Plotting a History: Black and postcolonial feminisms in ‘new times’

Black feminist thought is grounded in an understanding of the nature of power and the way black/othered difference women’s is systematically organised through social relations. Postcolonial feminist approaches enable us to situate the silent ‘spectral’ power of colonial times as it appears in the production and reproduction of marginalised, racialised and gendered others in new contemporary times. This special issue brings the two perspectives together to explore the complexities of black and ethnicised female marginality through an intersectional analysis where race, class, gender and other social divisions are theorised as lived realities. Through a variety of methodologies – such as the oral tradition of storytelling in CRT (critical race theory), embodied autobiography and geographically embedded longitudinal ethnographies – black and postcolonial feminist scholars chart new perspectives on multiple identity, hybridity, diaspora, religion, culture and sexuality. Exploring issues as diverse as black female marginality in higher education and their regulation and resistance in the neocolonial sites of schooling, work, family and the media, black and postcolonial feminist scholars of colour demonstrate their contribution to critical race and feminist thinking.