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"We Are Going to Lead. We Are Going to Do Things.": An Intersectional Feminist Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Girl Activists of Color
Diaz, April
Diaz, April
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Abstract
While youth voices are often excluded from examinations of activist experiences, intersectional approaches to understanding youth activists’ lives are rarer. To address this gap in the literature, this study considered the intersections of age, race, and gender in activist experiences to explore the research question: What are the lived experiences of girl activists of color? Answering this question, the study utilized an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a qualitative methodology advanced by Heidegger, to explore the multiple meanings of a phenomenon via analysis of rich narratives shared by those who experience it. It additionally employed intersectional feminism, a form of feminism that considers how possessing multiple commonly marginalized identities can intersect to create unique experiences of oppression for individuals. The study consisted of six girls of color with rich experiences in activism and advancing progressive social change across the United States. Participants were asked to engage in two interviews each, the first interview lasting approximately one to two hours, and the second interview lasting half an hour to an hour. Analysis included exploration of the meanings embedded in participant narratives and found three across-case themes of: 1) operating in an inhospitable activist environment, 2) empathy and kindness as activism, and 3) navigating the pervasiveness of self-doubt. The theme of operating in an inhospitable activist environment details the diverse ways in which participants expressed unsupportive and hostile environments, including maintaining values incompatible with those of others and adverse experiences due to personal identities (via social isolation, discrimination, and lack of access to resources), as well as how they maintained motivation in the face of negative consequences to activism (including both punitive responses and interpersonal fallout). The second theme of empathy and kindness as activism argues that participants’ activist lives were characterized by possessing high levels of empathy, and that participants viewed expressions of empathy as activism itself. The third and final theme, navigating pervasive self-doubt analyzes how participants’ use of self-minimizing language and moments of questioning themselves demonstrated an underlying self-doubt that was reinforced by participants feeling generally unheard and undervalued in society. It further demonstrates how they navigated this self-doubt by focusing their attention to those rare moments in their activist lives when they did feel valued and heard. Findings from this study can strengthen adults’ efforts to stand in partnership with girls of color as girls enact their inherent - and often overlooked - sociopolitical power. It can do so by expanding how we think about barriers to youth activism, how we conceptualize “activism” across a variety of contexts, and how we think about the role and functions of activism in the lives of young girls of color.
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2023-08-31
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University of Kansas
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This item contains archived web content.
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1009128_1.pdf
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Social work, activists of color, girl activist, intersectionality, phenomenology, social change, youth activism