“Born to be wild” or a “tale of two theories”: A performance of black womanhood in the United States

Abstract

Communications professor, Norman Denzin, describes interactional moments that create potentially transformational experiences as epiphanies, which are subdivided into the major, the minor, the cumulative, the illuminative, and the relived. In his paradigm for the examination of racialized identity formation, psychologist William Cross offers a Nigrescence Model with a four-stage approach to understand the development of Black racial identity. Cross’ model has been modified to assess other aspects of identity formation such as gender consciousness. My story illuminates how the convergence of these theories offers a new lens through which to view the maturation of raced and gendered subjectivities. This performance text uses an Africana feminism performance pedagogy rooted in Yoruba feminist philosophy to expose the reproductive violence perpetuated against Black women and recover the healing, generative force of female power.

Citation

Millicent Davis, A. (2010), "“Born to be wild” or a “tale of two theories”: A performance of black womanhood in the United States", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-222. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034014