firings, and ultimately deportations for West Indian immigrants (Chambers 2010, 115–135).

A Black Matrifocal Society

97

Then, Hurricane Mitch arrived. Between October 29, 1998 and November 1, 1998, Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras, killing over 5,000 people and injuring over 12,000, with more than 440,000 moved to temporary shelters because their homes were destroyed or damaged (Ensor and Ensor 2009, 24; Frank 2005a, 31). The floods were so powerful that they altered Honduras’ topography, requiring the redrawing of maps (Stonich 2000, vii). Although the hurricane killed more men than women, the impact on women spread to children resulting in the worsening of infant malnutrition and mortality rates (Ensor 2009, 133). Hurricane Mitch destroyed most of the banana plantations on Honduras’ north coast (Frank 2005a, 31), and challenged unions that had gathered strength since the 1954 strike, literally creating the perfect storm for the fruit companies to abandon commitments to workers: In Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, already weakened banana unions were devastated in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch wiped out plantations throughout the region. After Mitch, Chiquita, in particular, either tried to walk away from unionized plantations or replanted them with African palms (for palm oil), which requires fewer workers. (Frank 2005a, 12) In addition to reducing their workforce, the fruit companies also took this opportunity to leave the region altogether: Chiquita used Mitch to accelerate the process of pulling out of direct banana production that had been underway for more than a decade. It was selling its plantations to independent, national producers, then turning around and buying fruit from them—to avoid risk and labor costs. (Frank 2005a, 31) Women workers were particularly hard hit, since it takes nine months for banana plants to produce fruit for the packinghouses (Frank 2005a, 31). Hurricane Mitch also impacted land rights, as Congress quickly acted to advance an agenda for privatization and foreign ownership that would have been difficult under other circumstances. Despite the Honduran government’s efforts to present an image of itself as acting on behalf of all Hondurans, the priority of most politicians—in the name of encouraging post-Mitch foreign investment— was to hand over further concessions to the private sector and foreign corporations. One of the more controversial moves was the first of two votes by Congress to repeal Article 107 of the Constitution, which prohibits foreigners from owning land within approximately 25 miles of the country’s borders. (Jeffrey 1999, 31)

98

A Black Matrifocal Society

Congress pushed through parts of the reform, insisting that such a move was critical to national reconstruction (Anderson 2009, 131–132). Some scholars criticized the narrow focus of the Honduran government on economic growth and modernization (Ensor et al. 2009, 201). An alternative strategy was suggested: Effectively strengthening the resilience of the population as a whole—while focusing on vulnerable groups such as the poor, women and children, and other disenfranchised minorities—requires a comprehensive disaster management strategy that is tied to mitigation and sustainable development and that addresses the underlying causes of exclusion and inequality. (Ensor et al. 2009, 202–203) Unfortunately, a number of Garifuna villages were neglected with respect to reconstruction efforts: The government’s reconstruction efforts focused mainly on the central parts of the country and left the Garifuna to fend for themselves. Garifuna women came together to try to save their communities. The Comite de Emergencia Garifuna de Honduras, based in Trujillo, ‘the Garifuna capital,’ was formed. (Drusine 2005, 198) The Comite developed a range of programs to help the Garifuna community, including a seed program to save the crops most commonly grown in the community (Drusine 2005, 198). These same villages that were neglected in terms of reconstruction were targeted by the Honduran government partnered with tourist agencies, working together to re-allocate landholdings for tourism. The Honduran state set up a response team and partnered with a US public relations firm to bring tourists back to Honduras; the focus was “promoting foreign tourism investment in the Bay Islands and the North Coast—areas immediately targeted for tourism development” (Stonich 2008, 56). This meant that the most vulnerable populations were targeted at the time when they had been hit hardest. Environmental, peasant, and labor organizations continued to fight for land reforms, with some success: “The opposition culminated in a demonstration of at least five thousand people affiliated with dozens of organizations, held yet again on October 12, 1999, Day of the Race. The National Congress signed an agreement not to pursue the reform” (Anderson 2009, 133). Since the 1980s, Garifuna organizations have aligned themselves with indigenous organizations in Honduras (Anderson 2009, 133), and again that strategy proved successful. Part of the impact of these organizations was that 52 Garifuna land titles were issued, including communal and cooperative landholdings (Brondo 2013, 46). Brondo (2013) noted, “All titles have been of dominio pleno (definitive titles of ownership) and are communal titles, which means that the land cannot be sold

A Black Matrifocal Society

99

and can only be passed through inheritance to members of the community” (46). This was a significant achievement for Garifuna land activists. In spite of these successes, there continued to be a number of challenges: Although the state continues to deny the existence of racism in Honduras and to enact policies detrimental to indigenous and Black peoples, ethnic politics represents an important antagonist, asserting rights to cultural difference and autonomy while calling attention to racial and cultural oppression. (Anderson 2005, 105) Garinagu have found strength in their collaborations with other groups. Some of the more recent attacks on Garifuna land rights aim to cripple the collective agency of the group, as Anderson (2009) described: The state has tried to open a path to ‘voluntary’ privatization of recently formalized communal land regimes and legitimate the property of third parties within Garifuna communities. Within this climate, spaces of participation created by the state appear designed to diffuse and contain opposition by bringing ethnic activists ‘closer’ to government institutions, foreclosing politics of collective rights that challenge market solutions to social injustice. (169) Collective land title lays the foundation for communal sharing and work, including ereba-making. Appropriation of Garifuna land and culture by tourist companies thus threatens Garifuna livelihoods. Garifuna Communities as Tourist Sites Although previously Garinagu struggled to be seen as native Hondurans, in recent decades, Garifuna villages have been re-imagined as an important part of Honduran tourism. In 1997, at a bicentennial celebration of the arrival of the Garifuna in Honduras, President Carlos Roberta Reina communicated the importance of ethnic diversity as a resource for tourist development (Anderson 2013, 277). Under Reina’s administration (1994–1998), Honduras ratified ILO Convention number 169 on Tribal and Indigenous Rights, and institutionalized bilingual/ intercultural education (Anderson 2013, 280). In 2001, the Garifuna community was recognized by UNESCO as a “masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage” (López 2001). Honduras developed a six-pronged tourism plan that included “archaeology, colonial cities, nature and adventure, beaches and culturas vivas (living culture)” (Thorne 2004, 24). The Garifuna villages were an important part of the living culture part of the tourism strategy. Although speeches by important officials, such as that of President Reina in 1997, suggested that tourist

100

A Black Matrifocal Society

development would provide economic revenue to ethnic communities, the reality has been quite different. England (2006) described the disenfranchisement of Honduras’ Garifuna population. In Honduras, for example, ‘blackness,’ in contrast to ‘indigenismo,’ has only recently been recognized as an integral part of the mestizo national identity, and Garifuna are largely ignored in narratives of the history, construction and functioning of the nation-state. As in most societies, marginalization from the ideological mainstream coincides with a set of social practices and policies that largely exclude Garifuna communities from the political and economic power of the state and national society. Currently this is manifested primarily through the increasing expropriation of Garifuna land due to the expansion of agribusiness, cattle ranching, and, most recently, tourism into the North Coast, where Garifuna villages are located. (4) In this sense, the Garinagu are important resources in the tourist strategy, but not accepted as full citizens, who could both drive the direction of the strategy and reap the benefits. We must simultaneously understand how this racialized context of land and identity is also gendered. Because Garifuna society is matrifocal and land is inherited through matrilineal lines, from mothers to daughters, the exploitation of coastal lands has had a disproportionate impact on Garifuna women (Brondo 2013, 81). This loss of land stands in sharp contrast to the headway that non-Garifuna women and mestizo men are making in terms of the acquisition of private land titles (Brondo 2013, 81–82). The fact that the land ownership trend runs in different directions for Garifuna and non-Garifuna women highlights the critical importance of an understanding of how gender interacts with race, class, and other factors that influence opportunities available to individuals and groups. Not surprisingly, in spite of these recent shifts to include Garinagu as part of state-promoted tourism ventures, the community has not profited much from the marketing of the Garifuna culture and image. Anderson (2013) wrote, The inability of Garifuna to realize market value from their culture and image produces frustration and reinforces their apprehension of racial and cultural discrimination; at the same time, the promotion of Garifuna as a tourist attraction contributes to a sense of ethnic distinction. (286) While in the rural villages where I was based, there were not any tourist projects because of the remoteness, Garifuna people in more urban (or suburban) areas of Honduras were constantly confronted with tourism pressures. Kirtsoglou and Theodossopoulos (2004) wrote about Garinagu living in Honduras’ English-speaking Bay Islands, which are prime tourist attractions:

A Black Matrifocal Society

101

The Garifuna of Roatan are thus in search not only of economic development but also, and perhaps primarily, for recognition of their cultural ownership and the authority to present themselves to the tourists instead of merely being presented by other agents. (136, emphasis in original) If Garinagu are going to be marketed (and marked) as tourist attractions, they want to both benefit from the profits and have some control over the process. Historically, ODECO and OFRANEH have represented two very different and gendered responses to the opportunity (and threat) of tourism in Garifuna villages: Among the Garifuna of Honduras, there is clearly a rivalry and tension between the two major organizations, OFRANEH, a grassroots support organization led by women, and ODECO, a nongovernmental organization led by a man, but largely staffed by women and serving a large female constituency. (Safa 2006, 229) Although both organizations have been working for land rights in communities targeted for tourist development, ODECO has had stronger international support and has worked more closely with the Honduran government (and the US Embassy), as well as throughout the Garifuna diaspora living outside the country. OFRANEH has been more deeply rooted in local Honduran Garifuna communities and has emphasized alliances with other indigenous groups. Brondo (2013) described the matriarchal and feminist nature of OFRANEH as follows: OFRANEH, for instance, a matriarchal organization, offers a counternarrative of development, falling into the ‘alternatives to development’ perspective, which takes a critical stance against the discourse of modern development models and puts faith in grassroots social mobilization efforts to overcome the structures and discourses of modern development. OFRANEH’s approach can also be characterized as informed by feminist critiques of development in highlighting the differential experiences that Garifuna women face as a result of national development policy. (172) Given the contrast between ODECO and OFRANEH, it is no surprise that OFRANEH opposed a 2004 addition to Honduran property law that guaranteed the rights of third parties to indigenous and Afro-Honduran collective lands and created an option for communities to terminate communal land regimes in favor of private property (Anderson 2013, 287). OFRANEH also has resisted much of the large-scale tourist development that ODECO embraced. ODECO has embodied a shift in the Garifuna identity toward the label of Afro-descendant: “This emphasis on Africa and therefore blackness can also be seen in the rising popularity among Garifuna activists of the

102

A Black Matrifocal Society

term African-descent (afrodecendiente) used to refer to Afro-Latinos in general” (England 2010, 204). This identity has allowed ODECO to connect broadly with Garifuna people transnationally, especially in the US, who have been important collaborators in Honduran political action. The Garifuna population in New York City has been instrumental in protecting the land rights of Honduran Garifuna villages (Carrillo 2004a, 2; Carrillo 2004b, 2; Carrillo 2004c, 2). When the Garifuna communities faced privatization of communally titled lands through a constitutional amendment, the Garifuna diaspora lent its support. With international, diasporic, and transnational support, most Garifuna villages have now acquired collective legal titles to communal lands (Johnson 2005, 46; England 2006, 230–231). Although ODECO had greater international reach, it was less likely to preserve the traditional communal land rights; in contrast, OFRANEH, with its local and indigenous emphasis, has not had as robust an international network. Although the mobile, Garifuna elite of ODECO were more inclined to support neoliberal exploitation of Garifuna lands, the interests of the transmigrant Garifuna community in the US provided some land protection. Many of the Garifuna men who spend years working abroad intend to return to their home villages when they retire. They often build homes in the ancestral Garifuna villages, and have a vested interest in the protection of the land. In this way, OFRANEH’s emphasis on protection of Garifuna ancestral lands has been well aligned with the interests of some of the most politically powerful Garifuna elites in the US. Even though OFRANEH does not have a robust international infrastructure, the US Garifuna elite could communicate their interest in land protection through ODECO, despite its more conservative, neoliberal leanings. Honduras has a long history of strategies that “promote a development model that focuses on the private sector, and in particular exports by large (multinational) firms cooperating in economic clusters, as the engine of the national economy” (Ruckert 2009, 62). This is evidenced in the long history with fruit companies, and the factories, or maquilas, that dominate urban jobs. Tourism also has been driven by foreign interests and multinational corporations. Often sustained protection of national interests in such a context depends on consistent and clear state policies. Unfortunately, political turmoil has not allowed for such stability in the country. Zelaya’s Ousting, Violent Repression and the Birth of a Resistance Movement In June 2009, President Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party was overthrown by a coup d’état.5 He was taken from his home and sent into exile in Costa Rica, and Congressional leader Roberto Micheletti was appointed interim president (Cannon and Hume 2012, 1051; Leonard 2011, xxx). The de facto 5

For a more detailed account of the coup and the chaos that followed, I recommend Dana Frank’s The Long Honduran Night (2018).

A Black Matrifocal Society

103

government described the events not as a coup but as a “constitutional secession of powers” (Cannon and Hume 2012, 1051). Following a July 24 call from Zelaya for Hondurans to resist the coup-installed government, an estimated 10,000 Hondurans demonstrated on behalf of the ousted president on August 11, 2009 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital city. Porfirio Lobo won the November presidential elections that year, and was sworn into office on January 27, 2010 (Leonard 2011, xxxi). The de facto government launched a strong public relations campaign: “The conservative Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired Lanny Davis, former [US] president Clinton’s impeachment lawyer and a friend of [US] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to sell the coup in Washington” (Benjamin 2009, 5). In spite of international criticism and calls for the interim government to step down, Micheletti stayed in power through January 2010 (Cannon and Hume 2012, 1051). By the time Lobo took office, the Obama administration in the US had accepted the legitimacy of the new government. As Frank (2018) detailed in her recent book, “within days of Lobo’s reign, violent repression of the opposition accelerated once again, and with complete impunity” (26). Zelaya’s policies had been popular among indigenous groups and poor people throughout Honduras. He supported the construction of a hospital on the northern coast, advocated for the broadening of cultural education to go beyond an emphasis on Mayan culture to include the country’s nine ethnic groups, and raised the monthly minimum wage (Joyce 2010, 13). Other policy changes included abolishing primary education fees, introducing a free meal program for poor children, providing free electricity to the poor, reducing gas prices, and financing micro-business projects (Ronderos 2011, 318). These programs greatly benefitted Honduras’ indigenous poor, including many Garifuna communities. It is not surprising, given this history, that in the aftermath of the coup d’état, protests were led by marginalized groups. The state responded with violence, as historian Dana Frank (2018) described: The coup precipitated a rapid downward spiral that cast the Honduran people into a maelstrom of repression, violence, and increasing poverty. The post-coup regime destroyed the rule of law and gutted the country’s welfare state—indeed, the state itself. It paved the way for spectacular corruption and the free reign of gangs and organized crime. The murder rate shot to the world’s highest. The democratic space for freedom of speech and association tightened like a noose. (4) As had been the case in past crises, Garinagu suffered disproportionately. Brondo (2013) wrote, “From the moment of the coup, the Garifuna community was a target of repression” (169). Especially vocal in their dissent, the Garifuna community found that a regional hospital construction project, initially approved by the Zelaya administration, was suddenly cancelled in September 2009 (Boyer and Peñalva 2013, 67). The director of the first and

104

A Black Matrifocal Society

only Garifuna-managed hospital in the country, Dr. Luther Castillo, was forced into exile (Brondo 2013, 169). OFRANEH’s Coordinator, Miriam Miranda, was taken by police on March 18, 2011, during a demonstration: Spitting racist insults, they hit her, shot tear gas at her abdomen at close range, and threw her onto the asphalt and then into jail where, her lungs burning, her chest turning purple, she was refused medical attention and not read her legal rights for over two hours—then charged with sedition. (Frank 2018, 69) These attacks on the Garifuna community and their supporters took place in a broader context of violence and suppression: After the coup, security forces committed serious human rights violations, killing some protesters, repeatedly using excessive force against demonstrators, and arbitrarily detaining thousands of coup opponents. The de facto government installed after the coup also adopted executive decrees that imposed unreasonable and illegitimate restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly. (Human Rights Watch 2010, 1) The administration reversed important legislation enacted by Zelaya, including policies that were important to women’s groups; they initiated a ban on the emergency contraceptive pill and dismantled a special police unit created to investigate violent killings of women (Ronderos 2011, 320). In response to government repression, there were a number of protests, and the emergence of a resistance movement, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP). A pillar of the FNRP, Honduran teachers declared a strike following the ousting of President Zelaya (Altschuler 2010, 23). OFRANEH was part of the resistance movement, which was intergenerational and included traditional unions and campesino organizations as well as lesbian-gay-bisexualtransgender (LGBT) groups and women’s groups throughout the country (Portillo Villeda 2010). The Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) was also an important part of the resistance movement. Lenca indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, one of the founders of COPINH, was assassinated in March 2016, during this period of repression, as were other members of COPINH and other resistance activists and organizers. Women were particularly vulnerable: “By 2016, ten women in Honduras were killed every week, eighty-five to ninety percent with impunity, making the country one of the most dangerous places in the world to be female” (Frank 2018, 192). Eight years after Zelaya’s ousting, the government was still unstable. When during the November 2017 elections incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández was losing to opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla by what seemed an insurmountable lead, poll counting was abruptly stopped and there was a two-day silence regarding election results. Eventually, it was announced that Hernández

A Black Matrifocal Society

105

had made an incredible (i.e., unbelievable) comeback. Public outcry at what appeared to be a stolen election resulted in mass protests, to which the government again responded with violent repression. As it became clear to Hondurans, and to the world, that the ruling party was stealing the election outright, the Opposition Alliance launched enormous peaceful demonstrations all over the country. Militants, drawing on tactics they had deployed at the time of the 2009 coup, put up road blockages nationwide, using burning tires to stop traffic. Hernández responded by declaring martial law and cracking down with repression even more brutal and lethal than immediately following the coup. For the first time, security forces used live bullets against demonstrators, night after night, in some cases firing indiscriminately into the air toward groups of protestors. In other cases, individual demonstrators were hunted down in their neighborhoods or showed up dead. (Frank 2018, 241) Once again, in the context of a national crisis, repression prevailed. As was often the case, marginalized groups faced targeted violence. Especially in villages, away from the international attention in urban areas, extreme violence was carried out with impunity.

A TBF Analysis of the Black Garifuna Nation in the Mestizo Honduran State TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality A sustained, intersectional approach allows us to recognize important nuances in the struggle for Garifuna rights that we might not otherwise observe. First, we must understand that the Garifuna nation is not unitary or homogenous, but instead is rife with gendered, classed, (ethno)racialized tensions embodied by the two most prominent Honduran Garifuna organizations. ODECO, for most of its history, has had a charismatic male leader, who represented the interests of a mobile, (predominately) male, diasporic Garifuna elite. With connections to the US and other countries outside of Honduras, this Garifuna elite identified itself as part of other movements of Afro-descendant peoples and emphasized Garifuna Black racial identity. Contrastingly, OFRANEH, with a longtime matriarchal, feminist leader, has focused its movement on issues of land, which are inextricably tied to Garifuna autochthonous (or indigenous) ethnic identity. Working closely with other indigenous nations, OFRANEH has defended the rights of the traditional consanguineal Garifuna household, protecting and preserving communal land titles in the ancestral villages. Second, in order to understand the context in which these prominent Garifuna organizations have come to be fighting for the rights of the Garifuna people, we must understand how the Garinagu are positioned in relation to the Honduran

106

A Black Matrifocal Society

state. Never fully acknowledged as Honduran natives, in part because of their Blackness, the community has been marginalized throughout the country’s history. Even when their cultural uniqueness has been acknowledged, it has been in the service of tourism schemes intended to benefit international investors, rarely providing any significant benefit to Garifuna people or communities. At the same time that the Garinagu have been disadvantaged by a long history of anti-Black legislation and sentiment, they also have been simultaneously disadvantaged by a patriarchal state, deeply influenced—some would say controlled—by foreign and multinational interests. The way in which the fruit companies shaped labor hierarchies disadvantaged Garifuna communities, especially Garifuna women, by undermining the relative power and privilege that Garifuna women have had historically in Garifuna society. Thus, in the context of a mestizo, patriarchal state, Garifuna women’s influence has been diminished. TBF Principle #2: Solidarity With the understanding of the intersectional nuances articulated above, my solidarity work has privileged connections to rural, Garifuna women who participate in subsistence farming. Located in the US, I have had conversations with Garinagu in the US, who talk about the lack of education of Garinagu in the ancestral villages. The global elite often want to “develop” and “modernize” the villages. In fact, many of them have constructed homes (for vacation and retirement) that represent the most modern homes in the ancestral villages, equipped with freezers, televisions, and generators to power the various technologies. In these complex, familial relationships, I am committed to finding ways to share stories of the traditional Garifuna woman—the ereba maker—and listen to her desires, not as filtered through a global elite, but as shared with other rural Garifuna women and with me. Sometimes, this commitment means that I have tense conversations in Honduras’ cities where Garifuna bilingual programs are being developed primarily without Garifuna women.6 One manifestation of my solidarity work involves advocating for the inclusion of Garifuna women in the design of such programs. Also, I am planning future research that will document ereba songs, performed exclusively by

6

Given the gendered nature of the Garifuna language (i.e., men and women expressing the same ideas often use different words), this has serious implications in relation to how the Garifuna oral tradition is codified in written form. Should the “first words” being taught to Garifuna language learners be selected and filtered by men, most of whom were taught by women? Since women are the culture bearers in the villages who teach the next generation of children, shouldn’t they be at the center of any Spanish/Garifuna language bilingual education effort? That has been the argument I have made to Garifuna men, outside the villages, who have decided that their educational credentials make them more qualified than village women to guide bilingual education programs.

A Black Matrifocal Society

107

Garifuna women in the context of women’s cassava grinding circles, which were historically part of the ereba production process. TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism As a Black feminist, I am writing in ways that privilege the stories of those marginalized in a context of anti-Blackness, patriarchy, and a focus on urban elites. ODECO, with the capacity to support Washington, DC lobbying, has had its interests articulated in English and in the US. As Thorne (2004) wrote, “ODECO, the more powerful of the two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in terms of international reach and funding, serves as an intermediary between international aid agencies and Garífuna communities” (25). There are important, and often overlooked, differences between the approaches of ODECO and OFRANEH. While I have attended formally catered, ODECO events in the US capital city that had English speakers, when OFRANEH’s coordinator, Miriam Miranda, speaks in the US, it is in Spanish. When I saw her speak at a New England (US) university, it was at a Latin American studies campus event. OFRANEH does not have the capacity (and maybe not the interest) to support English-speaking Honduran Garifuna organizational members doing speaking engagements in the US. Responding to OFRANEH’s limited reach and wanting to extend that reach to more monolingual English-speaking Black feminists, I write in solidarity with the work of OFRANEH. When I created a website to raise awareness of the ereba makers, I privileged OFRANEH’s analysis of government repression in Garifuna ancestral villages. Working with a Honduran Garifuna feminist friend, I work to stay abreast of the most recent developments and keen political and feminist analysis of OFRANEH. That is the analysis that helps to frame my writing and other ongoing engagements. TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries There are multiple levels at which one might analyze the relative importance of borders and boundaries. As mentioned above, I am highlighting in this chapter the particular challenges faced by Garinagu within the Honduran state. However, at the same time that there are specific state laws that impact Garifuna people in Honduras, there is also transnational organizing that has led to UNESCO recognition of Garifuna traditional dance and music as well as international solidarity that has helped secure communal land titles. Thus, even as one points to particular boundaries and borders, it is critical to acknowledge their porosity. What I have observed is that the transnational links between Garifuna communities tend to connect urban centers, leaving villages in different Central American countries without direct relationships. In July 2018, I returned to Iriona, Honduras to conduct follow-up research in the ancestral Garifuna villages. I asked about ereba traditions in other parts of Central America and inquired about connections to other villages. What I

108

A Black Matrifocal Society

found was that, for the most part, the women from my earlier (dissertation) study had not spent time in Central American Garifuna villages outside of Honduras. Although they had heard stories about the ereba production in those places, those stories came from mobile, Garifuna elites. Ultimately, my deep commitment to the stories of rural Garifuna women’s stories has meant that at times I am de-emphasizing transnational stories privileged in other contexts. Sometimes attention to borders means recognizing the barriers to crossing them for rural, poor, Black, indigenous women. TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality7 I completed my doctorate in international relations at the American University in Washington, DC. Living in the nation’s capital meant that I had ready access to ODECO’s lobbyists. At the same time that I was planning fieldwork in Honduras, ODECO was planning what they were marketing as the First Summit of Afro-descendants in the Americas. Wanting to understand more about Garifuna culture and organizations in Honduras, I participated in meetings, as part of the planning committee. Ultimately, I was an active enough participant that one of ODECO’s members secured a letter of support from the Celeo Álvarez, the president of the organization, for my Fulbright research grant application. In order to conduct research in the country, I needed letters of support from Honduran organizations. Without this letter it is questionable whether I would have been granted a research award. At the time, I understood very little about the tension between ODECO and OFRANEH. However, I did know that OFRANEH was planning a counter-summit in protest against ODECO’s summit, in part because ODECO welcomed President Lobo, the country’s post-coup leader, complicit in much of the state-sanctioned repression in Garifuna communities. Also, I knew of Black activists in DC who do transnational organizing, who were boycotting the summit because of ODECO’s unwillingness to confront Honduras’ post-coup government. When I arrived at the US Embassy in Honduras for my Fulbright orientation, I came to understand how closely the US Embassy works with ODECO, and how OFRANEH is seen as a nuisance because of its incessant organizing (in response to state violence) and long list of demands (to include communal land titles). It was not long after arriving in Honduras that I understood the nature of the tension between the organizations. In the end, I decided not to have any strong organizational ties (or allegiances), and instead to focus on building rapport through family connections (as described in Chapter 3 of this book). During my ten months of research, I rarely (if ever) mentioned any organizational affiliations, and only 7

Part of the way I know that I am practicing radical transparency is that I often cringe when it comes time to write this section, as I consider how my professional trajectory might be altered by the things that I write. Revealing contradictions puts me in a position to have my values and allegiances questioned. Given the importance of trust in any sustained solidarity-building, there is some fear that I could end up with no one trusting or wanting to work with me.

A Black Matrifocal Society

109

met once with each of the two organizations that had provided letters of support for my Fulbright application.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed how Garifuna life, citizenship, and marginalization is shaped by Honduran politics and policy. The first section of this chapter described how Honduras, as a “banana republic,” came to develop a racialized and gendered labor hierarchy that suited multinational fruit companies. The second section introduced the complexities of a Black matrifocal Garifuna nation in a mestizo patriarchal state. In this section Black and indigenous Garifuna organizing was highlighted through the lens of the two most prominent Honduran Garifuna organizations. Then, I explored the human rights challenges in the context of a Honduran state under pressure from natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Mitch) and man-made crises (e.g., 2009 coup d’état). Finally, I explored how a TBF framework highlights important nuances in the context of (marginalized) nations within states. In the next chapter, I focus on Garifuna transnational indigeneity in a regional (i.e., Latin American) context.

References Altschuler, Daniel. 2010. “Between Resistance and Co-optation: The Politics of Education in the Honduran Crisis.” NACLA Report on the Americas (March/April): 23–29. Anderson, Mark. 2005. “Bad Boys and Peaceful Garifuna: Transnational Encounters Between Racial Stereotypes of Honduras and the United States (and Their Implications for the Study of Race in the Americas)”. In Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos. Edited by Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler 101–115. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Anderson, Mark. 2009. Black and Indigenous: Garifuna Activism and Consumer Culture in Honduras. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Anderson, Mark. 2013. “Notes on Tourism, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Cultural Value in Honduras.” In Central America in the New Millennium. Edited by Jennifer L. Burrell and Ellen Moodie, 276–292. New York: Berghahn Books. Benjamin, Madea. 2009. “The Honduran Coup: The Specter of Democracy, and of the Past.” NACLA Report on the Americas (September/October): 4–5. Boyer, Jefferson C. and Wilfredo Cardona Peñalva. 2013. “Daring to Hope in the Midst of Despair: The Agrarian Question within the Anti-Coup Resistance Movement in Honduras.” In Central America in the New Millennium. Edited by Jennifer L. Burrell and Ellen Moodie, 64–79. New York: Berghahn Books. Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2013. Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Cannon, Barry and Mo Hume. 2012. “Central America, Civil Society and the ‘Pink Tide’: Democratization or De-Democratization?” Democratization 19(6): 1039–1064. Carrillo, Karen Juanita. 2004a. “Honduran Sale of Black Community Lands Halted, with NYC Help.” New York Amsterdam News (May 6–May 12): 2. Carrillo, Karen Juanita. 2004b. “NY Garifuna Protest Honduran Prez’s Broken Promises.” New York Amsterdam News (November 25–December 1): 2.

110

A Black Matrifocal Society

Carrillo, Karen Juanita. 2004c. “NY Garifunas Fight Honduran Sale of Black Community Lands.” New York Amsterdam News (March 18–March 24): 2. Chambers, Glenn A. 2010. Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890–1940. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Drusine, Helen. 2005. “The Garifuna Fight Back.” Third Text 19(2) (March): 197–202. England, Sarah. 1999. “Negotiating Race and Place in the Garifuna Diaspora: Identity Formation and Transnational Grassroots Politics in New York City and Honduras.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 6(1): 5–53. England, Sarah. 2006. Afro Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. England, Sarah. 2010. “Mixed and Multiracial in Trinidad and Honduras: Rethinking Mixed-race Identities in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(2): 195–213. Enloe, Cynthia. 1989. Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ensor, Bradley E. and Marisa Olivo Ensor. 2009. “Hurricane Mitch: Root Causes and Responses to Disaster.” In The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch: Lessons from PostDisaster Reconstruction in Honduras. Edited by Marisa Olivo Ensor, 22–46. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Ensor, Marisa Olivo. 2009. “Gender Matters in Post-Disaster Reconstruction.” In The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch: Lessons from Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Honduras. Edited by Marisa Olivo Ensor, 129–155. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Ensor, Marisa Olivo, Bradley E. Ensor, Vilma Elisa Fuentes and Roberto E. Barrios. 2009. “The Legacy of Mitch: Conclusions for the New Millennium.” In The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch: Lessons from Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Honduras. Edited by Marisa Olivo Ensor, 184–214. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Euraque, Dario. 2007. “Free Pardos and Mulattoes Vanquish Indians: Cultural Civility as Conquest and Modernity in Honduras.” In Beyond Slavery: The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Edited by Darién J. Davis, 81–122. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Euraque, Darío A. 1998. “The Banana Enclave, Nationalism, and Mestizaje in Honduras, 1910s–1930s.” In Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Edited by Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago, 151–168. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Forster, Cindy. 1998. “Reforging National Revolution: Campesino Labor Struggles in Guatemala, 1944–1954.” In Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Edited by Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago, 196–226. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Frank, Dana. 2005a. Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Frank, Dana. 2005b. “Women’s Power in Union Power: Banana Worker Unions in Latin America.” New Labor Forum 14(2) (Summer): 84–94. Frank, Dana. 2018. The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Gold, Janet N. 2009. Culture and Customs of Honduras. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gordon, Edmund T. and Mark Anderson. 1999. “The African Diaspora: Toward an Ethnography of Diasporic Identification.” The Journal of American Folklore 112 (445) (Summer): 282–296.

A Black Matrifocal Society

111

Haggerty, Richard and Richard Millet. 1995. “Historical Setting.” In Honduras: A Country Study. Edited by Tim L. Merrill, 1–61. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Human Rights Watch. 2010. After the Coup: Ongoing Violence, Intimidation, and Impunity in Honduras. New York, NY: Human Rights Watch. Jeffrey, Paul. 1999. “Rhetoric and Reconstruction in Post-Mitch Honduras.” NACLA Report on the Americas (September/October): 28–35. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2005. “Migrating Bodies, Circulating Signs: Brazilian Candomblé, the Garifuna of the Caribbean and the Category of Indigenous Religions.” In Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations. Edited by Graham Harvey and Charles D. Thompson, Jr., 37–51. Burlington, VA: Ashgate. Joyce, Rosemary A. 2010. “Legitimizing the Illegitimate: The Honduran Show Elections and the Challenge Ahead.” NACLA Report on the Americas (March/April): 10–17. Kirtsoglou, Elisabeth and Dimitrios Theodossopoulos. 2004. “‘They are Taking Our Culture Away’: Tourism and Culture Commodification in the Garifuna Community of Roatan.” Critique of Anthropology 24(2): 135–157. Leonard, Thomas M. 2011. The History of Honduras. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood. López, Asbel. 2001. “Preserving the Magic: A Tangible Debut.” The UNESCO Courier (September): 43. McKelvey, Charles. 1999. “Feminist Organizations and Grassroots Democracy in Honduras.” In Democratization and Women’s Grassroots Movements. Edited by Jill M. Bystydzienski and Joti Sekhon, 196–213. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Peterson, V. Spike. 1995. “The Politics of Identity and Gendered Nationalism.” In Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation. Edited by Laura Neack, Jeanne A. K. Hey, and Patrick J. Haney, 167–186. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Portillo Villeda, Suyapa G. 2010. “The Coup that Awoke a People’s Resistance.” NACLA Report on the Americas (March/April): 26–27. Ronderos, Katherine. 2011. “Poverty Reduction, Political Violence and Women’s Rights in Honduras.” Community Development Journal 46(3) (July): 315–326. Rosenberg, Mark B. 1986. “Honduras: An Introduction.” In Honduras Confronts Its Future: Contending Perspectives on Critical Issues. Edited by Mark B. Rosenberg and Philip L. Shepherd, 1–19. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Ruckert, Arne. 2009. “A Decade of Poverty Reduction Strategies in Latin America: Empowering or Disciplining the Poor?” Labour, Capital and Society 42(1–2): 56–81. Safa, Helen I. 2006. “Questioning Mestizaje: The Social Mobilization of Afrodescendant Women in Latin America.” In Inclusion and Exclusion in the Global Arena. Edited by Max Kirsch, 225–241. New York: Routledge. Soluri, John. 2005. Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Stonich, Susan C. 2000. The Other Side of Paradise: Tourism, Conservation, and Development in the Bay Islands. New York: Cognizant Communication Corporation. Stonich, Susan. 2008. “International Tourism and Disaster Capitalism: The Case of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras.” In Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction. Edited by Nandini Gunewardena and Mark Schuller, 47–68. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Taylor, Christopher. 2012. The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

112

A Black Matrifocal Society

Thorne, Eva. T. 2004. “Land Rights and Garífuna Identity.” NACLA Report on the Americas (September/October): 21–25. Williams, Mai’a. 2016. “Introduction.” In Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams, 41. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Yelvington, Kevin A. 2005. “Patterns of ‘Race,’ Ethnicity, Class, and Nationalism.” In Understanding Contemporary Latin America, Third Edition. Edited by Richard S. Hillman, 237–271. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1998. “Gender and Nation.” In Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition. Edited by Rick Wilford and Robert L. Miller, 21–31. London: Routledge. Yuval-Davis, Nira and Floya Anthias, eds. 1989. Woman – Nation – State. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

5

Beyond States Understanding Transnational Indigeneity in Latin America

As in the previous chapter, I start this chapter with considerations of “revolutionary mothering.” Cynthia Dewa Oka (2016) wrote a poem titled “a conversation with my six-year-old about revolution.” Its opening lines are as follows: when 3 feet of sunshine missing two front teeth asked me why do we need revolution all I had was a grenade in my mouth. (Oka 2016, 43) There is something about the contrast between the innocently “missing” front teeth of the six-year old and the violence of the revolutionary grenade that makes this poem excerpt a perfect start to a chapter about the violence enacted by disciplinary omissions within mainstream IR. It is a discipline that requires radical re-making in order to stem the violence with which indigenous communities are omitted from mainstream IR study. The requisite disciplinary re-making will have to acknowledge the existence of alternative worlds and knowledges if any progress is to be made. Moving in that direction, this chapter confronts the violence of orthodox IR. Who and what is privileged by a narrow focus on the state? Who or what is excluded or rendered illegible/invisible? I argue that critically important transnational communities are excluded, namely indigenous communities.1 There is a cruel irony in the fact that the relatively new IR discipline is constructed in a way that removes from view First Nations.

1

In this chapter and throughout the book, I use transnational to describe communities or actions that cut across states (i.e., countries). In most instances, the idea of a nation-state, where the state contains (predominately) one nationality, is not a reality. Rather than referring to nations, when the terms national and transnational are used in this chapter, they make reference to states (i.e., countries). This chapter also talks specifically about nationalism, which is intended to highlight specific (indigenous) nations that exist prior to and across states’ borders (i.e., operating transnationally).

114

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

In the first section of this chapter, I write about the importance of an IR intervention that facilitates the study of transnational indigenous communities. In the second section, I explore how Latin American concepts of mixture (i.e., mestizaje) and whitening (i.e., blanqueamiento) have shaped national identities in the region, including that of the Garinagu. Third, I explore feminist conceptualizations of the nation and nationalism, in a discussion about how we might understand the matrifocal Garifuna nation in this context. With that background, I delve into more detail about the Garifuna transnational community, highlighting a history of US migrations, the matrifocality of the Garinagu, and relationships between identity and land rights. Finally, I engage the transnational Black feminist (TBF) principles (i.e., intersectionality, solidarity, scholar-activism, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality) in order to highlight what the TBF framework reveals about transnational indigeneity.

An International Relations Intervention The field of international relations was originally conceived with quite a narrow domain: “The discipline of International Relations (IR) constructs a certain view of the world, one that is anchored by methodological nationalism: it sees our world as comprising nation-states locked in competition amidst an overall milieu of anarchy” (Krishna 2018, 19). In a world where many states have multiple nations within and across them and where the bonds of solidarity that propel transnational and global movements are as strong as ever, the founding assumptions of IR do not hold up well in today’s context. Just as IR fails to give sufficient attention to non-state actors in international and transnational contexts and to the internal politics of the state, an IR framework also fails to sufficiently recognize transnational communities. Instead, the discipline “defines the problem of difference principally as between and among states; difference is marked and contained as international difference” (Inayatullah and Blaney 2004, 6–7, emphasis in original). This inability to capture transnational phenomena and communities that cut across states means that IR is incapable of attending to the interactions among the Americas’ First Nations. As contemporary state borders have enveloped and divided indigenous nations, IR continues only to recognize a “society of states.” The discipline has no appropriate analytic for the discussion of indigenous nations that span multiple states. Writing about IR scholars, Inayatullah and Blaney (2004) wrote, We read the geopolitical demarcations of a society of states as a spatial containment of cultural difference. Difference is placed at a distance (managed within the boundaries of ‘other’ states and deterred by the defense of one’s own borders) and resolved into ‘sameness’ within one’s own political community. (23)

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

115

As we have explored in the previous chapter, even the “sameness” within the state is a myth used to marginalize and repress. If we expose the myth propagated by an IR disciplining, we arrive at the same conclusion as Inayatullah and Blaney (2004): “It is more accurate to see the theory and practice of international society as largely a deferral of a genuine recognition, exploration, and engagement of difference” (44). Thus, if we are determined to face the complexities and nuances of difference within and across states, we must explore alternative frameworks. This book proposes a TBF framework for such exploration. The blinders that prevent IR from seeing First Nations within and across states are built into the founding assumptions of the discipline, which makes correction no small matter. We begin with the intuition, then, that IR’s difficulty in theorizing difference is not a simple anomaly in its theoretical lenses, easily correctable with a quick trip to the epistemological ophthalmologist. Rather, this failing appears central to dominant strands of Western social and political thought more generally, requiring that we dig deeper into the way of being that creates this way of seeing. (Inayatullah and Blaney, 2004, 47–48) Alternative ontologies and epistemologies are required for a new vision. In centering the principles of a TBF framework (e.g., intersectionality, solidarity, scholar-activism, attention to borders/boundaries, and radically transparent author positionality), we can create different relationships to and through our work, building knowledges that are inextricably linked to justice-oriented commitments. Not only are the dominant IR traditions state-centric in ways that render transnational groups invisible, they are also specifically inept at acknowledging indigenous ways of being. As with other disciplinary blindspots, this exclusion is historic and more than coincidental. The neglect of Indigenous peoples can be traced to the travelogues of the first Europeans in the Americas, the enduring influence of which in social contractarian thought recommends their treatment as foundational texts of the social sciences. This view highlights the relevance for international relations of challenges raised against the veracity of these formative ethnographical accounts inasmuch as such re-evaluations simultaneously call into question some of the most fundamental ontological commitments of orthodox international theory – commitments which have their conceptual origins in the travelogues. Significantly, the neglect of Indigenous peoples is inseparable from the not inconsiderable conceptual indebtedness of orthodox international theory to these earliest writings about the peoples of the Americas. (Beier 2004, 82)

116

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Given this history, it makes sense that a proper intervention would be rooted in alternative histories and genealogies that privilege knowledges coming from peoples previously marginalized in the context of IR. This would include indigenous nations, descendants of Africans enslaved in the Americas, and Black indigenous groups such as the Garinagu. A TBF framework responds to the ongoing violence of orthodox IR theory and practice. As Beier (2004) articulated, orthodox international theory is “inseparable from the more comprehensive processes of invalidation by which colonial subjugation of Indigenous people(s) is sustained” (109). Recognizing this reality and doing something to alter the trajectory of IR requires greater attention to borders/boundaries as well as more intentional solidarity work. For any shift in the discipline to happen, IR scholars must first reckon with the truth about the relationship between the discipline and indigenous peoples. King (2018) questioned what meaning can be made of the marginalization of indigenous peoples in IR. What kind of conclusions can we draw from IR’s silence on Indigenous peoples beyond the discourse of conquest and/or settler amnesia? Of the brief and interspersed mentions of Indigenous peoples throughout the history of the discipline, references can be grouped by orthodox and critical interventions. In either case, Indigenous peoples and their philosophies are misrepresented, in the former, to justify core IR concepts such as anarchy and the state, and on the latter, to posit new and presumably better worlds or theories of the international, that ironically do not take Indigenous peoples seriously. (139) Given the parallels that one might make between IR exclusions of race and indigeneity, it seems fitting that a TBF framework would be invoked to highlight the intersectionally significant intervention made by the case of a transnational Black indigenous matrifocal Garifuna nation within the Americas. In doing so, we must also attend to important omissions in transnational studies. One of the major omissions in transnational studies literature is a discussion of indigenous communities that existed before the creation of modern-day states. These communities have long been operating across contemporary state borders, and yet somehow remain marginalized in the discipline of transnational studies. While transnational studies have highlighted advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998), feminist practices (Grewal and Kaplan 1994), and various nonstate political actors (Risse-Kappen 1995), there has been a neglect of transnational indigenous communities. As Besserer (2009) noted, Transnational communities may result from changes at the level of the state and the nation that entail no migration whatsoever, as when borders

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

117

shift, national identities are redefined, or new identities and traditions appear—complexities that class migration studies never contemplated. (75, emphasis in original) There is considerable opportunity for deeper exploration of the connection between transnationalism, indigeneity, citizenship(s), and nationalism(s). It is possible to explore the politically significant forms of transnational existence into which people are born. Thus, indigenous communities have much to offer in this exploration, especially as related to land entitlements and citizenship. In Latin America, it is possible to identify rights designated specifically to indigenous groups: Those identified as Indians, whether by themselves or others, occupied a clear legal and fiscal position in colonial and early republican society: they owed tribute, had access to rights to communal land, were under the authority at the local level of ethnic chiefs (caciques or kurakas), and held a subordinate but protected legal status similar to minors. (Chambers 2003, 34) In some cases, Latin American states have made such rights an integral part of their constitutions: “In 1991 the Colombian National Constituent Assembly completed a new constitution that granted indigenous communities impressive cultural, economic, and political rights, including recognition of the territorial integrity and self-governance of Indian resguardos (communal lands)” (Sanders 2003, 56).2 In response to political organizing and demands, the Colombian government has also granted land rights to some Black communities (Wade 2003, 277). However, it is extremely rare that such a right would be granted to nonindigenous Black people. Often, a community’s indigenous identity is inextricably linked to land claims, and often Blackness is seen as an aspect of identity that does not overlap with indigeneity. In the case of Afro-Colombians, “the relative lack of extra-national support meant they were not able to take advantage of new laws to claim land in the same manner as members of Colombia’s indigenous community” (Jordan 2008, 93).3 Thus, even in the rare case that a state allows for Black land rights, international and transnational support plays an important role. However, especially in transnational organizing, one must first understand the specific regional and national contexts that shape the relationship between identity and various entitlements.

2 3

In 2010, Arturo Escobar argued, “Latin America is the only region in the world where some counter-hegemonic processes of importance might be taking place at the level of the State at present” (Escobar 2010, 1–2). Here the author, Jordan, has assumed Black and indigenous to be mutually exclusive categories. It is common to find this assumption in the literature, which excludes the possibility of a Black indigenous Garifuna nation.

118

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Latin American Mestizaje and Blanqueamiento De la Cadena (2001) wrote, “One of the most puzzling, disconcerting phenomena that the non-native visitor confronts while traveling in Latin America is the relative ease with which pervasive and very visible discriminatory practices coexist with the denial of racism” (16). Not only is racism present, but it is also central to the construction of national identities in Latin America and elsewhere. Balibar (1991) highlighted the absence of an ethnic basis for contemporary states, writing that “nationalism cannot be defined as an ethnocentrism except precisely in the sense of the product of a fictive ethnicity” (49, emphasis in original). Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1993) further clarified that ethnicity “always involves a political dimension” (8). If we understand fictive ethnicity as being inherently political and instrumental in nation-building, we can then consider the specific ways in which this political project of constructing a national identity is engaged in Latin American states. If we are to do so, we must consider the ways that racialization in Latin America is shaped by blanqueamiento, or the ideal of a whitening of society, and the mestizo, a Spanish and Indian mixture that represents a racial ideal. Hernández (2013) described the significance of the blanqueamiento concept as follows: The individual valorization of whiteness is very much influenced by the national promotion of whiteness, best exemplified by descriptions of interracial intimacy as ‘improving the race’ (mejorando la raza). At the national level, blanqueamiento is a concept that describes a concrete statesponsored nation-building campaign to whiten a population and the overarching racial ideology that valorizes whiteness. (20) The concepts of blanqueamiento and mestizaje work together in the construction of national identity. The process of mestizaje, or creating a mestizo identity, rejects African descent: “Central to mestizaje is the notion that African ancestry is inferior and needs to be mixed with whiteness in order to be ameliorated” (Hernández 2013, 34). As outlined in the previous chapter, the Honduran national identity was constructed around a fictive mestizo identity that does not represent the multiple indigenous populations in the state, or the Black natives. Within Latin American states, white elites have played an important role in the marginalization of other ethnoracial groups: “Latin American patriots, most of them members of the white colonial Creole upper class or descended from it, associated the traits of the proper citizen—literacy, property ownership, and individual autonomy—with whiteness and masculinity” (Appelbaum, Macpherson, and Rosemblatt 2003, 4). In using “liberal” ideals, racism, sexism, and classism shaped how elites envisioned restrictions on citizenship:

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

119

Liberal independence leader Simón Bolívar saw racial ‘diversity’ as a central impediment to ‘perfect’ democracy. … Central to his argument was the premise that all people were not in fact equal, and that the long oppressed and racially mixed population needed education before it could enjoy full citizen rights. (Appelbaum, Macpherson, and Rosemblatt 2003, 4–5) The kind of marginalization advanced by a dominant mestizo national identity has shaped how Black and indigenous peoples in Latin America are perceived (by white elites), as being “non-native” or “non-modern” and ultimately incapable of active participation in contemporary democracies. Mestizaje creates a hierarchy in which indigeneity is constructed as inferior to the (white and European) Spaniard: Within this frame, the indigenous past is often glorified as the ancestral spirit of the nation, even if contemporary indigenous peoples continue to be viewed as primitive, marginal, and—insofar as they retain distinct languages, cultures, and identities—a threat to the integrity of the nation. (Gordon 1998, 121) The mestizaje process thus lessens the threat of the indigenous native, and is constructed as a path toward racial harmony: “Mestizaje is the belief in the use of racial mixture to lighten the complexion of a nation in the movement toward whiteness and thereby promote racial harmony” (Hernández 2013, 20). Such racist ideals were (and are) critical to the construction of the fictive national identity. As Balibar (1991) noted, It is this broad structure of racism, which is heterogeneous and yet tightly knit (first in a network of phantasies and, second, through discourses and behaviours), which maintains a necessary relation with nationalism and contributes to constituting it by producing the fictive ethnicity around which it is organized. (49) If we understand racism “as modes of exclusion, inferiorization, subordination and exploitation that present specific and different characters in different social and historical contexts” (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1993, 2), we must attempt to understand the specific nature of Latin American racism. The Latin American concept of blanqueamiento has been an integral part of how states understand racial progress and improvement. Peter Wade (1993) described how the ideology works to promote both national solidarity and exclusion from national identity: This is the ideology of blanqueamiento, or whitening, seen in a nationalist context. Here, then, we see one aspect of the coexistence of two variants

120

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity on the nationalist theme: on the one hand, the democratic, inclusive ideology of todos somos mestizos—everyone is mestizo, and herein lies the particularity of Latin American identity; on the other hand, the discriminatory ideology that points out that some are lighter mestizos than others, prefers the whiter to the darker, and sees the consolidation of nationality in a process of whitening. In both variants, actual blacks and Indians are disadvantaged, but less so in the more democratic variant that tries to be inclusive. The problem lies in the coexistence of the two variants and the possibility of slipping from one into the other. (11)

Wade usefully explained how the blanqueamiento concept is simultaneously applied as part of the state project and part of the exclusion of racial and ethnic minorities. The effect is ultimately the erasure of Black and indigenous peoples from the national imagination: “blanqueamiento, by envisaging a future in which blackness and indianness are not only absorbed but also erased from the national panorama, giving rise to a whitened mestizo nation, smuggles in discrimination and turns the vision into an impossible utopia” (Wade 1993, 19). In this way, Wade (2003) reminded us of an important tension: Homogeneity and diversity exist with each other in discourses and practices of mestizaje. I highlight this in an attempt to nuance the opposition between, on the one hand, the nationalist glorification of mestizaje as a democratic process leading to and symbolic of racial harmony and, on the other, mestizaje as a rhetorical flourish that hides racist and even ethnocidal practices of whitening. (263) Thus, the mestizo fictive identity is linked to the whitening of Black and indigenous peoples, and thus the erasure of these groups as distinct categories, for the benefit of the larger whole. These ideas of racial improvement are not new to the region. Instead, this kind of thinking about the value of racial mixture was prevalent among early twentieth-century theorists: “Some even argued for a positive eugenics—a healthy cross-breeding. Vasconcelos maintained that Latin American miscegenation was sparking the creation of a beautiful transnational ‘Cosmic Race’” (Appelbaum, Macpherson, and Rosemblatt 2003, 7). Even among earlier theorists, we can see how race was invoked in the context of a transnational (i.e, cross-state) nation-building project. Of course, in any discussion of “breeding,” the female (reproductive) body is central to the project. Balibar (1991) reminded us of the intimate relationship between racism and sexism in a historical system of complementary exclusions and dominations which are mutually interconnected. In other words, it is not in practice simply

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

121

the case that an “ethnic racism” or a “sexual racism” exist in parallel; racism and sexism function together and in particular, racism always presupposes sexism. (49, emphasis in original) In fact, racial segregation often forms the context in which other kinds of oppression, including sexism, take place. In the historical legacy of systemic racism in Latin American, indigeneity has been devalued: “In the twentieth century, ideologies of scientific racism became dominant in Latin America, but intellectuals continued to associate essential cultural attributes with various races, such as the assumption that Indians were uneducated” (Chambers 2003, 33). What is clear in these discussions of blanqueamiento, mestizaje, and indigenismo4 (or Indian-ness) is that these ethnoracial categories are dynamic and intersect with gendered (re) productions and social class hierarchies. This simultaneous functioning of various forms of oppression is what Black feminist Patricia Hill Collins (2009) referred to as the matrix of domination: “The matrix of domination refers to how these intersecting oppressions are actually organized. Regardless of the particular intersections involved, structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power reappear across quite different forms of oppression” (21). In considering the complexity of Black indigenous Garifuna matrifocality, one must attempt to consider how multiple simultaneous oppressions function to impact lives. In the next section, I explore how feminist understandings of the nation assist in such analytical work.

Feminist Conceptualizations of the Nation and of Nationalism Peterson (1995) highlighted the transformative power of gender analysis within an IR framework: “When we use a gender-sensitive lens not only the ‘what’ of international relations but ‘how’ we think about it is different” (170). Embodying a TBF framework means simultaneously examining the gendered nature of nationalism while understanding the racialized nature of that gendering. Holt (2003) wrote, “Gender provided the most powerful language to describe national and racial relations. Whether invoked as metaphor, metonym, or allegory, the very idea of nation and national belonging is more often than not expressed in familial metaphors” (xii). As described in Chapter 3, Garifuna communities are best understood as a collection of families (rather than individuals). In this section, I explore how that analogy might be extended to understand a matrifocal Garifuna nation. 4

In some countries, indigenous identity has been used to exemplify an idealized national identity. Bessire (2014) discussed the nuances of an indigenous “biolegitimacy,” and the related “hypermarginality” that “arises when culture reappears as an articulation of ontological alterity, exceptional citizenship, and biolegitimacy, which naturalizes the first to make the second indistinguishable from the third” (278).

122

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Of particular importance is attention to the gendered nature of nationalist agendas: “Not only must we begin with the women’s standpoint on nationalism and feminism, we must move to an understanding of the construction of nationalism as an inherently ‘gendered’ phenomenon” (West 1997, xiv). As Sinha (2004) usefully explained, including women in the story of nationalism is not enough; there must be a gendered analysis of difference in homes, in nations, and in states: The challenge posed by feminist scholarship has to do not just with the visibility of “women” but, more important, with the constitution of the nation itself in the “sanctioned institutionalization of gender difference.” The discourse of the nation is implicated in particular elaborations of masculinity as much as of femininity. As such, it contributes to their normative constructions. It becomes a privileged vehicle in the consolidation of dichotomized notions of “men” and “women” and of “masculinity” and “femininity.” We thus have “fathers” and “mothers,” and “sons” and “daughters,” of the nation, each with their own gendered rights and obligations. (Sinha 2004, 243, emphasis in original) Certainly, in the context of ereba work and other labor in the ancestral Garifuna villages, there are clear, gendered roles. That gendered labor is critically important in defining the ethnic boundaries—the customs and traditions—of the group. It has defined the cultural uniqueness of the Garinagu. Peterson (1995) highlighted how rigidly constructed masculinity and femininity naturalize domination and hierarchy: Nationalism is also gendered in terms of how the naturalization of domination (“us” at the expense of “them”) depends upon the prior naturalization of men/masculinity over women/femininity. In this sense, taking domination as natural obscures its historical context and disables our knowledge of and attempts to transform hierarchical relations. (184) Even among feminist scholars, often there is little attention to the matrifocal nation, which makes the study of the Garinagu an important contribution to feminist studies of the nation. Women are leaders in the ancestral Garifuna villages. They are responsible for the cultural transmission required to ensure that a culturally distinct Garifuna nation exists into the future. The ereba makers are not, by and large, feminists, in the sense that they have a specific, shared, gendered political agenda. While there were certainly galpones (or cassava cooperatives) with feminist visions (namely, “Women’s Traditions”), most of the ereba-making women did not embody a sensibility that could be easily labeled as a “feminist consciousness.” Instead, many of the women were focused on economic integration into mainstream markets,

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

123

relatively uncritical of a neoliberal, capitalist agenda. A feminist approach to understanding nationalism necessarily highlights the work of women. It does not require that the women being engaged are “feminist,” however that might be defined. Also, it acknowledges that there are often unfamiliar structures, such as the galpones, that tend to be led by women who are active participants in the cultural work and survival tasks of the community. We can learn a lot from greater attention to women’s roles within indigenous nations and in relation to states. In the seminal work Woman – Nation – State, Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias (1989) explored how the multiple roles of women are embedded in state relations. They made two important claims: (1) “central dimensions of the roles of women are constituted around the relationships of collectivities to the state” and (2) “central dimensions of the relationships between collectivities and the state are constituted around the roles of women” (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989, 1). In the case of Garifuna women and families, this draws attention to the importance of both how: (1) the role of Garifuna women is shaped by the relationship of Garifuna (or indigenous) people more broadly to the various states in which they reside, and (2) Garifuna women are specifically engaged, as mothers, political activists, and community leaders, in shaping the relationship of the state to Garifuna communities. Both race and gender shape the relationship of the Garinagu to various state actors. Yuval-Davis and Anthias (1989) named five ways that women tend to participate in ethnic and national processes: These are (a) as biological reproducers of members of ethnic collectivities; (b) as reproducers of the boundaries of ethnic/national groups; (c) as participating centrally in the ideological reproduction of the collectivity and as transmitters of its culture; (d) as signifiers of ethnic/national differences – as a focus and symbol in ideological discourses used in the construction, reproduction and transformation of ethnic/national categories; (e) as participants in national, economic, political and military struggles. (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989, 7) The importance of Garifuna women as biological reproducers is highlighted by the status of mothers in Garifuna society. Through transmission of the Garifuna language, Garifuna women are reproducers who help to maintain the important linguistic distinctiveness of the group. As land is passed down through matrilineal lines, women are instrumental in marking the physical boundaries of the group. They are the primary educators of children and responsible for the transmission of cultural traditions, including styles of dress and ereba-making. In political struggle, Garifuna matrifocality is tightly coupled with deep ties to ancestral and indigenous land. The organization OFRANEH embodies this female and indigenous identity.

124

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Understanding Garifuna women’s marginalization within the state requires understanding the marginalization of the Garinagu as a racial and ethnic minority. However, it also requires an understanding of sexism within indigenous nations. Native feminist Ramirez (2007) discussed her frustration that “too often the assumption in Native communities is that we as indigenous women should defend a tribal nationalism that ignores sexism as part of our very survival as women as well as our liberation from colonization” (22–23). Addressing sexism in indigenous communities is complicated by the historic feminization of indigenous peoples: “The ‘passive,’ or female, role characteristically was assigned to Indians, both past and present. It was from the ‘Indian mother,’ after all, that the pan-ethnic Indian historical identity was presumed to have come” (Gudmundson and Scarano 1998, 343). When we consider the feminization of indigenous identity alongside the masculinization of Black identity, it is clear why only an intersectional approach can be used to explore the matrifocality in the Black indigenous Garifuna community. This complex identity is connected to the question of land access and rights. In the section below, I focus on some details of Garifuna migration history, identity, and politics in developing an integrated and intersectional analysis. The subsections explore US Garifuna migrations, Garifuna matrifocality, and the connection between Garifuna identity and land rights. McClintock (1996) argues that a “feminist theory of nationalism” must do the work of “bringing into historical visibility women’s active cultural and political participation in national formations” (261). The next section aims to create such visibility.

The Garifuna Transnational Community A History of Garifuna US Migrations Garifuna men began to migrate in large numbers to the US in the 1940s, often working as merchant marines, in order to fill job vacancies left by American soldiers fighting in World War II (Johnson 2005, 46). Many worked as merchant marines for the United Fruit Company (England 1999, 11). England (2006) described how this work option was preferable to work on the banana plantations: Many Garifuna men chose this work because it paid better than plantation labor and they were able to have the company regularly send a portion of their check to family members in the villages. In addition, merchant marines continued to receive checks upon retirement, which meant the possibility of living out old age in relative luxury in Central America. (44) For Honduran Garinagu, this option was especially desirable since the Garinagu in that country were treated as second-class citizens for much of the

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

125

first half of the twentieth century, being barred from many hotels and restaurants as well as prohibited from sitting in public parks (Anderson 2005). It was not until after World War II that some of these racist policies and practices began to change due to a number of factors, including a 1940s labor movement. This facilitated the transition to more democratic forms of governance, antiracist initiatives launched by the Garifuna in the 1950s, and increased integration of the Garinagu into national government and organizations (Anderson 2005, 105). Also, in the Honduran constitution of 1982, the government agreed to preserve and stimulate native cultures and national folklore (Gold 2009, 54). In the 1960s, with the rise of a service-based economy in the US, immigration to the US both expanded and diversified. There was an increase in the number of women migrating to the US during this period for jobs as nannies and home attendants (Gonzalez 1988, 173), as well as a more general feminization of all low-wage labor markets (Matthei and Smith 1996, 137). Although Garifuna migration to the US was initially dominated by men, by the 1960s, women frequently migrated for jobs (England 2006, 2). This second wave of immigration to the US was facilitated by US legislation that abolished overtly race-based immigration prohibitions (Johnson 2007, 17). During the 1960s, many of the merchant marines began to settle in US cities (England 1999, 11). In the 1980s and 1990s there was an economic boom that generated a third wave of migration, especially in the service economy (Johnson 2007, 19). It was in the midst of this increased transnationalization, beyond Central America, that the term Garifuna became popularly used to identify the group who had over time been identified (by others) as Black Caribs, morenos, and negros. The term Garifuna makes reference to the shared Garifuna language and culture, emphasizing the group’s ethnic, rather than racial, identity: This identification as Garifuna (rather than simply negro or moreno) was strategic because it removed the Garifuna from the colour continuum and placed them alongside indigenous peoples as a group that is culturally and racially distinct from the mestizo majority and intends to stay so. (England 2010, 203) In emphasizing the difference between the mestizo and Garifuna identity, the terms Garifuna (and Garinagu) continue to be used today, referring to the group’s unique history, language, and cultural traditions. In many Latin American countries, the mestizo national identity has blinded much of the population to the ethnic diversity within the countries. In Honduras, awareness of ethnic diversity increased in the 1980s and 1990s, as a result of indigenous groups organizing for land rights and bilingual education, among other things (Gold 2009, 51). Alliances between the Garinagu and other indigenous groups has been critical to human rights struggles. Indigenous movements within states have been supported transnationally and globally through transnational advocacy as well as through solidarity with groups fighting for

126

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

similar rights. These struggles have occurred in an ever-changing political context, in interaction with a Garifuna identity that has been dynamic, engaging multiple diasporic horizons, affected by migratory patterns. By 2005 Garifuna women were nearly as likely as men to migrate to the US (Johnson 2006, 52). The migration trends often resulted in large numbers of working-age “residents” being away from home villages, so much so that some ethnographers referred to the Garifuna villages as nurseries and nursing homes because of the mix of small children and elders (England 2006, 47). Gonzalez (1988) discussed the pervasive concept of dual residence in these communities, such that even after years of absence, people are still considered residents (203). Johnson (2005) described a 2001 census of the village of San Juan in Honduras that showed 1132 of the 1655 residents were absent from the village, being split almost evenly between US and Honduran cities (46). There continues to be regular migration of Garifuna men and women to the US for employment.5 Further, the continuing work of Garifuna men in various shipping industries means they are often away from villages, with women constituting most of the village (formal and informal) leadership. If Garifuna culture in the villages is distinctly indigenous (linked with land rights) and female, then Garifuna transmigrant culture has tended to be more Black and male (rooted in a culture set by Garifuna men’s early migration). Just as the understanding of Garifuna indigeneity and Blackness has changed over time and across place, so too has the community’s sense of Africanness: Until recent onomastic shifts led by Garifuna activists, Afro-Honduran was practically a non sequitur. But Africa is now being reinstated in the awareness of the Garifuna in Honduras. It has happened under the rubric of diaspora, largely through the agency of emigrants to New York. (Johnson 2007, 102) In recent years, Garifuna transmigrants have become more African and more Black through their transnational engagements with other Black Afro-descendants. In contrast to this move toward Blackness, the reach toward an indigenous identity has long been linked to rural, agrarian life and culture. In privileging voices of the rural Garifuna woman, I focus on aspects of her power that are rooted in a connection to land. As described below, some of this power and access is evident in transnational interactions.

5

Several of my neighbors from the Honduran villages where I conducted research now live in the US, concentrated in port cities (e.g., New York, New Orleans, and Houston). Consistent with historical data on Garifuna migration, the men have tended to work on (tourist, fishing, and cargo) ships, while the women have become nannies for small children or caregivers for seniors.

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

127

Garifuna Matrifocal Nation In exploring the transnational Garifuna nation, we must also consider how being gendered members of states impacts citizenship entitlements: “Moreover, transnational perspectives on gender and citizenship highlight the interaction between structural inequalities and women’s agency and resistance within and across nation-states” (The Gender and Cultural Citizenship Working Group 2009, 9). Considering potential tensions between the nation and state, Yuval-Davis (1997) recognized the importance of an analysis of nations within states: The notion of the nation has to be analysed and related to nationalist ideologies and movements on the one hand and the institutions of the state on the other. Nations are situated in specific historical moments and are constructed by shifting nationalist discourses promoted by different groupings competing for hegemony. Their gendered character should be understood only within such contextualization. (4) Although the previous chapter focused on the constraining factors for Garinagu within the Honduran state, we must also understand Garinagu in a transnational context. Cultural claims of the Garinagu are not restricted to the state, but rather operate in a transnational context. The designation of the community as a “masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage” was the result of transnational efforts, primarily of Garifuna organizations in Belize and Nicaragua (López 2001, 43). This is evidence of a brand of nationalism that engages the idea of autonomy in a context broader than the state. Yuval-Davis (1997) usefully pointed out that “membership of ‘nations’ can be sub-, super- and cross-states, as the boundaries of nations virtually never coincide with those of so-called ‘nation-states’” (3). In fact, many indigenous nationalisms are constructed in ways that are impossible to represent in mainstream IR theories: Whereas nation-states are governed through domination and coercion, indigenous sovereignty and nationhood are predicated on interrelatedness and responsibility. In opposition to nation-states, which are based on control over territory, these visions of indigenous nationhood are based on care and responsibility for land that we can all share. These models of sovereignty are not based on a narrow definition of a nation that would entail a closely bound community and ethnic cleansing. So, these articulations pose an alternative to theories that assume that the endpoint to a national struggle is a nation-state and that assume the givenness of the nation-state system. (Smith 2008, 312)

128

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Just as ereba-making represents the potential for alternatives to development in the rural Garifuna villages of Honduras, transnational indigenous communities with collective land titles held by groups of Black indigenous women fall outside of the ways in which nations are typically envisioned. There is something significant to be learned from these Garifuna women, and their relationship to land, language, culture, and community. As the group responsible for the preservation and transmission of Garifuna culture, Garifuna women have unique concerns: They articulate a conscious aim of preserving and transmitting Garifuna culture as it comes under threat from the commercial values of tourism and the sale of coastal land. … They draw on their long history of working together to form cooperatives that have proven to be economically successful. (Sutton 1997, xiii–xiv) Since land in the Garifuna community passes through the mother’s line, women are the protectors and keepers of ancestral territories. Gargolla (2005) discussed how Garifuna women’s historically powerful position within Garifuna society has been threatened by global forces: Today, colonialism is present under the disguise of the tourism industry, the globalization of the economy, and the influence of trends that almost invariably impose a hierarchical structure. Garifuna women are presently in danger of having their role devalued in their community as a result of the loss of coastal land and the shift from a rural economy, that valued their role, to a market-based economy. (137) Given this gendered threat, one can understand how the relationship of Garifuna women to land rights might be different from that of men, especially when we consider the relative lack of power that these same women would have in a multinational corporate context that privileges whiteness and maleness. It is in these multiple contexts that the significance of Garifuna women’s ereba work must be understood. Ereba work is both cultural and political, embodying the preservation of an important ancestral tradition, feeding women’s families, and (literally) rooting in the communal land. Ereba work is also women’s work. How are we to understand the role of men in women’s work? Blackwood (2006) cautioned scholars against allowing discussions of matrifocality to become heteronormative in ways that focus on the “missing man.” Instead, she urged scholars to analyze Garifuna matrifocal households in their own right. The Garifuna family ideal does not actually depend on constant male presence. Even though the family ideal is heteronormative, there is also an assumption of extended male absence as well as female independence and interdependence, especially among women of child-

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

129

bearing age. When men are present, they assist women and when men are absent, women modify their work or call on other men (especially relatives) who are present. When we consider how seldom “missing women” are the focal point in discussions of male-dominated (political and social) environments, a feminist perspective challenges the idea that there is anything missing in predominately female environments. Brusco (1995) identified this double-standard, specifically in the literature on Latin American families, of seeing female-headed households as domains that are “missing men.” Descriptions of masculine domains in such countries, such as bars, public politics, or certain occupations, do not start out with an extensive consideration of the absence of women in these arenas. Yet the writing on Latin American household and family has historically been hampered by this curious tendency to begin descriptions and analysis of Latin American domestic groups with a consideration of the male component. (Brusco 1995, 80) In ancestral Garifuna villages, the absence of men is normal. Absence is seen as temporary and frequent, and there are ways to accommodate the absence of a particular man with the assistance of other men. Understanding and accepting the matrifocal household as the norm in Garifuna society allows a focus on the agency of Garifuna women who are present and active rather than on the absence of men. Further, it allows for deeper understanding of women as the traditional heads of households within the Garifuna society. In contrast to the mestizo family ideal, the Garifuna female-led household has to work to be accepted in the context of patriarchal states. Vickers (2006) highlighted how being a racial or ethnic minority can alter a woman’s relationship to the state: Women of the dominant nation can rely on state institutions to reproduce their national identity; women of minority nations or peoples experience a greater sense of responsibility for reproducing their national identity. This may predispose some minority women to struggle to liberate “their” nations and make affiliation with such national projects more likely. (92) In this way, Garifuna women tend not to be assisted by the state in their selfdetermination. Instead, they often come into conflict with state assumptions about male-dominated households. As women in poverty, the lives of Garifuna ereba makers are communally interdependent out of necessity. Yuval-Davis (1998) noted, “People construct themselves as members of national collectivities not just because they, and their forefathers (and mothers) have shared a past, but also because they believe their futures are interdependent” (22). This is often the case in

130

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

(economically) poor and marginalized communities where coordination is critical to survival. Contrasting bourgeois and peasant classes, Chatterjee (1999) argued that individuals of the peasant class come together because of communal bonds: Individuals are enjoined to act within a collectivity because, it is believed, bonds of solidarity that tie them together already exist. Collective action does not flow from a contract among individuals; rather, individual identities themselves are derived from membership in a community. (163) Chatterjee’s statement highlights the importance of group membership in (economically) poor contexts. Certainly, this view is consistent with what we know about the importance of family in rural Garifuna villages. The matrifocality of the Garifuna family has shaped communication and material flows. Sarah England (2006) described matrifocality as one of the organizing principles of the transnational Garifuna community: The kinship system and domestic structure of “matrifocality” is one of the main organizing principles of the transnational community because it shapes the character of transnational households, patterns of remittances and investments, and community-level rituals of solidarity. At the same time, however, this principle of matrifocality is articulated with the gendered division of labor and other conditions in Honduras and New York City, creating a different set of resources, obligations, opportunities, and constraints for Garifuna men and women in two different locations. (England 2006, 28–29)6 Although the matrifocality of the community has benefits for women with regard to autonomy, England (2006) was careful to point out limitations related to containment within patriarchal states: So while there is no Garifuna gender ideology that prevents women from working, the sexual division of labor in the patriarchal Central American labor market means that women do not have the same earning potential 6

It is frustrating to see US cities compared to entire countries, as if those countries are not also composed of urban and rural areas. While there are some global cities (e.g., New York, Paris, Tokyo) that we might assume readers know, it is also important to confront the single, monolithic image given of some countries that do not contain such global cities. Ultimately, the practice of listing US cities alongside non-US countries (and when it comes to African countries, sometimes just indicating the continent) reinforces US imperialist practices and IR statism that suggests that beyond the US, the most important unit of analysis is the state. It also makes it difficult to understand the (political and social) nuances that exist within non-US states, much less how nations and families operate across states (i.e., transnationally).

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

131

as men. Many women prefer to stay in Garifuna villages where they can get by with the help of female kin, sporadic contributions from the father(s) of their children, and cultivation. (74–75) Thus, although the matrifocality of the community has been preserved, to some extent, in intra-community transnational relations, women’s agency continues to be challenged by the patriarchal nature of Latin American states. How, then, are we to understand a coherent transnational Garifuna nation? When Sarah England (1999) attended the bicentennial celebration of the Garifuna arrival in Honduras in 1997, she noted that the discussion of nation was not rooted in any territory, but existed as a diasporic concept: “The most consistent claim made by Garifuna organizers of the event was that the Garinagu constitute a single ethnic ‘nation’—unified by a common language, culture, and origins in St. Vincent—despite their current geographical dispersion and fragmented citizenships” (8). When England (1999) discussed the Garifuna nation in diaspora, she referred to the worldviews of Garifuna “transmigrants” who are living in the US, but have home villages in Honduras. These transmigrants typically have more financial resources than the ereba makers of Honduras, allowing them to be more mobile. This mobility, in turn, facilitates the de-territorialization of their conceptualization of the Garifuna nation. In the rural Garifuna villages of Honduras, land is everything. With land, you can plant crops and feed a family. The Garifuna ereba makers listed agricultural work as one of the most important signifiers of their “Garifuna-ness” and are unlikely to adopt such abstract notions of the Garifuna nation in diaspora.7 The Garifuna nation in diaspora is described by some US transmigrants as being powered by Internet technologies: “They envision cyberspace as being a tool that will unite the Garinagu across geographical borders, preserve Garifuna culture through technology, and promote the creation of what they call a ‘Global Garifuna Village’ or a ‘Global Garifuna Nation’” (England 1999, 36). During my 2011–2012 stay in the rural Garifuna villages of Honduras there was no electric grid and no regular Internet access. This Internet-powered vision thus excludes many rural Garifuna communities. It is clear that this vision is one for a privileged (in terms of social class, mobility, and access to technological resources) Garifuna elite. 7

Often more abstract notions of nation are linked to digital access, which varies widely across urban and rural locations. DeHart (2004) found the base assumptions of a “Digital Diaspora for Latin America” project to be neoliberal “because of the way they promoted development through market-based rationalities that privileged individual responsibility, social enterprise, and post-national economic and technological integration” (254). It is important to note when the agenda of nationalist and/or diasporic projects shifts along with participation rooted in access to digital technologies.

132

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Interestingly, it excludes many of the villages that are the ancestral home of many Garinagu. England (1999) suggested that the Garifuna nation in diaspora stands as an alternative to a territorial nationalism. While in some ways this may be true, it cannot be ignored that ultimately most people live on land. England’s (1999) suggestion that a circuitous path to rights that takes advantage of international institutions can stand as an alternative to state rights, thus seems flawed. Concerning the Garifuna nation in diaspora, England (1999) wrote, It avoids the trap of having to negotiate for rights as small minorities within historically racist nation-states, and challenges the attempts of these nation-states to reinscribe Garinagu into their nationalist projects. It also creates a narrative of nation where shared culture and identity is more relevant than shared territory. (38) Quite obviously, there are groups that have prioritized shared territory (i.e., communal land titles) within the Garifuna nation. In this way, we can see how different visions of a Garifuna nation result in different political agendas. For those less wealthy and less mobile Garifuna individuals, advocacy through international or transnational organizations is a path to state recognition, not an alternative. It is a mechanism by which states can be pressured to recognize marginalized populations. However, one should not assume that because Garifuna communities are taking advantage of these opportunities they are any less interested in being considered full citizens of states. In particular, for the women of the Garifuna ancestral villages, transnational solidarity and international organizing can be seen as a path to the protection of ancestral lands—lands that are necessary for the subsistence farming and ereba-making that dominate rural livelihoods. However, it is important to note that these questions about what defines a nation are “periodically reimagined, even reinvented, often at moments of crisis, precipitated by the need to determine who belongs and who does not, who defines the character of the nation and who is its antithesis” (Holt 2003, x, emphasis in original). Understanding the politicized nature of ethnic belonging, we must consider that “the boundaries of the ethnic collective do not remain static. They are continuously being redrawn to serve processes and interests that form part of a diverse number of political projects, including economic ones” (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1993, 20). The section below highlights how Garifuna identity is implicated in the struggle for land rights. Garifuna Identity and Land Rights How do tensions among different visions for a Garifuna nation play out in Central American struggles for land? England (1999) argued that, by laying claim to land rights on the basis of their indigenous, or autochthonous,

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

133

identity, the Garifuna people make claims on the state that are based on rules and rights defined by international institutions that extend beyond the state (e.g., Inter-American Court of Human Rights). In this way, the Garifuna community highlights its ethnoracial difference (from the mestizo fictive national identity) in a political strategy that advances access to land. The difference of these recent mobilizations from previous peasant and urban movements is that rather than legitimate their claims to these rights only as citizens of the state, they legitimate their claims also through their difference from the nation-state. In other words, indigenous and ethnic peoples claim their rights to land through their “primordial” ties to that territory prior to the existence of the state; they claim rights to cultural sovereignty and bilingual education precisely because of their cultural difference from the national subject; and they claim their rights to economic sufficiency, health care, and other social benefits as universal human rights, rather than only as the rights of citizens of a particular nation-state. (England 1999, 17) As a response to their marginalization within the state, some Garifuna organizations have taken a circuitous route to rights advocacy, relying on international norms and institutions. For Garifuna transmigrants, who may be less connected to the ancestral villages, this may represent a trend toward a deterritorialized nation. For Garifuna people and organizations more firmly rooted in ancestral territories, this represents a strategy designed to force state recognition. Thus, international pressure can be seen as a strategy for advancing state demands. If we understand the importance of an emphasis on Garifuna indigenous identity in land rights and claims, we have to consider how Garifuna Blackness might be an obstacle. For the Garinagu, being both Black and indigenous in Latin America has been used against them. Among rural Garinagu, being recognized as indigenous has been critically important in the struggle for land rights and has required overcoming resistance to the reality of Black indigeneity. Taylor (2012) wrote, “In 1992 the Garifuna were admitted to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples after overcoming resistance in that body to accepting black-skinned people in the Americas as indigenous” (158). Blackness and indigeneity have often been interpreted as competing characteristics in a zero sum game; the more indigenous one is, the less Black one is and vice versa. In his discussion of “Race and Nation in Latin America,” Peter Wade (2003) wrote, “In general, it has been hard to argue that racial minorities deserve specific rights or treatment. In this respect, the situation for indigenous peoples has been significantly different from that for blacks” (275). In this way, Wade described Blackness and indigeneity in ways that are mutually exclusive, foreclosing the possibility of a Black indigenous group such as the Garinagu. A

134

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

keener analysis would explore “the relationship between race phenomena and ethnic phenomena. This requires attending to the different political projects relating to ethnic and national phenomena, and how race and racism are concretely articulated within these” (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1993, 19). That the intersection of race and ethnicity is so often ignored makes the recognition of Black indigeneity (e.g., Garifuna identity) particularly important. Before Garinagu recognition by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, the exclusion of Blackness from the Honduran national identity paired with the denial of Black indigeneity allowed the state to deny land rights to the Garifuna people (Brondo 2013, 33). Mark Anderson (2009) described the political value of indigeneity for Garifuna collective claims. Indigeneity thus provided a language through which collective claims could be made and heard; it made a collective subject that the state and other actors could recognize as legitimately distinctive. Garifuna, though identifying and identified as Black, became “visible” as a collective subject to the state, indigenous and environmental organizations, international NGOs, multilateral institutions, and the public media by appearing in the same metacultural frame as indigenous peoples. (Anderson 2009, 134) The Garifuna indigenous identity has been critically important in the fight for access to land rights. It is rare for non-indigenous Black groups to be granted such access. In highlighting this tension between Blackness and indigeneity, patriarchy and matrofocality, rural poor and urban elite, we have unearthed the complexity of the struggle over Garifuna (trans)national ethnoracial, gendered, and classed identity. Below, I use the TBF framework to enhance our understanding.

A TBF Analysis of Latin American Transnational Indigeneity In the transnational history of the Garinagu, the question of belonging has long been linked to ethnoracial identity, from their classification as Black Caribs and forced exile from St. Vincent to the challenges of being recognized as Black natives in the Honduran mestizo state. In Latin American countries, the mestizo fictive national identity has made it difficult for ethnic minorities to be considered “native” sons and daughters: The idea that mestizaje evokes both sameness and hierarchical difference is related to this: the trope allows both equality and inequality to be imagined and experienced. Mestizaje inherently involves both a symbolics of future homogeneity and a symbolics of original, primordial differences: both are continuously re-created, never entirely superseded. This is so in the texts of intellectuals who from the mid-nineteenth century onward

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

135

have discussed the nature of nationhood and their country’s diversity, including its racial diversity. (Wade 2003, 264) If previous sections in this chapter highlighted the forms of racism that have shaped Latin American states, then this final section asks how a TBF analysis points us in the direction of scholarly and practical solutions. In attending to such matters, we must consider historical and epistemic roots of current disciplinary omissions. Although race has gone through constant theoretical and historical naturalization since World War II, the discrimination between who can be considered enemies and who are not worthy of such status, and between those who can govern and those who cannot, continues to be legitimate. Undoing this discrimination requires undoing the political and the politics as we know it—a task that requires more than the most radical multiculturalism welcoming to politics those previously evicted by racist politics. I would like to suggest that denouncing racism—even undoing it—may address the inferiority in question, but it does not address the epistemic roots of the antagonism between those entitled to rule and those destined to be ruled. What needs to be addressed is the epistemic maneuver that organized the political deciding what could be brought into politics and what belonged to a different managerial sphere. (de la Cadena 2010, 345) Consequently, IR scholars must view the issue of exclusion across multiple axes (i.e., with an intersectional lens), and create different knowledges (i.e., engaging in scholar-activism) with communities of resistance (i.e., in solidarity with activists) in ways that challenge an exclusive focus on state actors (i.e., attending to various borders and boundaries). Further, we must do so honestly (i.e., with radically transparent author positionality) in order to clear the “smoke and mirrors” that conceal how power functions in the academy. The TBF framework provides such a path forward. TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality A TBF analysis centers an intersectional approach that examines multiple axes of marginalization. When applying such an approach to an interrogation of the discipline of IR, one finds that interventions need to be made on the basis of the exclusion of discussions of race, gender, transnational communities, and specifically indigenous peoples. Taking these omissions one at a time would be unrealistic, and would not fully capture the ways in which these forms of exclusion operate together. In recent years, there has been some acknowledgment of multiple forms of silence (and silencing):

136

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity The silence on race and gender in the IR academy, though less so now, was always justified on the basis that either the scholarship on those problems is not scientific, or that it does not impact the key issues of International Relations – taken to be war, and other state-tostate interactions. (Persaud and Sajed 2018, 14)

The earlier interventions lay the foundation for a deeper disruption—one that seeks to insert alternative (to white, male, colonizer, class-privileged) voices. Such an intervention needs to embody a radical (i.e., getting to the root) approach that addresses multiple and simultaneous exclusions from the discipline. In particular, this chapter has focused on the challenges of recognition for transnational indigenous groups in Latin America, focusing on the specific case of the Black indigenous matrifocal Garifuna nation. TBF Principle #2: Solidarity Beier (2004) wrote, “The invisibility of Indigenous peoples from the perspective of adherents to the orthodoxy of international relations is in some measure reproduced by the failure of these same scholars to see them” (110). Solidarity work takes many forms. However, if (indigenous and nonindigenous) IR scholars are to claim any interest in a society that does not commit ongoing acts of violence against indigenous peoples of the Americas, we must first acknowledge the epistemic violence being done by statecentered IR scholarship: “The idea that global inequality reflects the merit of states as individuated units excludes from view the history of violence and the structured social relationships that produce and sustain global inequalities” (Inayatullah and Blaney 2018, 127, emphasis in original). Once we acknowledge the structures of violence, we must then commit ourselves to connection (materially and theoretically) to communities challenging various forms of oppression. In other words, we should cultivate relationships that challenge violence, oppression, and exclusion. Shedding the illusion of apolitical scholarship and praxis, a TBF framework calls for explicit engagement and solidarity with political movements that are making Black and indigenous lives possible. TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism We must also consider how IR scholarship itself should be changed by a TBF framework. What harm has IR scholarship done? What are the consequences of IR scholars privileging the state? Conventional state-centric IR scholarship actively engages the marginalization of indigenous peoples: “The exclusive theorization of formal politics and governance through the historically specific, contingent body of the state is a discursive justification for marginalizing and excluding Indigenous peoples

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

137

8

from international politics on their own terms” (King 2018, 140). If we understand the antagonistic relationship between contemporary states and indigenous nations, an IR intervention must insist that multiple histories from different vantage points be included in future scholarship. Arturo Escobar suggested that a plurality of visions can be found in Latin American social movements, “bringing about not a universe (such as that dreamt of by development) but a pluriverse of social, cultural, economic and environmental configurations” (Alloo et al. 2007, 11–12). Thus, we must understand the scholar-activist project of transforming the collective imagination as having implications far beyond IR theory. TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries In this chapter, I have highlighted the importance of a shift away from a statecentric IR toward an IR that attends to multiple borders and boundaries.9 For a start, we should be looking at indigenous nations contained within states, transnational (i.e., multi-state) indigenous nations, and regions (e.g., Latin America) as important boundaries in IR studies. Currently, US-based IR manages to be “Western” even in its exclusion of Latin American states in the western hemisphere: With strong roots in Roman law, Catholicism, and the Iberian sociopolitical tradition, Latin America is Western; yet it represents a particular Luso-Hispanic variant of the Western tradition, and its social and cultural underpinnings are quite different from the variant established by the British in North America. Moreover, because of its strong Indian and (in the circum-Caribbean and Brazil) African subcultures, Latin America is sometimes classified as a non-Western area. (Wiarda and Kline 1990a, 4) Thus, we must understand the importance of race and ethnicity in determining whether countries (or even entire regions) are considered western. To be western is to not be African or indigenous. Wiarda and Kline (1990b), in fact, point to the dramatic difference in the number of indigenous people— approximately 3 million in North America compared with 30 million in Latin 8

9

In naming historical norms in the relationship between states and indigenous peoples, we must not fail to recognize indigenous individuals who are active participants in government as political candidates or politicians. Too often, such participation is used against these indigenous individuals in ways that question the “authenticity” of their indigeneity. Indigeneity is sometimes seen as embodying the traditional and thus simplistically pitted against all things modern. A more nuanced analysis must be undertaken. Within the discipline of IR, postcolonial IR scholars have advanced these discussions most. However, IR scholars will have to engage in “decolonial” practices if we are to arrive at a society that approximates something “postcolonial.”

138

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

America—as being a critical factor in understanding how societal race relations unfolded in the regions at the time of European colonization (21). North America was “settled” by families, while Latin American conquerors came without family, viewing the conquest as a military campaign. The result was greater racial mixing in Latin America: Miscegenation and more relaxed racial attitudes led to predominately mestizo or mulatto societies in many countries of Latin America, which helps to explain the sense of national inferiority (on racial and cultural grounds) that many Latin Americans still feel and the sense of superiority toward the area—bolstered by old-time racial prejudices— that North Americans still harbor. (Wiarda and Kline 1990b, 21) Here again, we can see the importance of family (construction) in nationbuilding, a point made in Chapter 3 with greater detail. The racist foundations of the past continue to shape how we categorize and discuss the people and countries of today’s world. Latin America’s history shapes contemporary racialization and class structures: Latin America consisted of a small elite at the top controlling a huge mass of Indian and African slaves, serfs, tenant farmers, peasants, and day laborers at the bottom. These social classes had been rigidly stratified in the Old World; in the New World, class considerations were further reinforced by racial ones. (Wiarda and Kline 1990b, 27) The “West” is defined in ways that assume whiteness, which exclude Spanishspeaking mestizo countries, but can include the (presumably) whiter Spain. A discipline that purports to understand global phenomena must look below, above, and across states, examining whatever kinds of actors (e.g., families) that make the most sense for the question being asked or the issue being studied. Attention to borders/boundaries must go beyond the reification of state boundaries toward a more nuanced analysis of the boundaries that shape a range of social, political, cultural, and economic activities. TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality Recently, I have been talking to white people in the US about race-based reparations. Many of them are ignorant of the (US) history of systemic racism that has supported a white supremacist state. In the context of workshops, some white folks have committed to working for a more just society that seeks to repair some of the damage done to indigenous people and African Americans, descended from enslaved Africans. Separate from these conversations with white inheritors of wealth in the US, I have also been engaging African Americans

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

139

about our complicity in a white supremacist system. If we know US history, we know that the land held by white inheritors of wealth was stolen from indigenous people. In such a context, why would we bargain with the white descendants of thieves? How can African Americans, in good conscience, put forth any demand for reparations that does not acknowledge the earlier theft? Mustn’t we have a joint demand crafted with indigenous peoples of the US that asks for the return of land to indigenous peoples? If we intend to go beyond the re-shuffling of ill-gotten gains and are aiming for justice, shouldn’t African Americans be negotiating shared land stewardship (rather than ownership) with indigenous peoples who, in addition to reclamation of land, want recognition of indigenous ontologies and epistemologies that demand a different kind of relationship between people, non-human animals, plants, and Earth?10 If so, we might consider the words of Marisol de la Cadena. A hegemonic notion of the political built on the silenced antagonism between nature and humanity either legitimized or occluded the war between the world of modern colonizers and those of the colonized— and in neither case allowed for politics between them. Their view as enemies displaced, the potential of an adversarial relationship, a rightful struggle for a hegemonic project, between them was stifled. It gave way to a center-periphery biopolitics of benevolent and inevitable inclusion in progress and civilization. … The object of policies of improvement, only through a process of transformation (e.g., through which they should deny the social relations they held with plants, rivers, or mountains), could “the naturals” gain active and legitimate access to politics. (de la Cadena 2010, 345) The work I am doing with/in the Garifuna communities of Honduras is connected to the work that I am doing in the US. All of it intends to aim for justice, beyond biocentric views that do not allow for attention to Nature. Even though I am working with different groups on moving toward justice-oriented solutions, which differ dramatically from philanthropic responses, I do not think that justice for African Americans can be achieved separately from justice for Native Americans. This reality haunts me. In the next chapter, I will explore several ideas about opportunities for solidarity-building, specifically between African American communities in the US and Black and indigenous communities elsewhere in the Americas (e.g., Garinagu in Honduras).

10 Arturo Escobar (2015) highlights buen vivir, sumak kawsay, and suma qamaña as several indigenous perspectives that offer alternative visions of human relation to Nature. He also has written about the “pioneering treatments of development and nature” in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian constitutions (Escobar 2011, 2).

140

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Conclusion In this chapter, I have challenged IR scholars to radically transform how we function within the discipline and in the world. In the first section, I focused on the exclusionary history of the field, and called for more attention to transnational indigenous communities. The second section of this chapter highlighted how the racism of state actors in Latin America is shaped by popular notions of racial mixture (i.e., mestizaje) and whitening (i.e., blanqueamiento). Third, I discussed feminist conceptualizations of the nation and nationalism. With that context, the fourth section of this chapter focused on the Garifuna case, highlighting a history of US migrations, the matrifocality of the Garifuna nation, and the relationship of Garifuna identity to land rights. Finally, I applied the TBF principles to explore the ideas introduced about transnational indigeneity. In solidarity with others committed to these values, scholars working in a TBF tradition can challenge the separation between scholars (or scholar-activists) and activists, making explicit connections to those outside of the academy and undermining entrenched (social) class boundaries. In (re-)writing (alternative) IR histories and futures, we can engage in an intersectional identity of scholar-activist, disrupting the boundaries between activism and the academy and recognizing the academy as a legitimate space for activist engagement. Further, we can commit to the inclusion of greater nuance and contradictions through an intersectional analysis in our work. IR work done in the TBF tradition would require greater attention to borders/boundaries, calling into question whether the state should be centered as the unit of analysis in IR studies. Acknowledging that rigid disciplinary alignment with state actors is fundamentally dismissive of indigenous communities, a TBF framework explicitly calls for greater attention to and research with indigenous nations as a committed form of solidaritybuilding. In this process, a radically transparent author positionality is seen as a way to alter the trajectory of the discipline, without replacing one hegemonic discourse for another, but instead recognizing the limitations and partial perspectives of diverse contributors to such a project. In the next chapter, I suggest some specific opportunities for transnational solidarity work.

References Alloo, Fatma, Peggy Antrobus, Robert J. Berg, Louis Emmerij, Artuto Escobar, Gustavo Esteva, Jessica Horn, Joanna Kerr, Smitu Kothari, Afaf Mahfouz, Stephen F. Moseley, Khawar Mumtaz, Juma Mwapachu, Duncan Okello, Shobha Raghuram, Andrew E. Rice, Wolfgang Sachs, Nafis Sadik and Jos Van Gennip. 2007. “Reflections on 50 Years of Development.” Development 50 (S1): 4–32. Anderson, Mark. 2005. “Bad Boys and Peaceful Garifuna: Transnational Encounters Between Racial Stereotypes of Honduras and the United States (and Their Implications for the Study of Race in the Americas).” In Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos. Edited by Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler, 101–115. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

141

Anderson, Mark. 2009. Black and Indigenous: Garifuna Activism and Consumer Culture in Honduras. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Anthias, Floya and Nira Yuval-Davis in association with Harriet Cain. 1993. Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. London: Routledge. Appelbaum, Nancy P., Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt. 2003. “Introduction: Racial Nations.” In Race & Nation in Modern Latin America. Edited by Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, 1–31. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Balibar, Etienne. 1991. “Racism and Nationalism.” In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. Translated by Chris Turner, 37–67. London: Verso. Beier, J. Marshall. 2004. “Beyond Hegemonic State(ment)s of Nature: Indigenous Knowledge and Non-State Possibilities in International Relations.” In Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class. Edited by Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair, 82–114. London: Routledge. Besserer, Federico. 2009. “Inappropriate/Appropriated Feelings: The Gendered Construction of Transnational Citizenship.” In Gendered Citizenships: Transnational Perspectives on Knowledge Production, Political Activism, and Culture. Edited by Kia Lilly Caldwell, Kathleen Coll, Tracy Fisher, Renya K. Ramirez, and Lok Siu, 75–88. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bessire, Lucas. 2014. “The Rise of Indigenous Hypermarginality: Native Culture as a Neoliberal Politics of Life.” Current Anthropology 55(3) (June): 276–287. Blackwood, Evelyn. 2006. “Marriage, Matrifocality, and ‘Missing’ Men.’” In Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future. Edited by Pamela L. Geller and Miranda K. Stockett, 73–88. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2013. Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Brusco, Elizabeth E. 1995. The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Chambers, Sarah C. 2003. “Little Middle Ground: The Instability of Mestizo Identity in the Andes, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” In Race & Nation in Modern Latin America. Edited by Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, 32–55. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Chatterjee, Partha. 1999. “The Nation and Its Fragments.” In The Partha Chaterjee Omnibus, xi–282. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2009. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. Cultural Survival. 2016. “Indigenous Rights Win Major Steps Forward in Honduras.” Cultural Survival. Accessed March 31, 2019. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/ indigenous-rights-win-major-steps-forward-honduras. DeHart, Monica. 2004. “‘Hermano Entrepreneurs!’ Constructing a Latino Diaspora Across the Digital Divide.” Diaspora 13(2/3) (Fall/Fall/Winter): 253–277. de la Cadena, Marisol. 2001. “Reconstructing Race: Racism, Culture and Mestizaje in Latin America.’” NACLA Report on the Americas 34(6) (May/June): 16–23. de la Cadena, Marisol. 2010. “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections Beyond ‘Politics.’” Cultural Anthropology 25(2): 334–370. England, Sarah. 1999. “Negotiating Race and Place in the Garifuna Diaspora: Identity Formation and Transnational Grassroots Politics in New York City and Honduras.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 6(1): 5–53.

142

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

England, Sarah. 2006. Afro Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. England, Sarah. 2010. “Mixed and Multiracial in Trinidad and Honduras: Rethinking Mixed-race Identities in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(2): 195–213. Escobar, Arturo. 2010. “Latin America at a Crossroads: Alternative Modernizations, Post-Liberalism, or Post-Development?” Cultural Studies 24(1) (January): 1–65. Escobar, Arturo. 2011. “Sustainability: Design for the Pluriverse.” Development 54(2): 137–140. Escobar, Arturo. 2015. “Degrowth, Postdevelopment, and Transitions: A Preliminary Conversation.” Sustainability Science 10: 451–462. Gargolla, Francesca. 2005. “Garifuna: A Culture of Women and Men.” In The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders: Essays in Social Anthropology. Edited and translated by Carlos Montoro, 137–158. Belize: Cubola Productions. Gold, Janet N. 2009. Culture and Customs of Honduras. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gonzalez, Nancie L. 1988. Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Gordon, Edmund T. 1998. Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African Nicaraguan Community. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Gudmundson, Lowell and Francisco A. Scarano. 1998. “Conclusion: Imagining the Future of the Subaltern Past—Fragments of Race, Class, and Gender in Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean, 1850–1950.” In Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Edited by Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago, 335– 364. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan. 1994. “Introduction: Transnational Feminist Practices and Questions of Modernity.” In Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Edited by Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, 1–33. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Hernández, Tanya Katerí. 2013. Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law, and the New Civil Rights Response. New York: Cambridge University Press. Holt, Thomas C. 2003. “Foreword: The First New Nations.” In Race & Nation in Modern Latin America. Edited by Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, vii–xvi. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Inayatullah, Naeem and David L. Blaney. 2004. International Relations and the Problem of Difference. New York: Routledge. Inayatullah, Naeem and David L. Blaney. 2018. “Race and Global Inequality.” In Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives. Edited by Randolph B. Persaud and Alina Sajed, 116–134. New York: Routledge. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2005. “Migrating Bodies, Circulating Signs: Brazilian Candomblé, the Garifuna of the Caribbean and the Category of Indigenous Religions.” In Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations. Edited by Graham Harvey and Charles D. Thompson, Jr., 37–51. Burlington, VA: Ashgate. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2006. “Joining the African Diaspora: Migration and Diasporic Religious Culture among the Garífuna in Honduras and New York.” In Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance.

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

143

Edited by R. Marie Griffith and Barbara Dianna Savage, 37–58. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Johnson, Paul Christopher. 2007. Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jordan, Joseph. 2008. “Afro-Colombia: A Case for Pan-African Analysis.” In Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line. Edited by Manning Marable and Vanessa Agard-Jones, 87–98. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. King, Hayden. 2018. “Discourses of Conquest and Resistance: International Relations and Anishinaabe Diplomacy.” In Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives. Edited by Randolph B. Persaud and Alina Sajed, 135–154. New York: Routledge. Krishna, Sankaran. 2018. “Postcolonialism and Its Relevance for International Relations in a Globalized World.” In Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives. Edited by Randolph B. Persaud and Alina Sajed, 19–34. New York: Routledge. López, Asbel. 2001. “Preserving the Magic: A Tangible Debut.” The UNESCO Courier (September): 43. Matthei, Linda Miller and David A. Smith. 1996. “Women, Households, and Transnational Migration Networks: The Garifuna and Global Economic Reasoning.” In Latin America in the World-Economy. Edited by Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C. Smith, 133–149. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. McClintock, Anne. 1996. “‘No Longer in a Future of Heaven’: Nationalism, Gender, and Race.” In Becoming National: A Reader. Edited by Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, 260–284. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oka, Cynthia Dewa. 2016. “A Conversation with My Six-Year-Old about Revolution.” In Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams, 43. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Persaud, Randolph B. and Alina Sajed. 2018. “Introduction: Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations.” In Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives. Edited by Randolph B. Persaud and Alina Sajed, 1–18. New York: Routledge. Peterson, V. Spike. 1995. “The Politics of Identity and Gendered Nationalism.” In Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation. Edited by Laura Neack, Jeanne A. K. Hey, and Patrick J. Haney, 167–186. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ramirez, Renya. 2007. “Race, Tribal Nation, and Gender: A Native Feminist Approach to Belonging.” Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 7(2): 22–40. Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1995. “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction.” In Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions. Edited by Thomas Risse-Kappen, 3–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sanders, James. 2003. “Belonging to the Great Granadan Family: Partisan Struggle and the Construction of Indigenous Identity and Politics in Southwestern Colombia, 1849–1890.” In Race & Nation in Modern Latin America. Edited by Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, 56–86. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

144

Understanding Transnational Indigeneity

Sinha, Mrinalini. 2004. “Gender and Nation.” In Women’s History in Global Perspective: Volume 1. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith, 229–274. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Smith, Andrea. 2008. “American Studies without America: Native Feminisms and the Nation-State.” American Quarterly 60(2) (June): 309–315. Sutton, Constance R. 1997. “Foreword.” In Women and the Ancestors: Black Carib Kinship and Ritual, Second Edition. Edited by Virginia Kerns, ix–xvi. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Taylor, Christopher. 2012. The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. The Gender and Cultural Citizenship Working Group. 2009. “Introduction: Collectivity and Comparativity: A Feminist Approach to Citizenship.” In Gendered Citizenships: Transnational Perspectives on Knowledge Production, Political Activism, and Culture. Edited by Kia Lilly Caldwell, Kathleen Coll, Tracy Fisher, Renya K. Ramirez, and Lok Siu, 1–15. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Vickers, Jill. 2006. “Bringing Nations In: Some Methodological and Conceptual Issues Connecting Feminisms with Nationhood and Nationalisms.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 8(1) (March): 84–109. Wade, Peter. 1993. Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Wade, Peter. 2003. “Afterword: Race and Nation in Latin America.” In Race & Nation in Modern Latin America. Edited by Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, 263–281. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Wiarda, Howard J. and Harvey F. Kline. 1990a. “The Context of Latin American Politics.” In Latin American Politics and Development, Third Edition. Edited by Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline, 3–19. Boulder, CO: Houghton Mifflin Company. Wiarda, Howard J. and Harvey F. Kline. 1990b. “The Pattern of Historical Development.” In Latin American Politics and Development, Third Edition. Edited by Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline, 20–38. Boulder, CO: Houghton Mifflin Company. West, Lois A. 1997. “Introduction: Feminism Constructs Nationalism.” In Feminist Nationalism. Edited by Lois A. West, xii–xxxvi. New York: Routledge. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender & Nation. London: Sage Publications. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1998. “Gender and Nation.” In Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition. Edited by Rick Wilford and Robert L. Miller, 21–31. London: Routledge. Yuval-Davis, Nira and Floya Anthias, eds. 1989. Woman – Nation – State. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

6

Conclusion Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

At this point in the book, it should be clear that the intervention to be made in the discipline of IR is one that encourages greater consideration of interdependent (e.g., familial) and transnational (e.g., indigenous) communities. In a disciplinary context that privileges the individual and the state, it is useful to draw attention to the call of many (groups of) women to have their collective voices heard. Below is an excerpt from a poem about “Reproductive Justice for Women of the East” that articulates the sentiment well. You tell me to stand up for myself, I do, but with my family. You tell me to decide for me, I do, amidst my village. (Sharma 2017, 436) The poem highlights a collective women’s voice that speaks from a community context, instead of alone. In considering how a transnational Black feminist scholar-activist framework can be used in relation to activist and organizer networks, it is important to consider the desires and aspirations of women who intend to stand with (and in) communities of color. Women of color and the communities we inhabit are centered in a Transnational Black Feminist framework. This text was written with us in mind and heart. When I started my doctoral journey, I did not know very much about the roots of the discipline of IR. Part of the reason I decided to study international relations is because, as a US-based student, I found that the other social science disciplines were often too focused on the US (e.g., sociology becomes sociology in the US). Studying international relations, I thought, guarded against a certain amount of ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and colonial thinking. My thinking was wrong. Apparently, even international relations can be taught primarily from the perspective of white, wealth-privileged men born in the US or Europe. Having completed my doctoral program, I see many possibilities for what IR could be, an alternative future that would

146

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

include transnational Black feminist solidarity. This chapter articulates a vision for future transnational solidarity work. The first section discusses transnationalism (and transnational studies), with a focus on transnational feminist solidarity. Next reproductive justice and food sovereignty are explored as two areas that lend themselves to transnational solidarity work that centers women of color and their communities. The final section returns to the TBF guiding principles in an analysis of transnational solidarity, considering the possibilities of what Arturo Escobar calls a “pluriverse” of multiple worlds. In contrast to the conventional framing of international relations that asks us to consider states as billiard balls interacting in an international system of anarchy and self-help, a pluriverse recognizes the interdependency of states: Let it be emphasized that the premise of the multiplicity of worlds does not mean that these worlds are completely separate, interacting or ‘clashing’ among them as if they were billiard balls. On the contrary, they are inextricably entangled with each other, albeit under conditions of asymmetric power. (Escobar 2017, 337) Given such connections, we should envision our work as scholars, activists, and scholar-activists in ways that cut across states, and orient us toward justice.

From International Relations to Transnational Feminist Frameworks As was mentioned in Chapter 1, the discipline of international relations (or world politics) has no discernible Black feminist tradition. In fact, the deepest roots of the discipline are quite racist, which Henderson (2013) described as follows: Racism has not only informed the paradigms of world politics; it was fundamental to the conceptualization of its key theoretical touchstone: anarchy. The social contract theorists rooted their conceptualization of the state of nature in a broader “racial contract” that dichotomized humanity racially and established a white supremacist hierarchy in their foundational conceptions of society. Late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury IR theorists built on this racist dualism as they constructed their conception of a global anarchy and the role of “civilized” whites in providing maintaining and ensuring order within it by means of a system of international power relations among whites—or, at minimum, dominated by whites; and a system of colonial subjugation for nonwhites—or those nonwhites who failed to successfully resist their domination militarily. (88) Given these roots, a Black feminist intervention must consider radically different approaches to international studies. Jones (2008) wrote about the need

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

147

to go beyond the limits of discursive critique, and to develop an understanding of race and racial oppression which encompasses structural dimensions, in order to account for the way in which global racial inequality is routinely produced by an international order formally committed to racial equality and universal human rights. (908–909) A TBF framework encourages more nuanced (i.e., intersectional) analysis as a requisite part of international study. An intersectional approach highlights the structural dimensions of oppression that have been central to shaping relations among states, nations, and peoples. A transnational, rather than international (i.e., between states), approach is best suited for such analyses because it moves beyond a simplistic understanding of states as homogenous units with insignificant internal diversity (Schiller 2005, 440). Further, the state is analyzed alongside other kinds of actors in a transnational context. Many scholars have drawn attention to the importance of transnational phenomena in the “international society.” Grewal and Kaplan (1994) wrote, “Transnational linkages influence every level of social existence” (13). Similarly, Risse-Kappen (1995), declared that transnational relations “permeate world politics in almost every issue-area” (3). Risse-Kappen (1995) further wrote, “the transnational coalitions and actors are purposeful in the sense that they attempt to achieve specific political goals in the ‘target’ state of their activities” (8). Tarrow (2005) described how transnational activism engages states in international politics, and how transnational activists develop new ways to frame domestic issues (2–3); he argued that domestic politics cannot be separated from international politics (2). Keck and Sikkink (1998) similarly declared their intention to “bridge the increasingly artificial divide between international and national realms” (4). They did so by writing about transnational advocacy networks. Feminist scholars and activists are central to much transnational advocacy work. The term “transnational feminism” came into use in the context of conferences sponsored by the United Nations during the 1980s (Conway 2010, 151–152). Ackerly and D’Costa (2005) described transnational feminists as “women and men who are feminists and activists for women, and whose work concerns issues that they and others would recognise as feminist or women’s issues, although they often have a broad impact on society” (2–3). Transnational feminist organizations link women and/or feminists of the Global South and Global North. In building such bridges, it is important to attend to issues of power: “Transnational feminism’s literal interpretation of cross-border work as links with organizations in the South ends up participating in a politics of funding that often exacerbates the inequalities between the North and the South” (Carty and Das Gupta 2009, 97). Carty and Das Gupta (2009) described the dependent relationship as follows:

148

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity Pockets in the global South become the recipient of undoubtedly muchneeded material resources and expertise from the North but, so far, not in a manner that in any meaningful way redistributes the resources. Thus we see U.S.-based transnational feminism running the danger of mirroring the dependency of marginalized groups on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have proliferated in the South and the North to replace state-sponsored social-democratic programs that neoliberal policies have cut back. (102)

Such dependent relationships reify the developed/underdeveloped dichotomy that presumes that the North helps the South, or the Third World. Genuine solidarity, however, is based on mutual interests, and is not a philanthropic model. It engages in a justice-oriented redistribution of resources. Transnational feminists must also attend to professionalization of solidarity networks. As an example, Yuval-Davis (2006) described the “NGOization” of feminist advocacy, which reproduces the very systems of domination feminists critique. Such “NGOization” creates a hierarchy with trained legal professionals at the top, and less educated, poor women at the bottom. Basu (2000) linked this professionalization to a focus on the state: “The focus of the women’s movement on transforming the state has been responsible for its increasing reliance on institutional and legislative means rather than on grassroots mobilization” (80). How we understand transnational feminism is related to what we include in our accounting of transnational feminist activity, and the extent to which grassroots organizing is part of it. Certainly, when Sonia Alvarez (2000) described transborder connections between grassroots activists, she was not describing a network of elites. Alvarez’s (2000) observations about transnational feminist movements in Latin America highlighted the importance of contextualizing transnational activity. In spite of the top-down approach that characterizes some transnational feminist activity, Alvarez (2000) observed that “in the case of Latin America, the particularities of the regional and national political contexts in which feminisms unfolded also impelled local movement actors to build transborder connections from the bottom up” (30, emphasis in original). An example is the regional encuentros, or meetings, that happened throughout Latin America, and encouraged significant grassroots, transnational, feminist activity. During the 1980s and 1990s, Latin American feminists had a very different ethic and praxis from that of the feminists working for (US-based) non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or international government organizations (IGOs). According to Alvarez, Among Latin American feminists, I will argue, an internationalist identitysolidarity logic prevailed in the “encuentro-like” intra-regional feminist activities of the 1980s and 1990s, whereas a transnational IGO-advocacy

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

149

logic came to predominate in region-wide feminist organizing around the Rio, Vienna, Cairo and Beijing Summits of the 1990s. (Alvarez 2000, 31, emphasis in original) In this way, Latin American feminists of the 1980s and 1990s attended to localized politics of identity and grassroots solidarity-building based on shared oppression. In making this distinction, Alvarez makes an important distinction between different kinds of transnational (or transborder) interactions. Whereas the existing literature typically lumps all cross-border organizing efforts under a single analytical rubric (for instance, “global civil society” or transnational social movements), I want to suggest that different modalities of transborder activism not only can have differential impacts on promoting desired policy changes, but also can have distinct political consequences for activist discourses and practices and for intramovement power relations on the home front. (Alvarez 2000, 32) In particular, when we think about the activities of indigenous communities across borders that were formed after those communities were in place, it is easy to understand how the context of specific kinds of transborder activities influences significance and impact. Transborder activism has policy and power implications. When scholars (or scholar-activists) engage in any sort of advocacy (or activism), we lend our support to a particular side of a debate or issue. The repercussions of those actions extend beyond academia into the lives of grassroots activists. Tripp (2006) highlighted the potential harm done by transnational organizations: They are so focused on mobilizing and getting their constituents and the broader public to feel good about their involvement that they fail to notice the potential damage that their activism can cause, especially in cases of insufficient collaboration with those on the ground who are most knowledgeable about their own circumstances. (297) Even when there is collaboration with (some) local actors, there is often substantial complexity of relationships between local actors, who are often in conflict with one another. Consider the tension between ODECO and OFRANEH regarding the direction of Garifuna development (or alternatives to development). Coordination with one or the other of these local actors would have very different outcomes. So-called “local” politics is as contested and contentious as politics at the national, international, or transnational levels.

150

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

Tripp (2006) stressed the importance of “an understanding of the different positions taken by various local actors” (306). When NGOs enter a local debate/struggle, they take a side, and they give power and resources to one side of the struggle. These are political actions, and cannot be interpreted as de-politicized humanitarian work. Thus, when Tripp (2006) suggested that “international actors’ selection of issues to highlight should reflect local priorities” (308), the question is not whether local priorities are considered but rather which local priorities are considered, and privileged. These sorts of complexities are often unveiled with an intersectional analysis. Much feminist scholarship has constructed “transnational” activity in a way that obscures local politics. However, Matte (2010) reminded us that “transnationalization is always located somewhere – including inside national territories” (3). Thus, it is important to (geographically) situate individuals engaged in transnational relations. Conway (2008) warned, “The transnational is never without geography nor geographically innocent” (224). Rendering women of the North invisible, without position, place, or roots, converts transnational feminist engagement into a charity project focused on helping the needy women of the South. There is no solidarity in such an approach, just charity. A charity framework obscures the complexities of the Global North, which is full of “Third World women.” In particular, women of color feminists from the Global North are often working on issues of mutual concern (e.g., reproductive justice, land rights, and food sovereignty). Transnational feminist work necessarily embodies the tension between mutual concerns and local distinctions: Beyond raising questions about the varying geographic content of claims to the transnational, this points to the importance of identifying placebased transnationalisms as particularly relevant to movement-building transnational feminisms, and the particular political challenges of negotiating place-based difference in constructing transnational feminist and emancipatory geopolitics. (Conway 2008, 225) The TBF principle of radically transparent author positionality encourages scholars to reflect on their own place-based privileges and disadvantages. It provides a way to reveal the uneven landscape on which scholars, activists, and scholar-activists are engaging in feminist activities. The framework advances a feminism without borders. Feminism without borders acknowledges the fault lines, conflicts, differences, fears, and containment that borders represent. It acknowledges that there is no one sense of a border, that the lines between and through nations, races, classes, sexualities, religions, and disabilities,

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

151

are real – and that a feminism without borders must envision change and social justice work across these lines of demarcation and division. (Mohanty 2003, 2) It is with this level of attention to the borders that separate us that we should explore the question of how to build solidarity.

Building Solidarity IR scholar Brooke Ackerly (2000) described the process of building solidarity as follows: Solidarity means forming alliances with communities, with other activists, with other oppressed groups, among feminist intellectuals, and between feminist intellectuals and activists and artists. Solidarity means thinking of women’s interests as collective (as in a collection of) interests rather than as interests in common. (58) Thinking of a collection of interests allows feminists (and women) of diverse values to support one another in our struggles while recognizing the differences among us. Solidarity built in this way respects cultural difference and suggests a commitment to diverse feminist causes. It is easy to support someone who wants the same things you want. It is much more challenging to support the feminist struggle of someone very different from you. However, doing so demonstrates respect for diverse feminist social justice movements. Mohanty (1998) described the challenges of a solidarity-building process: The real challenge arises in being able to craft a notion of political unity without relying on the logic of appropriation and incorporation and, just as significantly, a denial of agency. For me the unity of women is best understood not as given, on the basis of a natural/psychological commonality; it is something that has to be worked for, struggled toward—in history. (264, emphasis in original) An emphasis on process allows the centering of (scholarly and activist) voices that have been marginalized. Further, combined with a struggle for political unity, a solidarity-building process builds upon a relational ontology that “draws from global South movements to decolonize human rights. These movements seek to challenge universalisms that embody particular ways of knowing and acting upon or within the world that are hostile to decoloniality or indigenous ways of knowing” (Falcón 2016, 179). In this way, there is an explicit intent to highlight the work of movements that have been viewed as marginal to an IR agenda. hooks (1984) distinguished between solidarity and support as follows: “To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs

152

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment” (64). Solidarity is not a relationship entered into (or exited) without great consideration. That it requires diverse locations and interests means that solidarity work involves a commitment to the struggle of diverse women whose circumstances we may never fully understand: Women do not need to eradicate difference to feel solidarity. We do not need to share common oppression to fight equally to end oppression. … We can be sisters united by shared interests and beliefs, united in our appreciation for diversity, united in our struggle to end sexist oppression, united in political solidarity. (hooks 1984, 65) Rather than an end goal solidarity points to a process of ongoing and enduring commitment to resist a matrix of domination. Moving beyond social circumstances that create comfort, feminists must be able to hold one another accountable. As an example, Tripp (2006) insisted that women of the Global North should be enacting change through the foreign policies of their governments (310). If we are to acknowledge, as Conway (2008) suggested, that transnational struggles are geographically dispersed, feminists must advocate for justice from multiple locations. With a common interest in fighting multiple forms of oppression—which is the only way that a feminist struggle can be made useful to diverse feminists—the emphasis must be on building and maintaining alliances that are rooted in a process that will define goals in response to different local sociopolitical contexts. Too often, amidst conversations about “allyship,” there is a spirit of charity that suggests that one should act on behalf of another. In many ways, such a model implies that the person acting is doing someone else a favor. In fact, a deep understanding of interlocking oppressions would motivate action on one’s own behalf, with the desire to live in a just and humane world.1 Some shared values must center solidarity work: “The deepening of solidarities involves mutual recognition and the constitution of stronger ties among activists. It also opens up 1

Often, in US-based discussion about de facto racial segregation, white people will emphasize the disadvantages for Black people (e.g., poorly resourced schools). Several times, I have posed the question, “If Black people told you they had no complaints, would you (as a white person in this country) be okay with a structure that assigns privileges and access based on race?” It has been surprising how many white people I’ve encountered who are unable to articulate a racist society as a problem for them personally. Instead they consider their work to end racism a favor to those most disadvantaged by racism. I have trouble relating to this charitable approach. I am a Black woman who believes that prisons should be abolished, even though I have never been incarcerated. Even if I could find no prisoners talking about the abhorrent conditions, I know that I don’t want to live in a society with prisons. That is not about a charitable attitude toward incarcerated persons; it is about me and the kind of world I want to inhabit.

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

153

the possibility for the establishment and cultivation of shared understandings of situations, problems, and, sometimes, solutions” (Matte 2010, 4). One of the things that I hope to do through this book, once published, is to facilitate solidarity work among diverse women of color in search of shared understandings.2 In considering the future of transnational feminism, Conway (2010) asks “how open, plural, dialogical, and coalitional feminist movements will be, not just vis-à-vis each other but also in relation to movements that are recognized as broadly emancipatory in terms other than feminist” (167). Are feminists willing to struggle in solidarity with non-feminists? We might consider the non-feminist Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) as a prominent example from Latin America. The Argentine Madres de la Plaza de Mayo is probably one of the bestknown groups that radically mobilized as mothers for political action. Maier (2010) characterized the group’s entry onto the political scene as “a new political actor that, in the name of traditional motherhood, emerged from the horrors of repression to publicly demand the devolution of their sons and daughters” (31). Safa (1992) noted the important accomplishment of these self-declared non-feminist women: Composed mostly of older women with no political experience, the group members were able to use their traditional role as mothers as a defense and turn against the state to protest the disappearance of their children and other loved ones during the military dictatorship. In order to maintain their legitimacy, they refused any identification with political parties of feminism. (81) These mothers made an intentional choice to avoid political affiliation, which generated some antagonism with feminists who wanted the mothers to adopt a feminist agenda. Central to the strategy of the mothers, however, was their positioning as non-threatening and apolitical women, who simply wanted the return of their children. As Lavrin (1999) wrote, “They gave motherhood and family the political strength that was the dream of early twentieth-century Latin American 2

One conversation that I have long wanted to have is about US government reparations for African Americans descended from enslaved Africans. Certainly, the US government (and many complicit corporations, towns, and organizations) owe the descendants of enslaved Africans a debt. However, I am interested in an approach to demanding reparations that deepens shared understandings between indigenous nations of the Americas and African Americans. What are African Americans communicating (indirectly) to Native Americans when we ask white (descendants of) colonizers for land that was stolen from them? How can Native Americans and African Americans build solidarity in ways that demonstrate shared understandings of history and call for joint demands?

154

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

feminists” (181). In spite of the tremendous gains of these women, they received sharp criticism from some feminists of the period. Ironically, in Latin America the model created by the Madres received much criticism in the 1990s, especially from feminists for whom the Madres perpetuated the polarity between women-femininity-mother and men-masculinity-state. The specificity of their demands–always presented within the framework of the individual experience and the temporality of a precise situation—has been deemed insufficient to alter the power relationship between men and women. Others disagree, seeing in the Madres a potential venue for the discussion of large national problems at a pragmatic level, meaningful for those who participate in it and enhancing the power of the alliance of motherhood and human dignity in an effective way, an example worth studying by feminists elsewhere. After all, the Madres obtained global visibility and respect, and helped to weaken the military’s arrogant disregard for human rights. (Lavrin 1999, 181) Transnational feminism rejects the dualisms of modernist ontologies (e.g., woman vs. man, private sphere vs. public sphere), favoring relational ontologies instead (Falcón 2016, 178–180). In fact, the tension between feminists who are focused on the advancement of particular strategic goals and mothers who are concerned with the more immediate concern of locating their “disappeared” family members is a false dichotomy. Feminists—some of whom are mothers—have immediate needs and interests, no matter how philosophical and strategic we are. Often, it is our immediate needs and dire circumstances that provoke the development of a well laid plan. The desire of some feminists to incorporate all women’s struggles into a politicized, feminist agenda is troubling in that it negates the diversity of women. Maier (2010) described the mix of feminist reactions to the Madres: Although feminists viewed the Mothers with admiration and solidarity for being the first women’s organizations to take a political role and the first public expressions of opposition to state authoritarianism in Latin America, the Mothers’ committees nonetheless represented a challenge for feminism, with their emphasis on the centrality of maternity in the cultural construction of femininity. (32) Central to feminist solidarity is the acknowledgment of and respect for diversity of opinion and roles within a larger agenda; we do not need to all be the same, or do the same things. Many forms of activism can have an effect on the reformulation of the symbolic representations of women in the collective imaginary of their

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

155

cultures, emphasizing the multiple paths to achieving a gender consciousness that empowers women to believe in their right to have rights. (Maier 2010, 39) In considering both the recent work of Black feminist anthropologists in Brazil and my work in Honduras’ Garifuna community, feminist solidarity should certainly extend to women who are advocating for justice, but who do not identify as feminists. Recall that Mohanty (1998) emphasized the importance of political unity without “denial of agency” (264, emphasis in original). Feminists should consider how our work might challenge gender construction and oppression through solidarity with non-feminists. Black feminist anthropologist Erica Lorraine Williams (2013) experienced the social consequences of challenging assumptions about human trafficking, including the perceived lack of agency among sex workers: “Because I interacted with sex workers in a nonjudgmental, openminded way, my sexuality and identity were called into question” (15). However, Williams persisted in a process that honored the stories of the (predominantly non-feminist) men and women participating in her research study. Certainly, Williams (2013) shifted the collective imaginary of Bahian sex workers by presenting a “different viewpoint of who to have sex with, date, and love” (162– 163). Thus, in addition to solidarity defining relationships among feminists, it should have a broader reach that intends to raise gender (and sexuality) consciousness. Who better to be part of such a shift in consciousness than sex workers who are part of a transnational tourist industry? Often when scholars dare to challenge the universality of the female victim narrative that is associated with sex work, it draws attention. One example is Christine Chin’s Cosmopolitan Sex Workers, whose title, the author admitted, “may raise some eyebrows, because it calls attention to women who are not sex-trafficked and who, in the process of migration for sex work, may and do exhibit qualities that have been associated exclusively with elite travelers” (Chin 2013, 3). These kinds of boundary-transgressing texts dare to describe sex workers and corporate businessmen alongside one another in ways that do not diminish the awareness, savvy, or agency of the former. Whether studying with mothers, sex workers, mothers who do sex work, or women who are neither sex workers nor mothers, feminist solidarity, at its best, “foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together” (Mohanty 2003, 7). If feminists are to challenge gender norms and oppressions, we should be working and fighting with research participants who have similar goals. There are many feminist fights, and Black feminist anthropologists writing about Brazil have transformed how people understand the country with the most Black people in the western hemisphere. They have done so by highlighting the agency of sex workers (Williams 2013) and women in poor urban neighborhoods (Perry 2013), marking the political significance of community performance (Smith 2016) and challenging the racial democracy myth by articulating Black Brazilian women’s experiences of citizenship

156

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

(Caldwell 2007) and health care access (Caldwell 2017). These Black feminist anthropologists, in solidarity with Black Brazilian women, are transforming popular conceptions of race, gender, and class in Brazil. Similar to many of the women in these Brazilian studies, the ereba makers were not, by and large, feminists. Instead, they were focused on economic integration into mainstream Honduran markets for the ereba products. The ereba makers need not be feminists for me to join with them in the name of feminist solidarity. Their struggle is for the opportunity to use the culinary tradition of ereba-making as a path to a better life for Garifuna communities. What makes feminist solidarity in this context is the willingness to struggle with them in pursuit of shared goals, while embracing our differences. It also has meant responding to immediate needs and goals, even while planning for longer-term strategic work.3 Whether conducting research as an individual or doing advocacy work as part of an organization, one must embrace solidarity building in ways that intend to honor difference. If we take seriously the dangers of the NGOization of feminist advocacy as described above, we must ask ourselves some probing questions: But really, what does it mean when NGOs or movements begin to determine for a village which issues it should mobilize around and which people it should work with? Whose village? Whose issues? Whose empowerment? And who is authorized to claim credit for that empowerment? (Sangtin Writers 2010, 134) One of the ways to resist the NGOization of a feminist agenda is by being explicitly broad in naming what constitutes feminist engagement. Too much is at risk to engage the narrowly defined set of issues that NGOs might label as “women’s issues.” As Factora-Borchers (2016) declared, “The uproar should be about dying women, not a dying Feminism” (158). The Sangtin Writers (2010) have articulated well what is at stake: When women’s issues are collapsed into a predesignated gender and premarked body, and ‘feminist activism’ is gathered and piled into a predetermined list of issues, and when a complex political and cultural economy at local and global scales becomes associated with such a 3

During my initial dissertation fieldwork in Honduras, I gave interim reports of what I planned to write about all that I was learning. Holding meetings in the various villages where I worked, I gave out reports of my analysis to have it critiqued and corrected. The ereba makers who participated in my research continue to be involved in my writing and reporting process. Most recently, I distributed a bilingual Spanish/English photography book, compiled specifically for research participants, and conducted interviews that asked women to reflect on the ereba traditions captured in the photos. Once this academic manuscript is published, I will return again to the region, depositing a copy of this book in the local library, and meeting with groups to discuss (in Spanish) what I have written (in English).

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

157

classification, feminism becomes an institutionalized structure, a bureaucracy, and a commerce that feeds the status quo. (140) Given such risks, feminists should think in broad terms about what defines a feminist issue and what constitutes feminist solidarity. If we are truly interested in bringing about sustainable, long-term sociopolitical and economic change in the lives of those who have been pushed to the margins, it is essential for all the members of our rural communities—women and men; children, young, and old; sawarn and dalit; peasants, sweepers, workers, and shopkeepers—to constitute the waves of change. And this will not happen unless inequalities and violence associated with women are analytically and strategically linked in our vision and political labor with the structures that nourish all other forms of violence and inequalities in our society—including the violence of caste and class oppression and communal untouchability. (Sangtin Writers 2010, 125). In considering the struggles of Honduran Garifuna women and US-based African American women, I have thought broadly about the possibilities for mutual learning and shared work. In writing about feminist solidarity between feminist and non-feminists, I adopt a broad understanding of what it means to live a feminist life:4 The feminism of our lives is the story of love, survival, testament, death, and epitaph. It is what we dedicate ourselves to and what we will pass on as truth to our children. Whether or not we identify as “feminist” is a sandbar to the oceanic movements of feminism. (Factora-Borchers 2016, 159) Below I outline two areas ripe with opportunities for solidarity work between African American and Garifuna communities. The first opportunity is rooted in radical reproductive justice frameworks, developed by women of color in the US, and the second engages the question of land rights through the framework of food sovereignty, as articulated by Via Campesina. Both of these issue areas impact individuals of diverse ages, genders, sexual orientations, and class statuses. 4

Of course, it is possible to dedicate an entire book to this question as Sara Ahmed (2017) did. In it, she suggests the following: “To build feminist dwellings, we need to dismantle what has already been assembled; we need to ask what it is we are against, what it is we are for, knowing full well that this we is not a foundation but what we are working toward” (Ahmed 2017, 2, emphasis in original).

158

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

Radical Reproductive Justice Below is a poem about mothering written through a collective process in which members of Mamas of Color Rising shared what mothering is to them. It embodies shared process and goals, important to solidarity-building. The “Collective Poem on Mothering” starts as follows: It’s Hard It’s Tiring It’s Painful But It’s Love It’s Joy It’s Peace Mothering is an act of social justice Creating a community of solidarity and support (Mamas of Color Rising 2016, 197) The poem highlights a community of solidarity and support. This attention to the context in which mothering happens is characteristic of an activistoriented reproductive justice framework: “When the reproductive justice perspective draws sharp attention to the social context in which individuals live and make their personal decisions, it aims not for simple inclusiveness but for changing the rules of the game” (Ross and Solinger 2017, 117). The term reproductive justice “splices reproductive rights with social justice to achieve reproductive justice” (Ross and Solinger 2017, 9, emphasis in original). The reproductive justice framework is rooted in three principles: “(1) the right not to have a child; (2) the right to have a child; and (3) the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments. In addition, reproductive justice demands sexual autonomy and gender freedom for every human being” (Ross and Solinger 2017, 9, emphasis in original). When I write about the ereba makers, I am usually referring to a middle-aged (i.e., in her forties) mother. As is often the case in Garifuna matrifocal society, these women tend to be the heads of their households. As described earlier, the power of women in Garifuna society is tightly coupled with their status as mothers. What happens to one’s right to not have a child in such a context? Are childless women relegated to a lower social status? What is the status of younger Garifuna women? The women who bake ereba are typically women who have spent their lives in the villages. Only recently have village schools provided education through ninth grade. Most of the adults I interviewed had between a second and sixth grade education. Of course, the low levels of education also

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

159

limited opportunities outside the village. Thus, these women tended to be “poor” by their own definition5 as well as by national and international standards. In contrast to Garifuna women’s relatively low status outside of the villages, they wielded significant power within the villages, especially women in their forties or older. It is in consideration of the younger women—the daughters—that I have come to think about the potential of a radical reproductive justice framework taking hold in the ancestral villages. Older women have high expectations for younger Garifuna women, who they send to university in the cities and teach ereba traditions in the villages. Although the older women pool resources to educate both young men and women at urban universities, there is undeniably a double standard. While young men are able to have children with relatively little social stigma, young women who become pregnant before finishing their university education are shamed. Although initially considered good investments, these women are ridiculed for wasting the resources of their families. Alejandro, a village man I interviewed, described these women as a burden on their families: The other problem I am seeing is that the young women leave in search of work, and sometimes they return pregnant. So they involved themselves in other types of ‘work’ that they should not have been doing. Perhaps because of their sexual needs, they involve themselves in these things. It isn’t right because they go in search of a better life, not in search of a larger burden on their families. Mariana, one of the village women, suggested that a woman who gets pregnant does not really want an education: Sometimes when parents send a child to the city, the young women come back pregnant. They leave the city pregnant! They don’t want to learn. They don’t want to obtain the education that is being gifted to them. And what they are being given will serve them in the future because once one has graduated he/she can do whatever he/she wants with his/her life. Right? And when you end up pregnant you just have to care for your child. A reproductive justice framework helps us understand the choices available to young Garifuna women:

5

I was initially concerned that I might be characterizing the community or its people as (economically) poor even though they might describe themselves in a different way. To find out how community members understood their villages, I asked questions about how they would describe the villages to someone who had never been to Honduras. I also gave them the opportunity to tell me about their lives. Descriptions of personal histories and characterizations of the villages were replete with references to poverty.

160

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity Analyzing the relationships between people who are reproductively privileged and those who are disadvantaged is key to understanding the systems of difference and inequality and to illuminate the experience of each group of people (and the individuals within them) who seek to control their destinies. (Ross 2017, 184)

In this case, it is the older women and men of the community who limit the options for young pregnant women, but not for their young male partners. In most cases, the young woman must return home to the village without receiving further financial support from her family. When a young woman returns to the village pregnant (or with a young child), she is no longer considered a good investment. She is required to work the land with the older women. Often, these young women feel ashamed, for having failed their families. One young woman, Guadalupe, opened up about returning from the city pregnant: I am struggling for my daughter; that is why I am baking ereba. I didn’t have the intelligence to succeed when my mother sent me to school. I failed. I left the city pregnant. That is why I am no longer studying. However, I am working with my mother, baking ereba and clearing fields to move ahead, to fight for the future of my daughter. Understanding the power of the older Garifuna mothers (and heads of households) is critical, and a reproductive justice framework allows us to do that: Reproductive justice is essentially a framework about power. It allows us to analyze the intersectional forces arrayed to deny us our human rights, and it also enables us to determine how to work together across barriers to accrue the power we need to achieve and protect our human rights. (Ross and Solinger 2017, 111) What role does age and gender play in young Garifuna women’s right to choose whether or not to have a child, to parent that child in safe conditions, and to maintain sexual autonomy? If women’s sexuality among the Garifuna is more controlled then men’s, this control comes less from male authority or proprietary rights of women and more from surveillance by middle-aged women, who enforce a moral code that discourages young women from being unfaithful. (Kellogg 2005, 161) Even though the older women had children, they also had imposed conservative sexual politics on the younger generation. When I probed, they insisted that with the wider range of opportunities available to young Garifuna

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

161

women, these young women should be more committed to their education and/ or professions.6 The shaming upon a pregnant woman’s return to the village was encouraged by the middle-aged Garifuna woman, who had significant power and independence in the community: In Garifuna as in other societies, there are certain cultural expectations that distinguish and separate individuals belonging to different stages of the life-cycle. Behavioral standards and expectations for post-reproductive women often change, and this new stage is marked by freedom from many of the cultural restrictions on their earlier behavior. (Khan 1987, 184) While the older women, as a group, certainly hold significant power in the community, they have created a conservative (sexual) standard that is difficult to meet for the younger women who follow in their footsteps. A double standard existed because there was no requisite return to the village for the fathers of children. More often, children were left with rural family members while the fathers worked in the cities, or returned to their studies. Since men were not expected to care for children on a daily basis, having children in no way complicated a career or education in the city. For young women, it changed their entire life path. Reproductive justice frameworks have great potential for cultivating greater freedom for these young women: As Indigenous women and women of color, we have had to create our theories from our struggles as diverse peoples experiencing multiple and intersecting forms of oppression. In doing so, we not only recover ourselves and our voices but we move forward in building an active, liberatory reproductive justice movement that benefits all people. (Ross 2017, 208) In fact, there are numerous examples of women of color using reproductive justice frameworks in their organizing (Silliman et al. 2004). As it relates to the Black feminist anthropologists doing work in Brazil, we can consider Caldwell’s (2017) descriptions of health activism within the Black women’s movement (44–64). In spite of Brazil’s reputation as a racial democracy, Caldwell (2017) gave data that showed how “rates of unsafe abortion have been shaped by regional, racial, and class dynamics” (38). This data highlighted “disproportionate rates of maternal mortality among black 6

During my time in the villages, older women expressed satisfaction that I did not have any children, seeing it as a sign of my dedication to my studies. When I returned after graduating and securing a teaching position, the same women were concerned that I was not yet married with children. They kindly offered to arrange meetings with male family members.

162

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

women” (Caldwell 2017, 39). In response to such disparities, “black women activists have sought to develop intersectional perspectives on health that call attention to the (simultaneous) role of gender, race, class, and other forms of social identity and experience in shaping health and wellness” (Caldwell 2017, 45). In this way, Black Brazilian women have embraced an intersectional analysis that marks a reproductive justice framework.7 If we consider how an intersectional framework might be brought into conversations in the Garifuna villages, there could be space to raise issues of concern at community-wide meetings. Community meetings are an acceptable space for villagers to bring up issues related to unfair treatment and to have those concerns heard in a public forum. In particular, a cry for radical reproductive justice is more likely to be heard if young pregnant women can garner the support of young women who have successfully completed their education and young men who would like their pregnant partners to be supported in studies. As far as I know, such conversations have not taken place. However, the potential for reproductive justice provides an opportunity for transnational and grassroots solidarity building. As an action strategy for movement building, reproductive justice requires working across social justice issues, bringing diverse issues and people together and revealing differences and commonalities using the human rights framework. Reproductive justice offers the human rights movement an opportunity to build a movement of solidarity in which differences are strengths, not liabilities. As an activist practice, reproductive justice has integrated multiple issues and brought together constituencies that are multiracial, multigenerational, multigendered, and multiclass, across a range of gender identities, to help build a more powerful human rights movement in the United States. (Ross and Solinger 2017, 111). Because I am working with Black feminists in the US, some of whom are pioneers in the reproductive justice movement, there is an opportunity to lend support and solidarity to young Garifuna women who are looking for more freedom in relation to their right to choose whether or not to have children, to raise those children in a safe environment, and to exercise their sexual autonomy. Next, I consider the potential for food sovereignty and land rights movements to enrich US-based movements.

7

In their transnational activism, Black Brazilian health activists have embraced the label afro-descendente (Afro-descendant), which has circumvented some of the negative stigma attached to the label Black. Recall that Garifuna women are often forced to choose between their Blackness and indigeneity. The more feministminded Garifuna women, rooted in the ancestral traditions have leaned politically toward indigeneity, as that designation is tied to communal land claims. These differences in how groups identify can shape (un)natural alliances at international conferences and in transnational organizing.

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

163

Learning from Garifuna Land Struggles and the Food Sovereignty Movement Our liberation starts because we can plant what we eat. This is food sovereignty. We need to produce to bring autonomy and the sovereignty of our peoples. If we continue to consume [only], it doesn’t matter how much we shout and protest. We need to become producers. It’s about touching the pocketbook, the surest way to overcome our enemies. It’s also about recovering and reaffirming our connections to the soil, to our communities, to our land. (Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH Coordinator, Food Sovereignty Prize 2018)

Rural Garifuna communities, supported by the work of OFRANEH, have won significant victories in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Cultural Survival 2016; Mita 2016). OFRANEH has a long history of defending coastal Garifuna territory from incursions by tourist and biofuel industries (Field and Bell 2013, 97). As Agarwal (2009) has suggested, land access can be a major factor in expanding a woman’s life choices: “Property ownership can therefore reduce her risk of suffering violence by increasing her economic security, reducing her tolerance of violence, and providing a potential escape route should violence occur” (171). In the Honduran context, privatization of land has benefitted mestiza women, while creating land loss for Garifuna women. Brondo (2013) highlighted this asymmetry in her discussion of Honduran land rights. While Honduran women in general are making some headway in terms of receiving private land titles in their names, Garifuna women’s land loss has accelerated under neoliberal land titling programs. Honduran legislation recognizes women as producers, but the laws are aimed at modernization, globalization, and the privatization of the economy. Legislation thus focuses on the issuance of private land titles as opposed to communal land titles with matrilineally based use rights. Garifuna women lack the conditions necessary to benefit from these laws—specifically, education, experience in a market system, access to credit, and investment capital. (Brondo 2013, 81–82) Using intersectional analysis allows for consideration of diverse experiences within a group (e.g., women) and highlights the experiences of those who have been marginalized historically. Such an analysis is critical to a justice orientation that considers how vulnerable groups (e.g., those with less formal education) are disadvantaged by the systems in place. The reality is that rural Garifuna women have been losing land. As Anderson (2009) wrote, “The transfer of land into private property involves a significant resource loss for Garifuna women to mestizo men and, to a lesser extent, Garifuna men” (56). Such transfers, or “land grabs” as Brondo (2013) called them,

164

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

should not simply be understood in terms of capitalist expansion, but should be historicized in the racialized history of land (re)distribution: The massive impoverishment of the majority of African peoples today, as well as millions in Asia and Latin America – normalized as a question of development – is not simply a humanitarian tragedy, but, in part, the product of a racialised international order, a form of global structural racism. (Jones 2008, 924–925) Thus, we can see that land transfers or “grabs,” when put in proper historical context, are tied to historical structural oppression related to race, gender, and class. As Brondo (2013) described, neoliberal land policies can exacerbate gender inequities: The decades-long processes of privatization have moved land from a largely Garifuna women’s resource to that of mestizo and foreign men. The ‘gender-blind’ neoliberal land policies of the 1990s served to expand land displacement and gender inequality, especially in the tourism boom on Honduras’s coastline. (81) In Honduras, this decades-long process is connected to a 1974 agrarian reform law designed to modernize the agricultural sector through commercial enterprises. The law redistributed unused national and private lands. The National Agrarian Institute (INA) encouraged peasants to migrate to the sparsely populated north coast, where land tenure was not as “clearly defined.” As England (2006) wrote, the result of the reform was the devaluation of and encroachment upon Garifuna lands by colonizers, or colonos: INA categorized the subsistence agricultural practices of the Garifuna (and indigenous peoples) as summarily unproductive, failing to give the land a ‘social function’—that is, agricultural production for the market, cattle ranching, or resource extraction. In the end, both large landowners and colonos on the North Coast used the agrarian reform of 1974 as a way to expropriate Garifuna agricultural land. (112) The INA policies thus privileged capitalist production and private ownership. Especially in rural villages, the Garinagu are subsistence farmers, not owners of capitalist agricultural firms. In spite of the devaluation of subsistence livelihoods in a capitalist, market-based society, for the groups that make ereba, access to land to cultivate cassava and other crops is critically important to their livelihoods. Traditionally land is communally owned and cultivated. Many Garifuna villagers lost the land that their families had been cultivating

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

165

for generations because the mixed-crop swidden agricultural style of the Garinagu was not seen as taking full advantage of the land (England 2006, 48). Traditional agricultural practices involve periods during which certain plots of land are not being cultivated, or are resting, while other sections are being used. England (2006) described the conflict between the reform law, Garifuna traditional agriculture, and non-Garifuna peasant “settlers” (or colonos) who were looking for land: The problem was that what often appeared to them to be tierra ociosa was actually land Garifuna considered to be theirs by use rights (that is, family members had traditionally cultivated it) but that was currently lying fallow or otherwise not under cultivation. Because of the “use it or lose it” standards of the 1974 agrarian reform, colonos could easily get legal title to lands Garifuna were cultivating but had no title to. Even worse for Garifuna communities (and even the colonos themselves), wherever colonos cleared new land, the large landowners were never far behind, ready to buy up (or take by force) parcels colonos had spent time clearing, preparing for cultivation, and obtaining legal title to. In this manner, large-scale capitalists managed to buy up large tracts of land for agroindustrial production of export crops. (116) England (2006) highlighted both the challenges of making legal claims to land and the conflict between the Garifuna farmer and the mestizo intruder. Engaging the discussion of land claims, Thorne (2004) noted that such processes can be both empowering and exclusionary: It is empowering insofar as it accepts the legitimacy of deeply rooted, ethnically distinct community identities. It is exclusionary to the extent it demands strict ethnohistorical “proof” that draws potentially controversial boundaries within and between communities, excluding those unable to generate acceptable documentation. (23) The very process of laying legal claim to lands can thus create divisions within a community. Given this history, Black and indigenous communities struggling to access land stand to learn a lot from the recent victories of OFRANEH and rural Garifuna villages in international courts. I started this section with a quote from OFRANEH leader Miriam Miranda’s acceptance speech for the 2015 Food Sovereignty Prize because food sovereignty is tightly coupled with land rights and agricultural practices: Food sovereignty is not a one-size-fits-all approach but an expansive set of principles, policies, and practices. It is grounded in the belief that everyone has

166

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity the right to healthy, sustainably produced food, and that people and nations must have democratic control over their food and agricultural systems. (Field and Bell 2013, 5)

It takes into account that “land access remains largely unfair and inequitable. Never has such a high percentage of the world’s population been displaced from their indigenous or ancestral lands and left without land, a secure home, or the ability to feed themselves” (Field and Bell 2013, 86). The global food sovereignty movement was the vision of La Via Campesina, a group that understood food as a fundamental human right (Mares and Peña 2011, 203–204). Via Campesina, an international federation for smallholder-peasant-fisherpastoralist organizations launched a cry for ‘food sovereignty’ that quickly spread to both northern and southern small-scale producers. Food sovereignty is essentially a political demand, one that cuts through reformist proposals to address the power structures at the root of the corporate food regime. (Holt-Giménez 2011, 318) Already the Via Campesina network has connected farms from the US to Brazil (Holt-Giménez 2011, 327). With “one of the world’s highest levels of unequal land distribution,” Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement has been a leader in advocating for land and tenure rights (Field and Bell 2013, 89). In addition to rural land struggles, Black feminist anthropologist Keisha-Khan Perry (2013) has described the fight against land grab in Brazil’s urban neighborhoods, specifically where “spatialized racial restructuring within the city of Salvador fueled the political process of fighting for permanent residency and land rights” (54). In Black Women Against the Land Grab, Perry (2013) highlighted “the positive affirmation of blackness and black womanhood that informs the collective ability to challenge and redefine urbanization policies” (xv). She linked the work of neighborhood associations to the fight for land rights: Political labor at the neighborhood level is central to the mass mobilization of black people against institutional racism and for citizenship rights and resources in Brazil. Organized community movements for land rights are an important facet of the historical struggle for social and territorial belonging as black citizens in Brazil. (Perry 2013, 12) Her discussion is intersectional: “Claiming the right to urban land means challenging gendered, racial, and class dominance rooted in colonialism and the legacy of unequal distribution of material resources” (Perry 2013, 15). Similar to the Garifuna women of Honduras, Black Brazilian women have played an important role in the community’s land access and ownership:

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

167

In Brazil black women are often uniquely positioned because they have both collective memory of residence and, in some cases, legal documentation of ownership of ancestral land. They also serve as the primary mediators of familial and social relations within their communities, influencing political decisions and how important resources such as land are distributed. (Perry 2013, 15) In The Color of Food, Natasha Bowens (2015) connected current-day land struggles in the US to other movements across time and space: The American Farmland Trust says that in just 25 years over 23 million acres of farmland was lost to development. And that doesn’t count the urban community farm land loss due to development. In this country, it’s called “development” or “industry”; in other parts of the world, it’s called “land grabbing.” (9) Other scholars have emphasized the importance of “seeing urban agriculture through the lens of structural oppression” (Reynolds and Cohen 2016, 10–11). In the US, I am connected to the work of Soul Fire Farm, whose mission is described as follows: Soul Fire Farm is a people-of-color-led community farm committed to ending racism in the food system. We raise and distribute life-giving food as a means to end food apartheid. With deep reverence for the land and wisdom of our ancestors, we work to reclaim our collective right to belong to the Earth and to have agency in the food system. We bring diverse communities together on this healing land to share skills on sustainable agriculture, natural building, spiritual activism, health, and environmental justice. We are training the next generation of activist farmers and strengthening the movements for food sovereignty and community self-determination. (Penniman 2018, 50)8 In collaboration with Soul Fire Farm and other members of the Northeast Farmers of Color, or NEFOC, network, I have participated in discussions about how to achieve shared communal land stewardship, possibly in the form of land trusts that could protect the shared and/or public use of land. There are similar efforts in other parts of the US that could benefit from closer collaboration with OFRANEH and other groups that have successfully 8

Penniman uses the term food apartheid instead of food desert (used in US government literature) to refer to neighborhoods that do not have access to affordable, healthy food options “because it makes clear that we have a human-created system of segregation that relegates certain groups to food opulence and prevents others from accessing life-giving nourishment” (Penniman 2018, 4).

168

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

accessed land for communities. This work of engaging land rights and food sovereignty is radical solidarity work. Our proposals for the food justice movement require a more radical set of practices that lead not so much to a restructuring as to an autonomous and reiterative geography of relocalization that supplants the dominant global food system. They require that we collectively strive for deep connections— with our food, with the places we live, and with each other. Finally, they require that we simultaneously challenge the avarice-driven hunger for profit of transnational agribusiness corporations while consciously rebuilding our place-based local food systems. This must be done in solidarity with others around the world who share our hunger and thirst for justice. (Mares and Peña 2011, 216–217) Both reproductive justice and food sovereignty connect to broader networks that present rich opportunities for connecting grassroots struggles. In naming a TBF framework, I have identified some core principles that can move scholar-activists closer to sustained solidarity work that intends to challenge various forms of oppression, in the academy and beyond, in the Americas, and elsewhere in the world.

A TBF Analysis of Transnational Solidarity TBF Principle #1: Intersectionality Intersectionality was developed as a way to mark how one group can be simultaneously impacted by multiple oppressions. Using such a nuanced perspective also allows us to see the contextualized strengths of marginalized peoples. US-based activists have much to learn from movements in other parts of the Americas and the world. If we only understand the world as divided into “developed” and “developing” states, there will never be any reason to consider what US scholars should be learning from Honduran farmers and grassroots activists. Intersectionality allows for a deeper exploration of the connections between groups within states, challenging the homogenous (i.e., billiard ball) depiction of states commonly used in IR studies. An intersectional approach allows greater visibility of the unevenness and asymmetries of the world. In short, it expands the number of places where we might see opportunities for solidarity work. TBF Principle #2: Solidarity There are many opportunities for solidarity work, and this chapter has highlighted the potential of radical reproductive justice and food sovereignty movements (inextricably linked to the fight for land rights). The focus has been on grassroots connections. Especially for scholars based in

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

169

the US, we should be considering the call to influence government policies related to foreign affairs, military intervention, and foreign aid (Tripp 2006, 310). In Honduras, it is critical to understand “how the Honduran elites wrought havoc under their illegitimate rule and were assiduously supported by the US government, and how the Honduran people and their allies abroad, in particular in the United States, fought back” (Frank 2018, 1). Often, US academics influence policy that has a lasting impact on civil society in other countries. The non-profit Witness for Peace and the related Solidarity Collective have advocated for US legislation (i.e., Berta Cáceres Human Rights Act) limiting support for a repressive Honduran government. Other individuals and organizations have similarly worked to show solidarity with movements based outside the US by influencing US foreign policy. In feminist solidarity work, we should consider how our particular location allows us to impact change that is consistent with a place-based transnationalism (Conway 2008, 225). We can think of solidarity work as an individual endeavor or we can understand it as rooted in collective identities. For vulnerable populations, success often depends on the ability to work from within communities. As seen in the experiences of female Gamboa de Baixo activists, their relative success is the result of the women’s reluctance to deal with the state individually and their preference for collective social transformation. Furthermore, black women leaders of the Gamboa de Baixo neighborhood association have been unwilling to negotiate on an individual basis because they see their community’s collective interests as congruent with their own. This represents a crucial reason that female-led organizations tend to be relatively successful in preserving collective community rights, such as access to land and improved social conditions for the entire community. The challenge remains, however, to negotiate between personal and communal transformation as part of their overall political projects. This challenge reflects a complex relationship to the gender and racial oppression that black women experience as invisible workers, while underlining their vision for liberation from this form of enslavement. (Perry 2013, 165–166). There is a gendered tension between personal and communal interests. Female activists, often acting as heads of households, must manage multiple interests, including their own. This is excellent practice for broader based solidarity work that will take many forms, and will connect diverse communities. In its most radical form, solidarity-building will create opportunities for communities to challenge intra-community power dynamics and oppressions.

170

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

TBF Principle #3: Scholar-Activism The scholar-activist model is exemplified by Black feminist (anthropological) collaborations with Black (Brazilian) communities. Recent scholarship (Caldwell 2007, 2017; Perry 2013; Smith 2016; Williams 2013) is a model for how IR scholars might intervene in a trajectory that has not moved far from its racist and imperial roots. Too often, the study of Black and indigenous communities is seen as having limited applicability. It would have been easy to make some modest claim about what this work could teach us about research in “developing countries.” However, that would not have been enough. That would not have taken full advantage of the potential of the (scholar-activist) work being done in Black feminist anthropology and in Black communities of the Americas. We are overdue for an historical reckoning that seeks to name and redress the damage done by scholars to the communities they have studied: “For example, in 1912 the US economist in charge of conducting a census of the city of Cuzco taught the survey interviewers about the universal importance of skin colour to identify racial identities” (de la Cadena 2005, 260). Early scholars were quite bold in asserting the reach of their expertise. Contemporary scholars should be equally bold in developing humbling bonds of solidarity with non-scholars, while advancing justice that is rooted in scholarship. We must challenge the theoretical underpinnings of a racist, sexist, classist, heteropatriarchy because that is our responsibility as scholars. If we are lucky, we will be able to work simultaneously within communities to expand the applicability of our work and dismantle various types of oppressive institutions beyond the academy. TBF Principle #4: Attention to Borders/Boundaries Transnational solidarity challenges the state borders that define the field of IR. A TBF framework that invokes the work of Black feminist anthropologists to transform IR is resisting disciplinary boundaries. The deepest resistance to a hegemonic “master narrative” embraces the existence of multiple worlds, or a pluriverse. In speaking about the pluriverse, political ontology aims to contribute to assert the viability and existence of these multiple worlds in struggle. In fact, it is the proliferation of forms of resistance, mobilization, and protest coming from these worlds that makes political ontology work possible. It is necessary to emphasize that the pluriverse is not just a fashionable concept, it is a practice. To live according to the insights of multiple partially connected, yet radically different worlds entails an entirely different ethics of being, knowing, and doing: a pluriverse politics. It means holding modern certainties and universals at bay in our personal and collective lives. In the last instance, pluriversal politics is about contributing to create auspicious conditions for the flourishing of the pluriverse, for other worlding possibilities. (Escobar 2017, 338)

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

171

This manuscript was accepted into an IR series about “Worlding Beyond the West,” open to such explorations. Attending to various borders and boundaries requires an acceptance that what we know is not all-encompassing or universal. Consistent with the feminist principles of situated knowledges (Haraway 1988), a pluriversal politics requires acknowledgment of and responsibility for our political being (i.e., ontology), and political doing (i.e., praxis). That kind of deep engagement can only come with radically transparent author positionality. TBF Principle #5: Radically Transparent Author Positionality I am a faculty member working and living in the US, and I believe that comes with some responsibility to consider how my (social and economic) position is linked to (imperialistic) systems that undermine the struggles of Black and indigenous peoples. When I arrived in Honduras’ ancestral Garifuna villages, it was shortly after the passing of my father, who worked to advance health equity for poor Black communities in the US. I intended to learn something about transnational solidarity work, especially among Black communities in the Americas. Ultimately, I have learned more (about farm work, different fruits, roots, and vegetables, and mourning the loss of loved ones) than I have shared (about race politics in the US, university systems, and the potential for solidarity) with research participants. There have been some exchanges of resources and time, but none that meet my highest standard for solidarity between communities with a shared struggle against patriarchy, racism, and capitalism. In a section entitled, “African Diaspora Anthropology as Solidarity Work,” Perry (2013) wrote about the different forms of her community work: “I attended activist meetings, helped members write and edit manifestos, offered my computer and photography skills, and cleaned sewers. At times, I was just one more person to fill a room or stop traffic in a protest” (xx). It makes sense that solidarity work would include many different kinds of activities. In Honduras, I harvested cassava, built websites for the sale of ereba products, did fundraising for ereba cooperatives, and offered accompaniment for Garifuna human rights defenders. In the end, I realize that I want much more than my individual efforts can accomplish. In order to be successful, I must leverage some amount of privilege linked to my position in the US academy to change how other scholars are thinking about their lives and work. To that end, the success of this (research and book) project should be judged by the connections it helps to develop between marginalized communities in the Americas (and beyond). My intentions are to use the book in ways that connect people and challenge conventional boundaries.

Conclusion In this concluding chapter, I have moved from a discussion of IR to the importance of transnational frameworks. The focus has been on the formation of

172

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

transnational (feminist) bonds of solidarity. In particular, I believe that reproductive justice frameworks, developed by women of color in the US, have great potential to generate new and liberatory conversations about young Garifuna women’s options when they are both pregnant and interested in pursuing a university education. Also, I have highlighted the successes of the rural Garifuna community, supported by OFRANEH, in the fight for land rights as a model that can be used by Black farmers in the US, who have suffered from displacement. There is potential for land rights and food sovereignty, as articulated by Via Campesina, to be understood as part of the same movement toward greater autonomy of Black and indigenous peoples. Although reproductive justice and food sovereignty might seem disparate issues, they both advance considerations of human rights and social justice, ideal for solidarity work. Dorothy Roberts (2017) highlighted the breadth of a reproductive justice framework, as she understood it from a US perspective: A social justice focus provides a concrete basis for building radical coalitions between reproductive rights activists and organizations fighting for racial, economic, and environmental justice, for immigrant, queer, and disabled people, and for systemic change in law enforcement, health care, and education. True reproductive freedom requires a living wage, universal health care, and the abolition of prisons. Black women see the police slaughter of unarmed people in their communities as a reproductive justice issue. At their core, reproductive justice and Black Lives Matter both insist that U.S. society must begin to value Black people’s humanity. (xxi) It is with this understanding of the broad applicability of a reproductive justice framework that I highlight it as ideal for engaging in solidarity work, alongside food sovereignty movement work. The TBF framework is similarly broad in its applicability and its insistence that scholars engage the most pressing justice-oriented questions of our time through our scholarship. This chapter ended with a TBF analysis of the question of solidarity, highlighting how the TBF principles might lead us to a deep understanding of the need for transnational solidarity that acknowledges and embraces a pluriversal politic.

References Ackerly, Brooke A. 2000. Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ackerly, Brooke A. and Bina D’Costa. 2005. Transnational Feminism: Political Strategies and Theoretical Resources. Canberra, Australia: Department of International Relations, Australian National University. Agarwal, Bina. 2009. “Engaging with Sen on Gender Relations: Cooperative Conflicts, False Perceptions and Relative Capabilities.” In Arguments for a Better

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

173

World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen, Volume II: Society, Institutions, and Development. Edited by Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur, 157–177. New York: Oxford University Press. Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Alvarez, Sonia E. 2000. “Translating the Global Effects of Transnational Organizing on Local Feminist Discourses and Practices in Latin America.” Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 1(1) (Autumn): 29–67. Anderson, Mark. 2009. Black and Indigenous: Garifuna Activism and Consumer Culture in Honduras. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Basu, Amrita. 2000. “Globalization of the Local/Localization of the Global Mapping Transnational Women’s Movements.” Meridians: Feminism, Race Transnationalism 1(1) (Autumn): 68–84. Bowens, Natasha. 2015. The Color of Food: Stories of Race, Resilience and Farming. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers. Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2013. Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Caldwell, Kia Lilly. 2007. Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Caldwell, Kia Lilly. 2017. Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Carty, Linda and Monisha Das Gupta. 2009. “Solidarity Work in Transnational Feminism: The Question of Class and Location.” In Activist Scholarship: Antiracism, Feminism and Social Change. Edited by Julia Sudbury and Margo OkazawaRey, 95–110. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Chin, Christine B. N. 2013. Cosmopolitan Sex Workers: Women and Migration in a Global City. New York: Oxford University Press. Conway, Janet. 2008. “Geographies of Transnational Feminisms: The Politics of Place and Scale in the World March of Women.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 15(2) (Summer): 207–231. Conway, Janet. 2010. “Troubling Transnational Feminism(s) at the World Social Forum.” In Solidarities Beyond Borders: Transnationalizing Women’s Movements. Edited by Pascale Dufour, Dominique Masson and Dominique Caouette, 149–172. Vancouver: UBC Press. Cultural Survival. 2016. “Indigenous Rights Win Major Steps Forward in Honduras.” Cultural Survival. Accessed March 31, 2019. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/ indigenous-rights-win-major-steps-forward-honduras. de la Cadena, Marisol. 2005. “Are ‘Mestizos’ Hybrids? The Conceptual Politics of Andean Identities.” Journal of Latin American Studies 37(2) (May): 259–284. England, Sarah. 2006. Afro Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Escobar, Arturo. 2017. “Complexity Theory and the Place of the Now.” Cultural Dynamics 29(4): 333–339. Factora-Borchers, Lisa. 2016. “Birthing a New Feminism.” In Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams, 155–159. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Falcón, Sylvanna M. 2016. “Transnational Feminism as a Paradigm for Decolonizing the Practice of Research: Identifying Feminist Principles and Methodology Criteria for US-Based Scholars.” Frontiers 37(1): 174–194.

174

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

Field, Tory and Beverly Bell. 2013. Harvesting Justice: Transforming Food, Land, and Agricultural Systems in the Americas. New Orleans, LA: Other Worlds. Food Sovereignty Prize, 2018. “International Winner: Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH).” Food Sovereignty Prize, November 15, 2018. http://food sovereigntyprize.org/portfolio/international-winner. Frank, Dana. 2018. The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan. 1994. “Introduction: Transnational Feminist Practices and Questions of Modernity.” In Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Edited by Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, 1–33. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14(3) (Autumn): 575–599. Henderson, Errol A. 2013. “Hidden in Plain Sight.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 26(1): 71–92. Holt-Giménez, Eric. 2011. “Food Security, Food Justice, or Food Sovereignty?: Crises, Food Movements, and Regime Change.” In Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. Edited by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman, 309–330. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press. Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. 2008. “Race in the Ontology of International Order.” Political Studies 56: 907–927. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kellogg, Susan. 2005. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Khan, Aisha. 1987. “Migration and Life-cycle among Garifuna (Black Carib) Street Vendors.” Women’s Studies 13: 183–198. Lavrin, Asunción. 1999. “International Feminisms: Latin American Alternatives.” In Feminisms and Internationalism. Edited by Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy, and Angela Woollacott, 175–190. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Maier, Elizabeth. 2010. “Accommodating the Private into the Public Domain: Experiences and Legacies of the Past Four Decades.” In Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship. Edited by Elizabeth Maier and Nathalie Lebon, 26–43. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Mamas of Color Rising. 2016. “Collective Poem on Mothering.” In Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams, 197–198. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Mares, Teresa M. and Devon G. Peña. 2011. “Environmental and Food Justice: Toward Local, Slow, and Deep Food Systems.” In Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. Edited by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman, 197– 219. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Matte, Diane. 2010. “Preface.” In Solidarities Beyond Borders: Transnationalizing Women’s Movements. Edited by Pascale Dufour, Dominique Masson, and Dominique Caouette, vii–ix. Vancouver: UBC Press. Mita, Opal. 2016. “International Court Rules in Favor of Indigenous Land Rights.” Grassroots International. Accessed March 31, 2019. https://grassrootsonline.org/ blog/newsbloginternational-court-rules-favor-indigenous-land-rights-honduras.

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

175

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1998. “Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience.” In Feminism and Politics. Edited by Anne Phillips, 242–272. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Penniman, Leah. 2018. Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. Perry, Keisha-Khan. 2013. Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Reynolds, Kristin and Nevin Cohen. 2016. Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1995. “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction.” In Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions. Edited by Thomas Risse-Kappen, 3–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberts, Dorothy. 2017. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, Twentieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Vintage Books. Ross, Loretta J. 2017. “Conceptualizing Reproductive Justice Theory: A Manifesto for Activism.” In Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. Edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Durkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure, 170–232. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Ross, Loretta J. and Rickie Solinger. 2017. Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Safa, Helen I. 1992. “Development and Changing Gender Roles in Latin America and the Caribbean.” In Women’s Work and Women’s Lives: The Continuing Struggle Worldwide. Edited by Hilda Kahne and Janet Z. Giele, 69–86. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sangtin Writers. 2010. “Still Playing with Fire: Intersectionality, Activism, and NGOized Feminism.” In Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis. Edited by Amanda Lock Swarr and Richa Nagar, 124–143. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Schiller, Nina Glick. 2005. “Transnational Social Fields and Imperialism: Building a Theory of Power to Transnational Studies.” Anthropological Theory 5(4): 439–461. Sharma, Bonita B. 2017. “Reproductive Justice for Women of the East.” In Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. Edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Durkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure, 436. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Silliman, Jael, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutiérrez. 2004. Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Smith, Christen A. 2016. Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence and Performance in Brazil. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thorne, Eva T. 2004. “Land Rights and Garífuna Identity.” NACLA Report on the Americas (September/October): 21–25. Tripp, Aili Mari. 2006. “Challenges in Transnational Feminist Mobilization.” In Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights.

176

Opportunities for Transnational Solidarity

Edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp, 296–312. New York: New York University Press. Williams, Erica Lorraine. 2013. Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. “Human/Women’s Rights and Feminist Transversal Politics.” In Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. Edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp, 275–295. New York: New York University Press.

Epilogue

My position in the academy allows me to write this text. In spite of that, I find myself resisting so much about the US university. My focus is on a Black feminist legacy, aimed at freedom, which in many ways runs counter to the goals of the neoliberal university. Stefano Harney and Fred Moten (2013) wrote about the complicated relationship of the subversive intellectual to the university under the heading “The Only Possible Relationship to the University Today is a Criminal One.” But certainly, this much is true in the United States: it cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment. In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can. To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in but not of – this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university. … After all, the subversive intellectual came under false pretenses, with bad documents, out of love. Her labor is as necessary as it is unwelcome. The university needs what she bears but cannot bear what she brings. And on top of all that, she disappears. She disappears into the underground, the downlow lowdown maroon community of the university, into the undercommons of enlightenment, where the work gets done, where the work gets subverted, where the revolution is still black, still strong.1 On the surface, there are considerable advantages to my life in the academy, including health benefits, a retirement plan, paid professional development (used to write this very manuscript), and vacation. At the same time, there is a constant tension as I resist the allure and appeal, lest I become too complacent to steal away what my (maroon) community needs, lest I forget the legacy into which I was born. In this vein, I do not want this book to be judged by professional association awards or scholarly critique. Instead, I 1

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (New York: Minor Compositions, 2013), 26, emphasis in original.

178

Epilogue

hope it will be measured by its capacity to move forward transnational solidarity work that will advance liberation struggles. This manuscript honors the spirit of networks powered by women of color, networks designed to nourish our communities and expand life’s options. It is humbly written in solidarity, incomplete and awaiting the chorus of voices that might accompany it. May it inspire in the spirit of a June Jordan poem, a Lorraine Hansberry play, a Sweet Honey in the Rock song, an Octavia Butler story. May it be recorded as part of the soundtrack of the freedom movement.

Index

abortion 161 academia: Black feminism and 3, 73; Black fugitivity in 23; damage and impact of scholars 136, 149, 160, 170; divisions between disciplines 14, 73, 81, 170; Hall’s access and resistance to 8, 54–55, 135, 177; as white and white supremacist xv–xvi, 3, 5; see also international relations; scholar-activism Acharya, Amitav 14–15, 22 Ackerly, Brooke A. 147, 151 activism: collective interests and 169; food sovereignty and 167; for Garifuna land rights 92–93, 95–96, 98–99; health 5–6, 161–62, 162n7; Honduran coup, in response to 104–5; non-feminist 153–54; reproductive justice and 162; solidarity and 152–53; transnational 7, 147, 149, 168; women’s empowerment and 154–55; see also scholar-activism; solidarity work, transnational Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi 27 advocacy networks, transnational 6–7, 11, 116, 147 see also solidarity work, transnational African American communities: families, analysis of 71; Garifuna, solidarity with 157; Hall’s background in 18; indigenous peoples, solidarity with 139, 153n2; other-mothering in 20 “African Diaspora Anthropology as Solidarity Work” (Perry) 171 Africanness 31, 126 see also Blackness Afro-Paradise (Smith) 13, 74 Agarwal, Bina 70, 163 age: banana labor and 91; ereba technology use and 49; sexual

autonomy and 160; women, power and 20, 34, 70, 77, 158–61 agency: embedded agents 69; of families 65, 69–71; in food systems 167; global IR and 15; in grassroots development 45; land rights and 99; of sex workers 155; solidarity work and 151, 155; state-centric models and 91; of women 45, 68–69, 127, 155; of women, Garifuna 129–31 Ahmed, Sara 157n4 allyship see solidarity; solidarity work, transnational alternative futures, envisioning xiv, xvi, 45, 47, 140, 145 Alvarez, Sonia E.: Amefricanidade 2; feminist movements in Latin America 148–49; social movements and development 49; transborder activism, modalities of 7, 149 Amefricanidade 2 American Farmland Trust 167 Amerindians, Arawak 28 amnesia, willful 16–17, 22, 116 Anderson, Mark: Garifuna as tourist attraction 93–94, 100; indigeneity, political value of 134; land rights, Garifuna 92–93, 96, 98–99; St. Vincent, island of 28–29 Anthias, Floya 92, 118, 123, 132, 134 anthropology: African descent, anthropologists of 74–75; Black feminist IR and 2; historical reckoning in 17; Western institutions and 45; see also anthropology, Black feminist anthropology, Black feminist: on Brazil 72–75, 155–56, 161–62, 166, 170; IR and 2, 54, 72; scholar-activism and 6; scholarly families in 73–74, 79, 81

180

Index

anti-Black legislation 83, 86–88, 96, 106 anti-immigration legislation 86–88, 96, 125 Anzaldúa, Gloria xvi, 11 Appelbaum, Nancy P. 118–20 Argentina 67, 153 Aulette, Judy Root 37–38 author positionality see positionality autochthonous, indigenous vs. 93 autonomy: food sovereignty and 163, 168, 172; of Garifuna people 21, 54, 95, 99; of Garifuna women 19–20, 33–34, 129–31, 159–61; nationalism and state 127; sexual 158, 160, 162 Balibar, Etienne 118–20, 120 Baliceaux, island of 30 banana production see fruit companies, multinational banana republics 84, 89–90, 109 see also fruit companies, multinational Barbados 28 Barrios, Roberto E. 98 Basu, Amrita 148 Beier, J. Marshall 22, 115–16, 136 Belize, Garifuna people of 19–20, 30, 127 Bell, Beverly 165–66 Bell, Duncan 17 Benjamin, Madea 103 Berta Cáceres Human Rights Act 169 Besserer, Federico 116–17 Bessire, Lucas 121n4 Bhavnani, Kum-Kum 39 Bilge, Sirma 76 Black Brazilian women: experiences of 155–56; land access and 166–67; reproductive justice and 161–62; scholarly families and 73–75; see also Garifuna women Black Caribs see Garifuna people Black feminism: definition of 17; intersectionality and 4; IR scholarship and 1–3, 5, 72, 113, 146–47; living legacies of xvi, 1–3, 18; reproductive justice and 162; scholarly families and 10, 73–75, 79, 81; TBF framework and xvi, 22; women and family, analysis of 70–71; see also anthropology, Black feminist; solidarity work, transnational; transnational feminism BlackFeminism: connection to transnational feminisms xvi;

explanation of xvn3; as source of TBF framework xv Black fugitivity 23 Black Lives Matter movement 8, 12–13, 172 Blackness: in Brazil 13; in Central America 18–19; classification of 30; commodification of 93–94; Garifuna people and 31, 88, 101–2, 106, 126; Honduran national identity and 93, 100, 134; indigeneity vs. 29–30, 93, 100, 117, 133–34; labor hierarchies and 89–91; land rights and 117, 133–34, 166; naming of xv; westernness vs. 137; white elite perception of 119; see also blanqueamiento; legislation, anti-Black Black Women Against the Land Grab (Perry) 73, 166 Blackwood, Evelyn 33, 128 Blaney, David L. 114–15, 136 blanqueamiento (whitening): of Honduran state 87–88; identity, erasure and construction of 114, 118–20, 140; significance of 118 Blaser, Mario 36–37 body, Black feminist xv Bolívar, Simón 119 Borderlands 11, 12, 23 borders/boundaries: academic disciplines, between 14, 73, 81, 170; capitalism and 12; communities across state 3, 20, 79–80, 113n1, 116–17, 127, 149; feminism without 13, 150; Garifuna women, impact on 108; in IR, attention to 2, 11–12, 116, 137–38; porosity of 107; redrawing of 23, 132; resources, access to and 53, 55; scholars and activists, between 21, 46, 140; women and reproduction of 123, 128 Bowens, Natasha 167 Brazil: Black communities in 8–9, 13; Black feminist anthropology and 72–75, 155–56, 170; Black women’s movement of 9–10; health equity in 5–6, 161–62; land rights movement in 2, 166–67 Brazilian Constitution (1988) 5 British colonialism: economic influence on Latin America 42; Garifuna, treatment of 29–30; occupation of St. Vincent 28–30; Roatán, British control of 31; see also colonialism

Index Brondo, Keri Vacanti: Garifuna land titles 94–95, 98–99; Honduran coup 103; land titles and Garifuna women 163–64; on OFRANEH 101 Brown, Kimberly Juanita xv Brusco, Elizabeth E. 129 Butler, Kim D. 8 Cáceres, Berta 104, 169 Caldwell, Kia Lilly: Amefricanidade 2; Black women’s movement of Brazil 9–10; diaspora, ideals vs. realities of 74–75; health equity 5–6, 161–62; situated ethnographic knowledge 75 Calhoun, Craig 66 call in vs. call out 74 Cannon, Barry 103 capitalism: cultural tourism and 93–95; development and 19, 23, 28, 38, 40–43; discrimination and 15; global borders and 12; land rights and 164–65; modern state, creation of and 80 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 40, 42 Caribs, Black see also Garifuna people Carty, Linda xviii, 79–80, 147–48 cassava bread (ereba) 21 cassava cooperatives see galpones casaberos census data: Garifuna 60, 65; of Honduran state 86–87; skin color and race in 170 Central America: Blackness in 18–19; ereba-making in 21, 107; fruit companies in 85, 89; history of 30–31; patriarchy in 130; see also Garifuna people; Latin America; specific countries Chambers, Glenn A. 88 Chambers, Sarah C. 117, 121 Chatterjee, Partha 130 Chilcote, Ronald H. 40–41 Chin, Christine xviii, 37, 155 Chiquita (fruit company) 97 citizenship: Garifuna 100, 109, 131–33; land access and 117; race and 1, 13, 30, 118–19, 166; resources, access to and 53, 55, 79–80; state obligations and 5–6; women and 92, 127, 155 class: academic privilege and 4–5; banana labor and 85–86, 89; collectivity and 130; development and 38–39, 42; families and analysis of 71;

181

Hall’s positionality and 53n14; in Latin America, structures of 118, 138 co-authorship, alternative forms of 60n1, 79 collective action 33–34, 130, 166 collective interests and voices, of women 55, 79, 145, 151, 169 collective land titles see communal land titles “Collective Poem on Mothering” 158 collective standpoint, of Black women 61, 70–71, 102 collective work 49–50, 54 see also ereba-making Collins, Patricia Hill: Black women’s standpoint 70–71; intersectionality 6, 8, 68, 71, 76; matrix of domination 4, 15, 121; othermothers 20 Colombia 3, 117 colonialism: British and French 28–31; development and patterns of 36, 39, 41–44; IR and history of 22, 116, 146; land and territorial rights and 164, 166; land rights and 2–3; Latin American race relations and 87, 117–18, 137–38; modern state, development of 80; tourism as 128 colonos 164–65 Color of Food, The (Bowens) 167 Combahee River Collective xv, 3n2 Combahee River Collective Statement 4 Comite de Emergencia Garifuna de Honduras 98 communal land titles: Garifuna women and 128, 163–64; Hall’s commitment to 51; human rights case for 50; of indigenous peoples in Latin America 117; organizing for Garifuna 95, 98–99, 101–2, 105, 107–8 Confederation of Autochtonous Peoples of Honduras 93 consanguineal household structure 32–33, 50, 76, 105 see also Garifuna people; matrifocality Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) 104 Conway, Janet 7, 150, 152–53 Cosmopolitan Sex Workers (Chin) 155 coup d’état, Honduran (2009) 102–5, 107–8 see also Honduras Crenshaw, Kimberlé 4 criminalization 12 cultural tourism see tourism, Honduran

182

Index

cultural transmission: Garifuna activists and 92, 95, 99; Garifuna women and 71, 83, 106, 122–23, 128; in Honduras 20; indigenous organizing for 125, 133 darkness, as generative space xiv–xv Dark Room xv Das Gupta, Monisha 79–80, 147–48 Davis, Angela Y. 12 D’Costa, Bina 147 decolonization 6, 74, 151 DeHart, Monica 131n7 de la Cadena, Marisol: biopolitics, center-periphery 139; development and scientific authority 46–47; discrimination, epistemic roots of 135; racial identities and skin color 170; racism in Latin America 118 dependency theories 40–43, 147–48 see also development development: biases of 36–38; criticisms of 39, 42, 47; dependency theories 40–43, 147–48; developed vs. developing 168; families and 60–61, 66–67; land grabs as 167; of modern state 80; post-development 19, 43–46; undeveloped and underdevelopment vs. 41, 148; women and 37–40; see also development, alternatives to; underdevelopment development, alternatives to: alternatives vs. 44–45, 47; ereba-making as 23, 28, 49, 54, 71, 128; in Latin America 19; OFRANEH as 101; scholar-activism and 47, 50; western institutions and 46 development approaches: criticism of 39; Gender and Development (GAD) 38–39; modernization 43; Women and Development (WAD) 38–39; Women in Development (WID) 37–39 development funds 45 diaspora, Black: Garifuna and 31, 88, 93, 126, 131–32; intersectionality and 6; in Latin America 2–3; shared struggles across 6, 8, 72–75, 101–2 diversity: in Black communities 70–71, 75–76; in development theories 37–39, 43, 46; erasure of and national identity 119–20, 125, 134; IR theory and 15, 17, 22; solidarity work and 10–11, 78, 151–54, 162, 167, 169; state 147; tourism and ethnic 99 domination, matrix of 4, 15, 73, 121, 152 see also intersectionality; oppression

dos Santos, Theotonio 40–41 double standards 129, 159, 161 Drusine, Helen 98 dualism 42, 146, 154 Dunn, Kevin 4–5 economics, dependency theories and 36, 40, 42–43 education: bilingual 92, 95, 99, 125, 133; elitism and 106, 119; ereba-making and 27, 72; in Garifuna villages 158; Hall’s support of 78; pregnancy and young Garifuna 159–62, 172; Zelaya government and 103 empowerment: activism and 10, 155; community development and 61; feminist advocacy and 156; women and labor 68–69, 72, 76; women and property ownership 70, 169 encuentros 148 England, Sarah: afrodecendiente 101–2; Garifuna, usage of term 125; Garifuna farming 31; Garifuna labor in fruit companies 85, 89; Garifuna land titles 95, 164–65; Garifuna nation in diaspora 131–32; Garifuna use of negro 88; Honduran tourism, impact on Garifuna 100; matrifocality 31–33, 130; morenos, use of 85; rights and indigenous peoples 133; women’s work in patriarchal states 130–31 Enloe, Cynthia 84, 88–89, 91 Ensor, Bradley E. 98 erasure, historical 16–17, 22, 115–16 ereba (cassava bread): cultural significance of 23, 35–36; economic significance of 27; as grassroots symbol 35; as staple food of Garinagu 34–35; see also ereba-making erebairiona.org 21, 52, 107, 171 ereba-making: across Central America 107–8; as alternative to development 23, 28, 49, 54, 71, 128; ereba songs 106–7; family role in 49, 65, 76–77; feminism and 122–23, 156; fundraising for 21, 52; Garifuna women and 27–28, 34, 48, 54, 68–69; land rights and 99, 164–65; men’s role in 34, 61, 128; personal accounts of 27–28, 160; production process 35–36; significance of 27, 36, 128, 131, 156; transmission of traditions and 71, 83, 122–23, 128; see also galpones casaberos

Index Escobar, Arturo: on development 19, 43–45, 47, 49, 137; Hall’s critique of 44–46; pluriverse xvi, 137, 146, 170 ethnicity: anti-immigration legislation and 86–88; blanqueamiento and 120; in development theories 39, 42; in diaspora, Afro-Atlantic 8; Garifuna 30–31, 131; Honduran tourism and 99–100; nationalism and fictive 91–92, 118–19, 125, 132; political dimension of 118; politicized nature of 132; race and 134; western countries and 137; women, nation and 123, 129; see also identity ethnography: formative accounts, criticism of 115; on Garifuna 50, 126; Hall’s research process 19, 62, 80; situated ethnographic knowledge 75 eugenics, positive 120 Euraque, Darío A. 31, 86–88 exploitation 39–42, 84, 100, 102 see also fruit companies, multinational; oppression; tourism, Honduran Factora-Borchers, Lisa 156–57 Falcón, Sylvanna M. 151 families: in ereba-making 49, 65, 76–77; scholarly 10, 73–75, 79–81, 155; state identity and 66–68; as unit of analysis 23, 65–71, 75, 81; see also Garifuna families farming: Black women and 51; family management of 72, 76; of Garifuna people 31, 72, 85, 106, 164–65; land rights and 51, 132, 164–65, 167; poverty and 20; transnational solidarity and 51, 55, 166–68, 172; see also ereba-making; fruit companies, multinational Farming While Black (Penniman) 51 female victim narrative 155 femininity 122, 154 feminisms: Afrodiasporic 3; Black Brazilian 2, 6; Blackness and xvn3; Chicana xvi; criticism of 154; ereba makers and 122–23, 156; IR and 14–15, 17, 22; Latin American 148–49; nationalism and 123–24, 144; NGOization of 7, 148, 156–57; non-feminist activism and 153–57; positionality and 169; without borders 13, 150–51; see also Black feminism; transnational feminism Field, Tory 165–66

183

First Nations see indigenous peoples food apartheid vs. food desert 167, 167n8 food sovereignty: definition of 165–66; land rights and 157, 165–66, 168, 172; liberation and 163; movement origins 166; racial injustice and 51, 167; reproductive justice and 172; as transnational solidarity work 23, 146, 168 Foran, John 39 Forster, Cindy 85 Fouron, Georges 68 Frank, André Gunder 41 Frank, Dana: on banana production 90, 97; on fruit companies, manipulation by 84; Honduran coup, violence of 103–5; packinghouse jobs 90–91 freedom: food sovereignty and 51, 163; in Honduran coup 103–4; intersectionality 39, 124, 169; privilege and 21; scholar-activism and 8; sexual and gender 19–20, 158, 161–62, 172; transnational solidarity and 11–12 Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won (Butler) 8 French colonialism 28–29 see also colonialism Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) 104 Friedman, John T. 45 fruit companies, multinational: banana plantations, gender roles on 88–91; Garifuna, impact on 83–85, 87–89, 91, 106; Honduras, impact on 30, 42, 84–87, 102, 109; Hurricane Mitch and 97; labor, racialized and gendered nature of 84–85, 87–91; Panama fungus (sigatoka) 96; Workers’ Strike (1954) 89–91 Fuentes, Vilma Elisa 98 fugitivity, Black 23 fundraising 21, 52, 171 galpones casaberos (cassava cooperatives): as families, extension of 48–50, 76–77; Hall’s work with 45, 48–49, 51–52, 76; women’s power in 76–77; see also ereba-making Gamboa de Baixo 169 Gargolla, Francesca 33, 128 Garifuna families: community identity and 49, 60–62, 66, 121; ereba-making in 48–50, 65, 72, 76–77, 81; male

184

Index

migration, low impact of 69, 71–72, 128–29; mothers and women, importance of 32–34, 69, 77, 158; non-biological paths to 61–65, 77–80; opportunities, access to and 65, 68–69, 71, 79; see also Garifuna people; matrifocality Garifuna organizations see Organización de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Garifuna people: anti-Black legislation, impact on 87–88; Blackness and indigeneity of 31, 88, 93, 101–2, 105–6, 125–26, 133–34; food sovereignty and 163; fruit companies, impact of 84–85, 87–89, 91, 106; gender and sexual politics of 61, 68, 122, 128, 158–62; history of 19–20, 28–30, 92–94, 124; Honduran coup, impact of 103–4, 107–8; Honduran tourism, impact of 30, 93–96, 98–101, 106, 128; international support for 107; land rights and ownership of 2, 71, 93–94, 99, 131–34, 163–65; land rights organizing 50, 92–93, 95–96, 98–99, 125, 163; male migration of 32–33, 69, 71–72, 102, 128–29; matrifocality of 18–20, 23, 31–33, 50, 68–69, 128–30; motherhood, importance of 19–20, 31–34, 83, 123, 158; personal accounts of 27–28, 60–63, 72, 159–60; transnational community of 3, 114, 124–26, 131–33; see also ereba-making; Garifuna families; Garifuna women Garifuna women: cultural transmission and 71, 83, 122–23, 128; ereba-making and 21, 27–28, 34, 48–49, 54, 68–69, 76; Hall’s commitment to 55, 106, 108, 126; Hurricane Mitch, organizing after 98; land ownership of 50, 70, 100, 123–24, 163–64; migration to US 125–26; motherhood and power of 19–20, 31–34, 77, 158–61; patriarchy and autonomy of 106, 129–31; reproductive justice and 158–62, 172; state relations and 123–24; younger, disadvantages for 19–20, 77, 79, 158–61; see also Garifuna people; matrifocality; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Garinagu see Garifuna people Garza, Alicia 12

gender: banana plantations, roles on 83, 88–91, 109; development theory and 36–40, 42, 44; double standards and 129, 159, 161; Garifuna society, roles in 68, 122; intersectionality and 4–5, 8, 50–51, 71–74, 121; in IR theory 14–17, 22, 121, 135–36; labor and 33, 83, 122, 130, 169; land rights and 100–101, 128, 164; language and 106n6; nationalism and 13, 66–68, 121–23, 127; norms, challenges to 155; reproductive justice and 158, 160, 162; see also Garifuna women Gender and Cultural Citizenship Working Group 127 Gender and Development (GAD) 38–39 Giovanni, Nikki 1 global economy 40–41, 43 global IR 14–15, 17 Global North and South 11–12, 147–48, 150–52 Gold, Janet N. 35, 84 Gonzalez, Lélia 2 Gonzalez, Nancie L.: British separation of Caribs 29; cultural significance of ereba 35; dual residence of Garifuna 126; ereba market, growth of 36; matrifocal household structures 32; women and ereba-making 34–35 Gordon, Edmund T. 29, 119 grassroots development 35, 45–46, 65 see also galpones casaberos grassroots organizing: Black Lives Matter 12–13; for Garifuna land rights 92, 98; scholar-activism and 9–10, 149; solidarity and 74, 162, 168–69; transnational feminism and 7, 12, 148–49; see also grassroots development; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Grewal, Inderpal 147 Guatemala 18–20, 30, 97 Gudmundson, Lowell 124 Guynn, Jessica 12 Haggerty, Richard 90 Hall, K. Melchor Quick: background of 18–19; galpones casaberos, work with 48–49, 51–52, 76; Garifuna family of 63–65, 77–80; OFRANEH, support of 107; positionality of 53–55, 108–9, 135, 139, 145, 171; resistance to academia 177; rural, Garifuna women, commitment to 21, 106–8, 126

Index Haney, Lynne 66 Harney, Stefano 177 Harrison, Faye V. i, 54 health equity 5–6, 161–62 Health Equity in Brazil (Caldwell) 6 hegemonologue 22 Henderson, Errol A. 16, 146 Hernández, Juan Orlando 104–5 Hernández, Tanya Katerí 118–19 her-story 28 Herzfeld, Michael 36 heterogeneity: Black women’s experiences and 70–71, 76; in diaspora 8; of Garifuna people 105; ladinos, meaning of 87; states and 92, 119; see also diversity heteronormativity 66, 128 historical reckoning 5, 15, 17, 170 Holt, Thomas C. 121, 132 Holt-Giménez, Eric 166 homogeneity: in development theories 38–39, 43; Honduran vision of 86–88, 134; mestizaje and 120, 134; of states, fictive 147, 168; whiteness and 67; of women in intersectional analysis 92; see also blanqueamiento Honduras: agrarian reform law (1974) 164–65; anti-Black sentiment in 83, 86–88, 95–96, 106; blanqueamiento and mestizaje in 114, 118–20, 140; cultural tourism in 30, 93–96, 98–101, 106, 128; family and state in 66–68; government coup d’état (2009) 102–5, 107–8; history of 30–31, 86–88, 95–99, 124–25; Hurricane Mitch in 97–98; Miskito peoples of 29; national mestizo identity of 30, 42, 86–88, 96, 100, 125, 134; patriarchy in 20, 23, 68, 106; US foreign policy and 21, 55, 102, 169; Workers’ Strike (1954) 89–91, 97, 125; see also ereba-making; fruit companies, multinational; Garifuna people; rights, land and territorial hooks, bell 9–10, 151–52 household structure, consanguineal 32–33, 50, 76, 105 see also Garifuna people; matrifocality Humanitarian Center for the Support of Women (CHAME) 13 human rights: decolonization of 151; food sovereignty 166, 171–72; land ownership and 50, 133, 162; reproductive justice 160, 162, 172; sex

185

workers and 13; state violation of 104, 154; see also coup d’état, Honduran; fruit companies, multinational Human Rights Watch 104 Hume, Mo 103 Hunt, Sarah 42 Hurricane Mitch 83, 96–98, 109 identity: Black indigeneity 29–30, 93, 100, 117, 133–34; Blackness and Garifuna 31, 93, 101–2, 105–6, 125–26, 133–34; blanqueamiento and mestizaje 114, 118–20, 140; categorical vs. relational 66; community and Garifuna 49, 60–62, 66, 121; family and state 66–68; fruit companies and Garifuna 84–89; land and Garifuna 131; land rights and 94, 114, 117, 124, 126–27, 132–34; national mestizo 30, 42, 86–88, 96, 118–20, 125, 134; solidarity work and 9, 169; in state-centric models 91; women and national 68, 129 ILO Convention 169 95, 99 imagined communities 74–75 immigration legislation 86–88, 96, 125 imperialism 41 see also colonialism improvement, racial 118–20 Inayatullah, Naeem 114–15, 136 indigeneity: Blackness vs. 29–30, 93, 117, 126, 133–34; IR’s treatment of 113–16; land, connection to and 126–27; land rights and 23, 29, 50, 92–93, 117; national identity and 100, 119–21; political involvement and 137n8; transnational 3, 23, 113n1, 116–17, 127–28, 140, 149; westernness vs. 137 indigenismo (Indian-ness) 100, 121 see also indigeneity indigenous peoples: African American solidarity with 139; in development theories 39, 44; feminization of 124; food sovereignty and 165–66, 172; IR, omission from 113–17, 127, 135–37, 151, 170; land and identity of 126–27; land rights and 92–93, 98, 101, 105, 117, 125, 133; Latin American identity and 119–20; Miskito 29; as transnational 3, 23, 113n1, 116–17, 127–28, 140, 149; see also erebamaking; Garifuna people; indigeneity insiderness and outsiderness 75 Inter-American Court of Human Rights 50, 133, 163

186

Index

interlocking oppression 4, 152 international framework 79–81, 80–81 international government organizations (IGOs) 148 International Labor Organization (ILO) 95 international relations (IR): Black feminism and 1–3, 5, 54, 72, 113, 146–47; borders, attention to 11–12, 53, 116, 137–38, 140; families as unit of analysis 23, 65–71, 75, 81; gendered analysis, need for 16–17, 22, 121, 135–36; indigenous peoples, erasure of 113–16, 127, 135–37, 140, 151; race analysis, silencing of 2, 15–17, 22, 39, 116, 135–36; racist roots of 4–5, 22, 37, 145–46, 170; social contracts 5–6; state-centric analyses of 2, 12, 91, 113–15, 136–37, 145–46, 170–71; TBF framework as response to 3, 22–23, 140; see also scholar-activism; solidarity work, transnational; Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) framework International Studies Association (ISA) 14–15, 22 Internet technologies, Garifuna and 131 intersectional analysis: ethnicity and nationality in 92; of family and nation 68, 81; of Garifuna communities 19–20, 54, 62, 76–77; of Garifuna matrifocality 124; of Garifuna rights struggles 105; of IR 135–36; of local and international actors 150; of marginalization 7–8, 135, 168; purpose of 4, 22, 163, 168; race, omission of 14; reproductive justice and 162; of state and citizen 5–6; TBF framework’s expansion of 14, 147; see also intersectionality intersectionality: background and purpose of 4, 168; Black feminism and 4, 71, 73–74; in development approaches 38–39; Garifuna rights and 105–6; IR and 5–6, 135–36; land rights and 50–51, 100, 166–67; scholar-activism and 6–8; six core ideas of 76; see also intersectional analysis; matrix of domination; solidarity IR see international relations Iriona region: community elders of 60n1; ereba production in 21, 27–28; family units in 62–65; galpones casaberos in

45, 48, 51; Hall’s time in 52–54, 77, 80, 107; as heart of Garifuna culture 76 Jeffrey, Paul 97 Jim Crow 11 Johnson, Dale L. 41 Johnson, Paul Christopher 28, 31, 126 Jones, Branwen Gruffydd 15, 44, 146–47, 164 justice work: for African and Native Americans 139; diversity and 151–52; intersectionality and 8; knowledges, alternative and 115; responsibility of feminists in 11; scholarship and 146, 170; solidarity and 10, 23, 155; see also food sovereignty; reproductive justice; solidarity work, transnational Kaplan, Caren 147 Keck, Margaret E. 147 Kellogg, Susan 160 Kerns, Virginia 19, 32–34 Khan, Aisha 161 Khan, Janaya 13 King, Hayden 116, 136–37 kinship structures 31–34, 67, 130 see also families; Garifuna families; matrifocality Kirtsoglou, Elisabeth 100–101 Kleymeyer, Charles David 45 Kline, Harvey F. 137–38 Klu Klux Klan 87 knowledge: alternative, need for 113, 115–16, 151, 170; Black women’s oppositional 70; community-based 60n1; in development discourse 38–39, 44; hegemonic narratives and 22; intersectionality and 5; power and production of 16, 47; scholar-activism and 6; situated 75, 171 Krishna, Sankaran 16, 114 Kurian, Priya A. 39 labor: feminization of low-wage 125; hierarchies 85, 89–91, 106, 109; ILO Convention 169 95; legislation, anti-Black 86–87; racialized and gendered nature of 83–85, 87, 88–91; Workers’ Strike (1954) 89–91, 97, 125; see also ereba-making; galpones casaberos; migration ladinos 87 see also mestizo identity

Index land grabs 51, 73, 163–64, 166–67 see also rights, land and territorial Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (Brazil) 166 land rights see rights, land and territorial land titles see rights, land and territorial land trusts 167 language preservation: Garifuna organizing for 92, 95, 99; in Honduran villages 20; indigenous peoples and 125, 133; women, importance of 106 Latin America: dependency theories and 40–42; development, alternatives to in 19; feminism in 3, 148–49; history of race relations in 137–38; indigenous communities, rights of 117, 136; “missing men” in families of 129; national identity and 67; national identity in 30, 96, 118–19, 120–21, 134; social movements, importance of 49; state power and familial relations in 67; transnational indigeneity in 23; underdevelopment in 41, 51; US foreign policy and 21; see also blanqueamiento; mestizaje; mestizo identity; specific countries Lavrin, Asunción 153–54 leadership: in Black Lives Matter movement 12; femininity and 67; of Garifuna women 76–77, 83, 122, 126, 129, 158 legislation: anti-Black 83, 86–88, 96, 106; anti-immigration 86–88, 96, 125 Leonard, Thomas M. 84 Lindsey, Treva B. 18 living legacies, Black feminist xvi, 1–3, 18 Lobo, Porfirio 103, 108 location, acknowledgment of xv, 7, 12, 18, 169 see also positionality López, Asbel 99, 127 Lorde, Audre xiv, 1 “Love Letter to Black Feminism, A” (Lindsey) 18 lynch law 85 Macpherson, Anne S. 118–20 Madres de la Plaza de Mayo 153–54 Maier, Elizabeth 153–55 malestream 16 Mamas of Color Rising 158 Mares, Teresa M. 166, 168 marginalization: of Black peoples in Honduras 83, 88; community survival

187

and 129–30; dependency and 42, 148; of Garifuna people 20, 88, 100, 106, 124, 133; government instability and 103–5; intersectional analysis of 135, 163, 168; IR scholarship, caused by 1, 3, 115–16, 136; oppositional worldview from 10; solidarity work and 7, 11, 51, 132; state emergencies and 83, 96–98; TBF framework, marginal voices in 14, 17; white elites, role in 118–19 masculinity 122, 154 matrifocality: definition of 31; in feminist scholarship 122; of Garifuna people 18–20, 23, 31–33, 50, 130; historical importance of 32–33; intersectional analysis of 124; land and 100, 123, 128; male migration and 33, 69, 128–29; in patriarchal states 68, 83, 129, 130–31 matrix of domination 4, 15, 73, 121, 152 see also intersectionality; oppression Matte, Diane 10, 150, 152–53 Maynes, Mary Jo 66–67 McClaurin, Irma 6, 17 McClintock, Anne 124 McKelvey, Charles 84, 90 men: on banana plantations 88–91; development and 38; ereba-making, role in 34, 61, 128; Garifuna, migration to US 124–26; in matrifocal societies 32–33, 65, 69, 71–72 Merrill, Tim L. 30 mestizaje: African descent, rejection of 118; Black history, erasure of 114; homogeneity and difference in 120, 134; Latin American identity and 114, 140; racial harmony and 119–20; see also blanqueamiento; mestizo identity mestizo identity: banana labor and 90–91; in dependency theories 42; family ideals and 66, 129; fictive 118, 120, 134; Garifuna as distinct from 125; Garifuna indigeneity and 93; Garifuna land rights and 100, 133, 165; ladinos vs. 87; marginalization of Garifuna and 20, 88, 106, 119–20, 134; national promotion of 30, 86–87, 96; see also blanqueamiento; fruit companies, multinational; mestizaje Mexico 30, 43, 55, 74n5 migration: families, transnational and 65–66; of Garifuna to US 124–26;

188

Index

male, impact on community 33, 69, 71–72, 102, 128–29 Millet, Richard 90 Miranda, Miriam 104, 107, 163, 165 see also Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Miskito peoples 29 modernization theories vs. 36–38, 40, 43 Moghadam, Valentine M. 38–39 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade: Black feminism and xvi, xviii; feminism without borders 13, 150–51; solidarity and diverse communities 10; unity and agency 151, 155 molinos (cassava-grinding workshops) 48–49 morenos 31, 85–88, 125 see also Blackness; mestizo identity Moten, Fred 177 motherhood: cultural reproduction and 123; ereba-making and 31–34, 123, 158; maternal mortality 161–62; national actors, mothers as 68; other-mothering xv, 20; political action and traditional 153–54; power and Garifuna 19–20, 160; revolutionary mothering 83, 113; solidarity, support and 158; see also Garifuna women; matrifocality; power Munck, Ronaldo 40 Murphy, Julia E. 46 naming: of Black feminism, international 2; of Black feminist scholarly families 73–74; of diverse positions 10; importance of xiv–xv; of TBF framework xiv–xvi, 3, 168; of white privilege 4; of white Western patriarchal theory 16 National Agrarian Institute (INA) 94, 164 nationalism: family and 66–68; feminist approach to 123–24; fictive ethnicity and 118–19; Garifuna diaspora and territorial 132; gendered nature of 67–68, 121–22; indigenous 127; IR and 114; race, ethnicity and 91–92; see also states; transnationalism nation-states see states naturalization 67–68, 122, 135 Negras in Brazil (Caldwell) 9, 74 negro 29–31, 88, 125 see also Blackness; mestizo identity Newson, Linda 29

NGOization 7, 148, 156 Nicaragua 20, 29–31, 97, 127 non-feminist activism 153–54 non-governmental organizations (NGOs): dependency of minorities on 148; Garifuna visibility to 134; mobility of Black women and 13–14; political nature of 148, 150, 156; see also NGOization; Organización de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Northeast Farmers of Color (NEFOC) 167 ODECO see Organización de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario OFRANEH see Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña Oka, Cynthia Dewa 113 Okazawa-Rey, Margo i, xv, xviii oppression: Black feminist scholarly families and 73; commonality of 13, 152, 155; in families, simplification of 69; Garifuna traditions as resistance to 83; interlocking 4, 152; intersectionality and 8, 120–21, 168; land rights and historical 164; scholar-activism and 6, 136, 168; solidarity and 10; underdevelopment and 41; urban agriculture and 167; of women and responses to 39 Organización de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario (ODECO) 95–96, 101–2, 105, 107–8, 149 Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH): food sovereignty work 163, 165, 167, 172; Hall’s support of 107; history of 92, 163; Honduran coup, resistance to 104; Honduran legislation, action on 95–96; importance of women and 123; and ODECO, compared 101–2, 105, 107–8, 149; traditional land rights, focus on 102, 105 organizers see scholar-activism Ortner, Sherry B. 69 other-mothering xv, 20 outsiderness and insiderness 75 Outsider Within (Harrison) 54 packinghouses 90–91 Palestine2Ferguson 13

Index patriarchy: development and 38–39; in Honduras 20, 23, 68, 106; matrifocality and 33, 130–31 Peña, Devon G. 166, 168 Penniman, Leah 51, 167, 167n8 Peron, Isabel 67 Perry, Keisha-Khan: black resistance and land rights 2–3, 166–67; collective social transformation 169; diasporic perspectives 73–74; positionality of 171; social movements and solidarity 74 Persaud, Randolph B. 16, 136 Peterson, V. Spike 91, 121–22 photo-elicitation interviews 21, 52 Pieterse, Jan Nederveen 46 place-based perspectives 7, 11, 36–37, 150, 169 plantations see fruit companies, multinational Plaza de Mayo, Madres de la 153–54 pluriverse xvi, 137, 170, 172; explanation of 146 political economy of truth 44, 47 political science 2, 14 Pollard, Lisa 66 positionality: African Americans and white supremacy 139; feminism and 12, 169; Hall and ODECO 108; Hall’s acknowledgement of 60n1; Hall’s background and research 18–21, 171; Hall’s Garifuna family 80; Hall’s scholarly connections 53–55; in IR, need for 140; scholar-activism and 17–18, 81; scholarship and privileged 5, 75, 150 post-development 19, 42–46 see also dependency theories; development postmodernism 46 poverty: agency and 155; community coordination and survival 129–30; ereba makers and 129; family assets, historical and 71; Garifuna women and 159, 159n5; rural vs. urban 20–21; wealth and production of 42 power: activism, transborder and 7–8, 147–50; agency, structure and 70; of corporate food regime 166; development discourse and 43–45; of families 65–67, 81; of Garifuna women 19–20, 32–34, 69, 77, 106, 126, 158–61; intersectional frameworks and 76; IR and white 146; knowledge production and 16; in matrix of domination 121; of

189

mestizo men 88, 90; money and 21; positional examination of 81; race, politics of and 16; of the single story 27; women’s labor and 39, 68–69, 76–77 pregnancy 159–62, 172 see also Garifuna women; motherhood property ownership, female empowerment and 70, 163 “proto-whites” 37 Puerto Rico 28 race: categorization of 28–30, 86–88, 170; citizenship and 1, 13, 30, 118–19, 166; in dependency theory 42; ethnicity and 134; health equity and 162; in IR theory, silencing of 2, 16–17, 116, 135–36; nationalism and 91–92, 123; segregation and 11, 152, 152n1; western countries and 137; work opportunities and 39, 85, 89–90; see also blanqueamiento; intersectionality; racism; rights, land and territorial racial categorization: Garifuna rejection of 88; of Honduran state 86–87 racial harmony 119–20 racial hierarchy, cartographic lines of 13 racial segregation 152, 152n1 racism: denial of, by Honduran state 99; food systems and 167; of fruit companies, multinational 85; global structural 44, 164; Honduran legislation 83, 86–88, 96, 106; intersectional understandings of 6, 73–75; of IR 146; IR analysis of 14, 22; national identity construction and 119–21; sexism and 120–21; state control and 13; see also race Radcliffe, Sarah A. 67 radically transparent author positionality see positionality Ramirez, Reyna 124 regionalism, IR and 15, 22 regional worlds 14 regions, as social constructs 15 reimagining, process of 2, 6, 113, 132 see also worlding, process of Reina, Carlos Roberta 99 reparations 138–39, 153n2 reproductive justice: breadth of framework 172; definition and principles of 158; reproductive privilege 160; transnational solidarity and 146, 157, 160,

190

Index

162, 168; young Garifuna women and 158–62; see also food sovereignty “Reproductive Justice for Women of the East” (Sharma) 145 Republic of Central America 3, 30 see also Central America; Latin America research: Hall’s methods of 19; outsider and insider dynamics in 74–75; researcher-researched connections 79–81, 155; see also families; scholar-activism resistance: Black, rethinking of 73; communities of 135; to Honduran coup 104; land rights and 2–3, 51; to master narratives 170; mother’s labor as 83; social movements and 48; of women across states 127; see also solidarity work, transnational Reynolds, Kristin 167 rights, land and territorial: agrarian reform law, Honduras (1974) 164–65; colonialism and 2, 29, 164; food sovereignty and 157, 165–66, 168, 172; Garifuna identity and 94, 124, 132–34, 165; Garifuna organizing for 92, 95–96, 98–99; Garifuna women and 70, 100, 123–24, 128, 163; Hall’s commitment to 51; Hurricane Mitch, impact on 97–98; idioms of Black resistance and 2–3; indigeneity and 23, 29, 50, 92–93, 117; land trusts 167; OFRANEH and ODECO 101–2, 108; tourism, Honduran and 94–96, 98–101, 128, 164; transnational support and 51, 117, 132–33; USAmerican 139; victories of Garifuna and 50, 163, 165, 172 Risse-Kappen, Thomas 147 ritual and motherhood 31, 33–34 see also motherhood Rivers-Moore, Megan 67 Roatán, island of 30–31 Roberts, Dorothy 172 Rosemblatt, Karin Alejandra 118–20 Rosenberg, Mark B. 85–86 Ross, Loretta J. xvii, 74n6, 158, 160–62 Ross, Rosetta 74n6 Ruckert, Arne 102 Ruiz, Santiago xviii, 53–54 Safa, Helen I. 101, 153 Sajed, Alina 136 Sanders, James 117 Sangtin Writers 156–57

San Pedro Sula 55, 87 Scarano, Francisisco A. 124 Schiller, Nina Glick 12, 68 scholar-activism: academics vs. activists 21, 46, 140, 170; call to engage IR scholars 3; development, alternatives to and 47; development funds 45; fundraising 21, 52, 171; government policies, influence on 169; Hall and OFRANEH 107; intersectionality and 6–8; IR and 7–8, 170; place-based transnationalism and 7, 150; positionality and 17–18; privilege and 51; purpose of 22–23, 55, 136–37; scholarly families and 79–81; solidarity work and 7, 9–10, 23, 146, 168; TBF framework as embodied form of 17; women in 145; see also grassroots organizing; solidarity work, transnational Schortman, Edward M. 70 Second Carib War (1795-1796) 29 Seven Years’ War 28 sexism 120–21 see also gender Sex Tourism in Bahia (Williams) 13 sexual politics 158–61 sex workers 13, 155 Sharma, Bonita B. 145 Sharpe, Christina 1 Sikkink, Kathryn 6–7, 147 Simon, David 46 Sindicato de Trabajadores de La Tela Railroad Company (SITRATERCO) 91 single-axis analyses, ineffectiveness of 4, 50 single story, danger of 27, 50n11 Sinha, Mrinalini 67–68, 122 slavery: final abolition of 8; Garifuna evasion of 19, 28; in Honduras, abolition of 30; modern state, development of 80; transatlantic slave trade 2 Smith, Andrea 127 Smith, Christen A. 13, 74, 75 Smith, Janice K. xv social contracts, between state and citizen 5–6 social justice see justice work social movements: alternatives to development in 47–48; community and 166; development and 44–45; international solidarity and 74; scholar-activism and 137

Index sociology 2, 6, 73 Sojourners of the Caribbean (N. L. Gonzalez) 35 solidarity: African American and indigenous 153n2; Black American and Garifuna 51, 55, 157, 166–68, 172; Black American and Native American 139; charity vs. 148, 150, 152, 152n1; collectivity and 130; definition of 23, 78–79, 151; development funds and 45; diversity and 10–12, 154, 157; of feminists and non-feminists 153–57; Garifuna and indigenous 92–93, 96, 101, 105, 125; Hall and Garifuna 21, 51, 77–78, 106; Honduran coup, response to 104; in matrifocal societies 32; mothering and 158; positionality and 18; scholars and activists 136, 140, 170; scholars and research communities 10, 73–75, 79–81, 155, 170; support vs. 9, 151–52; see also scholar-activism; solidarity work, transnational Solidarity Collective xviii, 169 solidarity work, transnational: diversity, importance of 10–11, 78, 156–57, 162, 169; farming as 51, 55, 166–68, 172; feminism and 147–49; food sovereignty 23, 146, 163–68, 172; IR and 116, 170; political nature of 46, 149–50, 169; professionalization of 148; reproductive justice 146, 158–62, 172; varied forms of 171; women’s collective interests and 151–54; see also rights, land and territorial; solidarity Solinger, Rickie 158, 160, 162 Soul Fire Farm xviii, 51, 167 see also food sovereignty sovereignty, food see food sovereignty Spain 30, 42, 138 Spelman, Elizabeth V. 39 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 39 Standard Fruit Company 85, 90 see also fruit companies, multinational state borders see borders/boundaries state emergencies, marginalized communities in 83, 96–98 state-level economics 42 states: family and construction of 67–68, 138; Garifuna identity and 100, 132–33; gendered nature of 121–23, 127; indigenous nationhood vs. 127; IR view of 114; myth of homogeneous

191

80, 113–15, 118, 168; NGOization and focus on 148; state-centric models and 91; TBF framework’s rejection of 92; transnational approach to 147; see also blanqueamiento; mestizaje; mestizo identity; nationalism Sterling, Cheryl 9 stewardship, land 139, 167 Stonich, Susan C. 98 structure, agency, power and 70 struggle: transnational solidarity and 73–75, 125–26, 151–52; see also solidarity; solidarity work, transnational St. Vincent, island of 28–29, 34, 134 see also Garifuna people subaltern 39 subjugation see oppression subsistence farming: of Garifuna people 31, 72, 106; land rights and 132, 164–65; poverty and 20; see also farming; food sovereignty subversive intellectual 177 Sutton, Constance R. 128 Tarrow, Sidney 147 Taylor, Christopher 34, 85, 133 TBF framework see Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) framework Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios 100–101 Thorne, Eva T. 99, 107, 165 Tickner, J. Ann 42–43 tierra ociosa 165 tourism, Honduran: Garifuna identity and 30, 93–94, 99–100, 106; land rights and 94–96, 98–101, 128, 164 trabalho de base (grassroots work) 9–10 see also grassroots organizing traditions, preservation of 20, 71, 83, 122–23, 128 trafficking, human 13–14, 155 transmigrants 126, 131, 133 transnational advocacy networks 6–7, 11, 116, 147 Transnational Black Feminist (TBF) framework: author positionality, radically transparent 18–21, 53–54, 80, 108–9, 138–39, 171; borders/boundaries, attention to 11–14, 53, 79–80, 107–8, 137–38, 170–71; development theories and 44–46, 50; intersectionality 4–6, 50–51, 105–6, 135–36, 168; naming of xiv–xvi, 3, 168; place-based transnationalism and

192

Index

7; purpose and aims of 3, 15–18, 22–23, 115–16, 135, 140, 172; scholar-activism 6–9, 51–52, 79, 107, 136, 170; solidarity 9–11, 51, 77–79, 106, 136, 167–68; state-centric analysis, rejection of 92; women of color, importance of xvi, 71, 145; see also international relations; specific principles transnational communities see Garifuna people; indigenous peoples transnational feminism: accountability, mutual in 152; borders, salience of and 80; definition of 147; diversity, importance of 11–12, 154, 156–57; grassroots organizing and 148–49; place-based 150, 152; positionality and 12, 169; professionalization of 7, 147–48 transnational indigeneity see indigeneity transnationalism: anthropology and 74; Black feminism and 3, 75; diasporic belonging and 74–75; Garifuna 3, 114, 124–26, 131–33; indigeneity and 23, 113n1, 116–17, 140, 149; international framework vs. xv, 80–81, 147; intersectionality and 6; place-based 7, 11, 150, 169; reproductive justice and 162 transnational studies 12, 116–17, 146 see also international relations travelogues 115 Tripp, Aili Mari 11, 149–50, 152 Trujillo, port of 31, 98 Trujillo Railroad Company 85 see also fruit companies, multinational Twine, France Widdance 9 undercommons of enlightenment 177 underdevelopment 40–41, 43, 51, 84 see also development; fruit companies, multinational UNESCO 99, 107 Union of Workers of the La Tela Railroad Company (SITRATERCO) 91 unions, labor 90–91, 97 United Fruit Company 90, 124 see also fruit companies, multinational United Nations 147 United Provinces of Central America 30–31 United States: Black diaspora, parallels with 71–73; economic influence on

Latin America 42; Embassy and ODECO 108; foreign policy 21, 55, 169; Garifuna elites in 102; Garifuna migration to 124–25; Honduran Workers’ Strike, involvement in 90; other-mothering in 20; racial segregation in 11, 14; violence in Brazil and 74 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 44–45 universalisms, challenges to 171 Urban, Patricia A. 70 urban agriculture 167 USAmerican 2, 74n5; explanation of 2n1 us and them, division between 11 Via Campesina 157, 166, 172 Vickers, Jill 129 violence: commonalities across Black diaspora 74; domestic 7, 70, 163; in Honduran coup 103–5; international framework and legitimization of 80; of IR, orthodox 113, 116, 136; racial democracy and 13 Vitalis, Robert 1, 22 voting representation 18 Wade, Peter 119–20, 133–35 Walker, R. B. 16 Waltner, Ann B. 66–67 War of the Austrian Succession 28 Washington, DC 18, 20 ways of being, indigenous 115 wealth 40, 42, 71 West, Lois A. 122 West, the: development and emulation of 37–38; fractured reality of 14, 17; IR in 15; race and westerness 137–38 West-Rest divide 15 whiteness 118–19, 138 see also blanqueamiento white supremacy: academia and xv; African Americans, complicity in 138–39; Blackness and xv; in IR 22, 146; TBF framework’s resistance to 17; USAmerican 138–39 Wiarda, Howard J. 137–38 Williams, Erica Lorraine 13, 74, 155 see also anthropology, Black feminist Williams, Mai’a 83 Witness for Peace 169 Wittner, Judith 37–38 Woman – Nation – State (Yuval-Davis and Anthias) 123

Index women: on banana plantations 88–91; Black female farmers 51, 167; collective standpoint of Black 70–71; collective voices and interests of 145, 151–52, 169; in development theories 37–39, 42–44; feminist and non-feminist 153–54; as homogenous category 92; Honduran coup, impact and response to 104; Hurricane Mitch, impact of 97; national identity and 67–68, 123, 129; property ownership and empowerment 70, 163; see also Black Brazilian women; ereba-making; Garifuna women; matrifocality; reproductive justice Women and Development (WAD) 38–39 Women in Development (WID) 37–39 Workers’ Strike, 1954 (Honduras) 89–91, 97, 125 see also fruit companies, multinational

193

World Council of Indigenous Peoples 133–34 worlding, process of xvi see also pluriverse; re/imagining, process of world politics 146–47 worlds, multiplicity of 146, 170 World War II 36, 124–25, 135 Yelvington, Kevin A. 96 Yuval-Davis, Nira: analysis of nations 127; ethnicity, political dimension of 118, 132; families and state power 67; feminist advocacy, professionalization of 7, 148; national collectivities 129; race and ethnicity 134; women and state 123; women’s rights and duties 92 Zelaya, Manuel 102–4