The Power Within the Marginalised – Black Feminism in Europe and in the Caribbean

Abstract

For decades, feminist scholars and activists have called for gender equality across the world, and at the same time, black people have protested open and hidden racism in the society. Recent local and global movements and social media campaigns prove that these issues have not expired, on the contrary, discrimination based on gender and race exists, and in some parts of the world, it has even worsened. As important as those movements are, they are often looked from a narrow perspective. Gender rights are discussed from white women’s point of view, and racism is typically linked to black men. Developed by Afro-American female scholars, black feminism raises questions on the marginalised groups within marginalities. Some of the first publications on the topic were already written more than four decades ago, but black feminism has still stayed, ironically enough, in marginality. This article presents the main findings and arguments of two books that use black feminist theories in different contexts and fields of science. The more recently published of these books is To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (2019). Edited by Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande, the edited collection combines essays on black women’s actions and everyday struggles in different European countries. The second one is Caroline Shenaz Hossein’s Politicized Microfinance: Money, Power, and Violence in the Black Americas (2016). Discussing alternative finance in the African diaspora in the Caribbean, the book has already received some welldeserved attention in academia. Despite the differences in the form and the publication years, the books are comparable and contain some of the brilliant contributions to black feminist literature. They Book Review