Occupation of racial grief, loss as a resource : learning from ‘The Combahee River Collective Black Feminist Statement'

Nayak, S

Abstract

The methodology of ‘occupation’ through rereading The Combahee River Collective Black Feminist
Statement (The Combahee River Collective, in: James,
Sharpley-Whiting (eds) The Black Feminist Reader.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford, pp 261–270, 1977)
demonstrates the necessity of temporal linkages to historical Black feminist texts and the wisdom of Black feminist
situated knowers. This paper argues that racism produces
grief and loss and as long as there is racism, we all remain
in racial grief and loss. However, in stark contrast to the
configuration of racial grief and loss as something to get
over, perhaps grief and loss can be thought about differently, for example, in terms of racial grief and loss as a
resource. This paper questions Western Eurocentric paternalistic responses to Black women’s ‘talk about their
feelings of craziness… [under] patriarchal rule’ (The
Combahee River Collective 1977: 262) and suggests
alternative ways of thinking about the psychological
impact of grief and loss in the context of racism. In this
paper, a Black feminist occupation of racial grief and loss
includes the act of residing within, and the act of working
with the constituent elements of racial grief and loss. The
proposal is that an occupation of racial grief and loss is a
paradoxical catalyst for building a twenty-first century
global intersectional Black feminist movement.

Citation

Nayak, S. (2019). Occupation of racial grief, loss as a resource : learning from ‘The Combahee River Collective Black Feminist Statement'. Psychological Studies, 64, 352-364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-019-00527-w

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 1, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Sep 17, 2019
• Publication Date: Sep 17, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 20, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 20, 2019
• Journal: Psychological Studies
• Electronic ISSN: 0974-9861
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Volume: 64
• Pages: 352-364
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-019-00527-w
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-019-00527-w
• Related Public URLs: https://link.springer.com/journal/12646