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From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches: Gill & Pires Gender in a Decolonial and Diasporic Perspective

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From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches: Gill & Pires Gender in a Decolonial and Diasporic Perspective Contexto Internacional vol. 41(2) May/Aug 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.2019410200003 From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches: Gill & Pires Gender in a Decolonial and Diasporic Perspective Andréa Gill* Thula Pires** Abstract: This article proposes a re-reading of the problem of gender, or as it has been put, more often than not, ‘the woman problem,’ that resists the reproduction of modern/colonial systems of governance and their political norms, standards, ideals and pacts. In turn, it seeks to open path- ways to dialogue with, rather than import, conceptions of gender that respond to the terms through which modern/colonial societies have been forged on the continent of Abya Yala, drawing inspira- tion from decolonial and diasporic perspectives. To this end, the article maps some of the available channels of the gender debate in what has come to be known as the global South from an array of perspectives that highlight the ways in which the relations between categories of oppression and privilege (such as race, class, sexuality and gender) are reflected and positioned so as to grapple with the coloniality of knowledge, power and being. More specifically, it focuses on three ways of dealing with power dynamics in the context of Abya Yala that have influenced how we conceive and respond to questions of gender. Its primary objective is to investigate the politico-epistemic conditions that structure gender thinking in binary and intersectional ways, and, in turn, open space for imbricated approaches forged from within (post-)colonial histories that do not take as their starting point the importation of theoretical references from places otherwise situated within a global political econ- omy of knowledge/power/being. More than a critique of theoretical standpoints from the global North, in and of themselves, which regardless were not thought to respond to our realities, here we analyse the terms through which gender and feminisms have been put up for debate. Without effectively decentring the Eurocentred references that preoccupy gender thinking in our respective disputes, we risk continued distraction from what is at stake when gender is put on the table: the (im)possibilities of living one’s full humanity on one’s own terms. Keywords: intersectionality; imbrication; decoloniality; gender; race; amefricanity; Abya Yala. * Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil; andrea.b.gill@gmail. com. ORCID iD 0000-0003-0038-2582. ** Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil;[email protected] . ORCID iD 0000-0003-2138-5483. From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches vol. 41(2) May/Aug 2019 275 Introduction To speak of gender is to speak of the categorisations of humanity. Any shortcut mapped through other means will remain lost in distracted debates about decontextualised indi- viduals or collectives, their special issues and so-called differences, measured in relation to unnamed hegemonic standards, identitarian norms and ruling pacts. Hence it becomes vital, as a first step towards such difficult global dialogues, to recognise how practices of (de)humanisation structure the conceptual and political field of (im)possibilities when discussions of gender are put on the table. And here, voices from the post-colonies have ceaselessly brought to the fore what gets lost in translation when the measure of intelligi- bility is set by the (self)authorising languages of our once colonisers (Anzaldúa 2000; Bair- ros 1995; Oyèwùmí 2004; Spivak 1997; Vigoya 2018) in ways that effectively deny forms of perceiving our historic constitutions proper to the geopolitical conditions through which diverse bodies and experiences are socially and politically produced. It is not of a recent turn to demand that we grapple with how our Eurocentred histo- ries, concepts and methods capture any attempt at thinking through the (im)possibilities of our inherited present. Many critical voices, from margins and centres variously located, have made this call to deal with the coloniality of knowledge, power and being that reflects and reproduces a global racist-sexist-capitalist system (Bernardino-Costa and Grosfoguel 2016). Yet the struggle to find a voice, intelligible within and beyond the hegemonic terms of our political and conceptual imaginary, has generated backlash and debate overwhelm- ingly constrained by the prevailing modern scientific logic that pits universal against rela- tive or particular ways of thinking. If we are to take seriously the proposals for epistemologies of the South (Meneses and Santos 2010), it is imperative to break free from such rigid terms and conditions, framed as neutral, which impede the advancement of the production of a system of knowledge that does not merely guarantee itself through self-containment by way of monological qualifications of internal consistency and self-referentiality. When we are able to give up on this solipsistic attachment disguised as scientific rigour, we may begin to feel out what resonates, where, when, and to what effects, and accordingly rework our criteria for eval- uating critical thinking and praxis. To ask, ‘What serves us?’ is not a corruption of the prized neutrality of academic thought, but precisely the kind of political thinking neces- sary to take on such difficult dialogues into the gendering, racialising and classed practices that, together with innumerous hierarchised categorisations of our humanity, sustain the inequalities and violences that mark the contemporary world. How, then, are we to embark on a re-reading of the problem of gender, or as it has been put more often than not ‘the woman problem,’ that does not reproduce the ethos of our modern/colonial world? With its universal histories and subjects predicated upon a totalising distinction between man and woman, and the consequent attribution of the source of gender oppression to a sort of all-subsuming patriarchal structure, feminist de- bates can sometimes hinder as much as they help guide such difficult dialogues. For too long the terms through which gender is conceived have been haunted by the political and epistemic standards authored by the logic of a white capitalist cisheteronor- 276 vol. 41(2) May/Aug 2019 Gill & Pires mative masculinity. In the shadow of the white man, feminists have declared themselves oppressed, have sought equality with and validation in the eyes of those deemed responsi- ble for the violences and inequalities of this world, or at the very least, for their own lived oppressions. The reorientations brought by black feminism, womanism, queer studies, masculinity studies, disability studies, among other critical currents of thought that provincialise these mythical hegemonic standards have gone a long way in reworking the possible space for political reflection and action. Yet until the terms of departure and reference are effec- tively re-centred, the (im)possibilities of political dispute remain captured in the image of whomever we seek to respond to. And everyone else remains fated to alterity, particular- ity, or relativism, obstructed from defining identity and difference, norm and exception, among other collective markers of political community on their own terms. Recognising the unequal terms and local specificities through which we enter into such interepistemic and intercultural exchanges, we here propose pathways to dialogue with, rather than import, conceptions of gender that respond to the terms through which modern/colonial societies have been forged on the continent of Abya Yala, drawing inspi- ration from decolonial and diasporic perspectives. To this end, this article aims to map some of the available channels of the gender debate in what has come to be known as the global South from an array of perspectives that highlight the ways in which the relations between categories of oppression and privilege (such as race, class, sexuality and gender) are reflected and positioned so as to grapple with the coloniality of knowledge, power and being. We begin with Abya Yala in its indigenous naming, resisting the interpretive grid of the territory’s later designation as ‘Latin America’ in a Eurocentred retelling of its origin story and eventual subjugation to an imperial America to the north that dispenses quali- fications of the likes of Latinity to guarantee its tie to Europe. More specifically, this collaborative work in progress focuses on three ways of dealing with power dynamics in the context of Abya Yala that have influenced how we conceive and respond to questions of gender. Our objective is to investigate the politico-epistemic conditions that structure gender thinking in binary and intersectional ways, and, in turn, open space for imbricated approaches forged from within (post-)colonial histories that do not take as their starting point the importation of theoretical references from places otherwise situated within a global political economy of knowledge/power/being. More than a critique of theoretical standpoints from the global North in and of themselves, which regardless were not thought to respond to our realities, we here analyse the terms through which gender and feminisms have been put up for debate. Without decentring the Eurocentred references that preoccupy gender thinking in our respective disputes, we risk continued distraction from what is at stake when gender is put on the table: the (im) possibilities of living one’s full humanity on one’s own terms.
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