Reimagining Identity Politics in the New Millennium: A Postpositivist Realist Approach

Abstract

Dating back at least to Barbara Christian’s seminal article, “The Race for Theory,” women of color feminists have implemented a sustained critique of postmodern feminism, viewing it as a threat to feminist goals (Christian 1987). Christian then echoed the sentiments of many women of color feminists when she noted that it was not theory that was the problem, but its hegemony within academic circles, in particular, its silencing of the discourses and theories of feminists of color that were just beginning to take hold as postmodernist theory surfaced (1987, 53). New generations of feminists of color have continued the work of developing important critiques of postmodernist discourses even as they have sought to understand and acknowledge the positive implications of postmodernist thought for subaltern women’s agendas. They have also developed compelling theoretical alternatives for making salient the experiential realities of subaltern communities as resources of knowledge, some of which I will examine in detail here and throughout this book.