International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women

Access a curated list of resources and send your contributions

25th July is a day to honour the trajectories of resistance of Black Latin American and Caribbean feminists. Today we celebrate the International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women.

In 1992, the 1st Meeting of Black Latin American and Caribbean Women took place in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and from there the network of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean women was organised.

Throughout the month of July, all over the region, the power of the political and intellectual action of Black women is being celebrated. Throughout history, Latin America and the Caribbean have been the cradle of theoretical frameworks that have revolutionised feminist and Black theory, centering the experiences of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean women as ‘amefrican’ women, as coined by Brazilian Black feminist Lélia Gonzalez.

‘Its methodological value, in my opinion, lies in the fact that it allows for the possibility of rescuing a specific unit, historically forged within the different societies that have formed in a particular part of the world. Therefore, Amefrica, as an ethnogeographic reference system, is a creation of ours and of our ancestors on the continent in which we live, inspired by African models.’

Lélia Gonzalez in ‘A Categoria Político-Cultural de Amefricanidade’. [Read more about Lélia’s legacy here.] Raquel Barreto, ‘Amefricanity: The Black feminism of Lélia Gonzalez’, trans. Rafael Mófreita Saldanha, Radical Philosophy 209, Winter 2020, pp. 15–20.

List of Curated Resources

We are sharing a curated list of resources by Afro Latina and Afro Caribbean feminists from our Knowledge Hub organised by authors and invite you to send your contributions:

You can access our Knowledge Hub Contribution Page or send them by email with the subject “Contribution to the South Feminist Knowledge Hub” to the email knowledgehub@southfeministfutures.org.

Léila González: Philosopher, anthropologist, professor, writer, intellectual, activist in the Black and feminist movement in Brazil. She co-founded the Instituto de Pesquisa das Culturas Negras (IPCN), the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU) and the Coletivo de Mulheres Negras N’Zinga de Rio de Janeiro. She coined the term ‘Amefricanidad’, a geopolitical and socio-cultural concept to rethink our experiences and trajectories within our own contexts and territories.

Resources:

Article: Por um feminismo afro-latinoamericano.
Article: A Categoria Político-Cultural de Amefricanidade.

Ochy Curiel: Activist, doctor in anthropology and Dominican musician. She is a theorist of Latin American and Caribbean feminism, and a reference for autonomous, lesbian, anti-racist and decolonial feminism. She is one of the founders of the Latin American Group for Feminist Studies, Training and Action (GLEFAS).

‘I think that thinking about unity in feminism is a myth. As decolonial feminists, and before that as Afro-descendant feminists, as lesbian feminists, as autonomous feminists, we have been saying for a long time that there are key elements that white hegemonic feminism does not address. One of them is racism. Hegemonic white feminism, even today, assumes that all women are equal and that in that sense we have to fight only for gender issues’. Source: Pagina 12.

Resources:

Video: Femismo Decolonial

Article: Féminismes dissidents en Amérique latine et aux Caraïbes

Article: Descolonizando el feminismo: Una perspectiva desde América Latina y el Caribe

Book: Feminismos disidentes en América latina

Yuderkis Espinosa Fajardo: Writer, researcher, teacher and Afro-Caribbean feminist and decolonial anti-racist activist. She is a philosopher and was a direct disciple of María Lugones. She is a member of the Latin American Group for Feminist Studies, Training and Action (GLEFAS). Her contribution points to a critique of the ‘coloniality of feminist reason’ and the production of worlds centred on relation and complementarity.

‘I used to be a fiercely committed feminist, until it could no longer be sustained and I saw myself in the mirror. Then I could really see who I am and discover myself as I now name myself. That Fanonian moment, when you discover yourself being black, being Afro-descendant. This click had to do with my migration. I went to live in Buenos Aires with a lot of eagerness, seeing Argentina as a beacon in terms of social movements and the kind of counter-hegemonic feminism that I was carrying forward and was committed to. But when I arrived in Buenos Aires, the racist violence increased exponentially. In addition, some forms of racism appeared to me that I had not experienced in my own territory: epistemic racism. That is to say, if you are an Afro-Caribbean woman, you are only a body, a meat for consumption; you cannot think’. Yuderkis Espinosa, 2024

Yuderkis Espinosa Fajardo. (2024). “El problema del feminismo latinoamericano no es solo de colonización sino de colonialidad”. Source: Página12.

Resources:

Tonya Haynes: Caribbean feminist teacher, scholar, and lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit. She holds a PhD in Gender and Development Studies from the University of the West Indies and was the first graduate of the Nita Barrow Unit’s PhD programme in 2012, proudly representing a new generation of homegrown Caribbean feminist scholars. Dr. Haynes’ research is animated by the liberatory potential of Caribbean feminist thought.

“Caribbean feminisms are heterogeneous: transnational and diasporic, academic and activist, at once heteronormative (even homophobic) and queer. They emerge from multiple disciplines and locations, prioritise a variety of issues and strategies and draw from diverse epistemological, philosophical and activist groundings”. Tonya Haynes, 2017

Haynes, T. (2017). Interrogating Approaches to Caribbean Feminist Thought. Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies, 42(3).

Resources:

Article: Interrogating Approaches to Caribbean Feminist Thought
Article: Mapping Caribbean Cyberfeminism
Video: What is structural violence?

Maria Firmina Dos Reis: Educator and writer, founder of black literature and the anti-slavery novel in Brazil. She created the first co-educational school in the state of Maranhão, for girls and boys of limited means. Published in 1859 under the pseudonym ‘Una Maranhense’, Úrsula was the first abolitionist novel published in Brazil by a woman and also the first authored by an Afro-Brazilian.

Book: Úrsula

Sueli Carneiro: Philosopher, writer, educator, and Afro-Brazilian activist. She founded the Geledés Institute – Black Women’s Institute, the first independent Black feminist organisation in São Paulo (1988). Sueli Carneiro’s career is marked by countless contributions to the promotion of public policies for the benefit of the Black population in Brazil.

‘When we talk about the myth of female fragility, which has historically justified men’s patronising protection of women, which women are we talking about? We Black women are part of a contingent of women, probably the majority, who have never recognised this myth in themselves, because we have never been treated as fragile. We are part of a contingent of women who worked for centuries as slaves in the fields or on the streets, as vendors, greengrocers, prostitutes… Women who didn’t understand anything when feminists said that women should take to the streets and work! We are part of a contingent of women with an object identity. Yesterday, at the service of fragile little queens and sick lords.’ Sueli Carneiro, 2014

Resources:

Article: Mulheres em Movimento
Article: Enegrecer o feminismo
Catalogue: Collection Sueli Carneiro

Claudia Jones was a Trinidadian social and political activist and journalist who advocated for Black individuals, women, and workers in both the United States and England.

Book: An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!

Other resources:

Caribbean Feminisms: A Reading List, by Black Women Radicals

Database of Black Feminism, by Black Women Radicals
Book: Grifas (Afrocaribeñas al habla): In this book you can hear the voices of 30 Afro-Caribbean women from twelve Latin American countries and the diaspora interviewed by Laura Ruiz Montes on various themes such as racial identity, emigration, borders, racism and women’s bodies, which end up interconnecting with others such as the place of Africa and Afro-descendant culture, orality, Creole languages, and religions, to form different routes where the concept of ‘identity’ loosens its moorings and becomes trajectories that, unveiling subjectivities from different intersectionalities, reveal a Caribbean that generates knowledge and a different history. Some of the Afro-Caribbean women you can find are:
Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro – Puerto Rican novelist, short-story writer, and essayist.
Marion Bethel – Lawyer, poet, essayist, filmmaker, human rights and gender activist and writer from Nassau, Bahamas.
Micheline Dusseck – Afrocaribean writer from Haiti
Suzanne Dracius – Writer and Poet from Martinica.
Ann-Margaret Lim – Poet from Jamaica

Send your contributions

We invite you to help us expand our catalogue by sending resources by Black Latin American and Caribbean feminists.

What kind of resources can I send?

You can send resources in various formats: books, articles, videos, documentaries, reports, etc.

What should the resources be about?

Any topic! The political and theoretical perspectives of Black Latin American and Caribbean feminists cut across different themes and fields of knowledge. You can send resources on education, the environment, economics, gender, inequality, activism, sexuality and any other.

Do they need to be famous feminists?

No! you can submit resources authored by you or your friends, colleagues, professors, and any other Black Latin American and Caribbean feminists.

How can I send them?

You can access our Knowledge Hub Contribution Page or send them by email with the subject “Contribution to the South Feminist Knowledge Hub” to the email knowledgehub@southfeministfutures.org.