SpringerLink
Log in

Self-Reflexivity, Knowledge Production, and Cross-Racial Solidarity

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion

Part of the book series: Asian Christianity in the Diaspora ((ACID))

Abstract

This chapter discusses three interrelated issues that demonstrate how Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) has been an integral part of the author’s intellectual formation as a feminist scholar-teacher: the author’s positionality as a U.S.-based Asian woman, contributions of Asian/American women to her scholarly work, and her ongoing work on Afro/black-Asian connections. Seeking to promote more dialogues between African American and Asian and Asian American religious/theological studies as well as cross-racial solidarity, the author discusses the “analytical constraint” of the narrative of cross-racial solidarity, the problems with the exhortation to move beyond the black/white paradigm, and the problematic ways through which Indigeneity is invoked in Afro-Asian inquiry.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
EUR 29.95
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
EUR 50.28
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
EUR 64.19
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
EUR 64.19
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    Regarding the use of the term “Asian/American” with the signifier slash “/”, see David Palumbo-Liu’s, Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).

  2. 2.

    See Nami Kim, “The ‘Indigestible’ Asian: The Unifying Term ‘Asian’ in Theological Discourse,” in Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, ed. Rita Nakashima Brock et al. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 23–43.

  3. 3.

    Gayatri Spivak with Ellen Rooney, “In a Word,” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 1, no. 2. (1989): 129.

  4. 4.

    The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (aka The McCarren-Walter Act).

  5. 5.

    Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, “The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State,” in The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, ed. Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 6.

  6. 6.

    Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (London: Minor Compositions, 2013), 26.

  7. 7.

    Arif Dirlik, “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America,” in Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, ed. Roxann Prazniak and Arif Dirlik (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 94. See also Nami Kim, “Transformative Teaching and Scholarship in an Urban Context,” Journal of Asian/North American Theological Educators 2, no. 1 (2016): 86–92. http://janate.org/index.php/janate/article/view/1317.

  8. 8.

    Nami Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism: A Proposal,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion 1, no. 7 (June 2010): 6. http://www.raceandreligion.com/JRER/Volume_1_(2010)_files/Kim%201%2007.pdf.

  9. 9.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 3.

  10. 10.

    Antonio T. Tiongson Jr., “Afro-Asian Inquiry and the Problematics of Comparative Critique,” Critical Ethnic Studies 1, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 34.

  11. 11.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 48.

  12. 12.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 49.

  13. 13.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 48.

  14. 14.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 11.

  15. 15.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 48.

  16. 16.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 48.

  17. 17.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 49.

  18. 18.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 49.

  19. 19.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 10.

  20. 20.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 10, see also no. 22.

  21. 21.

    Nitasha Sharma, “The Racial Studies Project: Asian American Studies and the Black Lives Matter Campus,” in Flashpoints for Asian American Studies, ed. Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2018), 61–62.

  22. 22.

    “As Officer Who Killed Akai Gurley Gets No Jail Time, Asian Americans Debate Role of White Supremacy,” April 21, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skRk35P1q4g.

  23. 23.

    #Asians4Blacklives, https://a4bl.wordpress.com/who-we-are/.

  24. 24.

    Sunaina Maira, “Radicalizing Empire: Youth and Dissent in the War on Terror,” in Ethnographies of U.S. Empire, ed. Carole McGranahan and John F. Collins (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), chap. 19, Kindle.

  25. 25.

    Maira, “Radicalizing Empire,” chap. 19, Kindle.

  26. 26.

    Andrea Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing,” in Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, ed. Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006), 69.

  27. 27.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 22.

  28. 28.

    Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Introduction: Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism,” in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra T. Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 4.

  29. 29.

    Vanita Reddy, “Affect, Aesthetics, and Afro-Asian Studies,” Journal of Asian American Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2017): 292.

  30. 30.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 49.

  31. 31.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 51.

  32. 32.

    Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy,” 70.

  33. 33.

    Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy,” 70.

  34. 34.

    Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy,” 70.

  35. 35.

    Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy,” 71.

  36. 36.

    Deepa Iyer, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (New York, NY: The New Press, 2015), 104.

  37. 37.

    Iyer, We Too Sing America, 104.

  38. 38.

    Iyer, We Too Sing America, 104.

  39. 39.

    For instance, Martin Joseph Ponce proposes “queer Afro-Asian anti-imperialist critique” as a methodology. See his “Toward a Queer Afro-Asian Anti-Imperialism Black Amerasians and U.S. Empire in Asian American Literature,” Journal of Asian American Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2017): 283–87.

  40. 40.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 51.

  41. 41.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 51.

  42. 42.

    Tiongson, “Afro-Asian Inquiry,” 52.

  43. 43.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 4.

  44. 44.

    See Enakshi Dua, “Thinking through Anti-Racism and Indigeneity in Canada,” The Ardent Review 1, no. 1 (April 2018): 31–35.

  45. 45.

    See Jody A. Byrd, The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), xxvi.

  46. 46.

    Kim, “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism,” 22.

  47. 47.

    See Dayo F. Gore, Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2011); Barbara Ransby, Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013); and Reddy, “Affect, Aesthetics, and Afro-Asian Studies,” 289–94.

  48. 48.

    Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 179.

  49. 49.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 183.

  50. 50.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 184.

  51. 51.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 184.

  52. 52.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 184.

  53. 53.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 183.

  54. 54.

    Jordannah Elizabeth, “The Intersectionality of Believability,” Ms., November 8, 2017, https://msmagazine.com/2017/11/08/the-intersectionality-of-believability/.

  55. 55.

    Elizabeth, “The Intersectionality of Believability.”

  56. 56.

    Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 186.

Bibliography

  • #Asians4Blacklives. https://a4bl.wordpress.com/who-we-are/.

  • Byrd, Jody A. The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chatterjee, Piya, and Sunaina Maira. “The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State.” In The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, edited by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, 1–50. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dirlik, Arif. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in Making of Contemporary Asian America.” In Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, edited by Roxann Prazniak and Arif Dirlik, 73–100. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dua, Enakshi. “Thinking through Anti-Racism and Indigeneity in Canada.” The Ardent Review 1, no. 1 (April 2018): 31–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elizabeth, Jordannah. “The Intersectionality of Believability.” Ms., November 8, 2017. https://msmagazine.com/2017/11/08/the-intersectionality-of-believability/.

  • Gore, Dayo F. Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2011.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. London: Minor Compositions, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iyer, Deepa. We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future. New York, NY: The New Press, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Nami. “Engaging Afro/Black-Orientalism: A Proposal.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion 1, no. 7 (2010): 1–22. http://www.raceandreligion.com/JRER/Volume_1_(2010)_files/Kim%201%2007.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “The ‘Indigestible’ Asian: The Unifying Term ‘Asian’ in Theological Discourse.” In Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, edited by Rita Nakashima Brock, Jung Ha Kim, Kwok Pui-lan, and Seung Ai Yang, 23–43. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Transformative Teaching and Scholarship in an Urban Context.” Journal of Asian/North American Theological Educators 2, no. 1 (2016): 86–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maira, Sunaina. “Radicalizing Empire: Youth and Dissent in the War on Terror.” In Ethnographies of U.S. Empire, edited by Carole McGranahan and John F. Collins, Chapter 19. Duke University Press, 2018. Kindle.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Introduction: Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism.” In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, edited by Chandra T. Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, 1–50. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ponce, Martin Joseph. “Toward a Queer Afro-Asian Anti-Imperialism Black Amerasians and U.S. Empire in Asian American Literature.” Journal of Asian American Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2017): 283–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ransby, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reddy, Vanita. “Affect, Aesthetics, and Afro-Asian Studies.” Journal of Asian American Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2017): 289–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma, Nitasha. “The Racial Studies Project: Asian American Studies and the Black Lives Matter Campus.” In Flashpoints for Asian American Studies, edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, 48–65. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Andrea. “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing.” In Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, 66–74. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spivak, Gayatri with Ellen Rooney. “In a Word.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 1, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 124–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tiongson Jr., Antonio T. “Afro-Asian Inquiry and the Problematics of Comparative Critique.” Critical Ethnic Studies 1, no. 2 (2015): 33–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Spelman College, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Nami Kim

Authors
  1. Nami Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nami Kim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Pui-lan Kwok

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Kim, N. (2020). Self-Reflexivity, Knowledge Production, and Cross-Racial Solidarity. In: Kwok, Pl. (eds) Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion. Asian Christianity in the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36818-0_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation