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M. Jacqui Alexander is an
Afro-Caribbean
Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
writer, teacher, and activist. She is both a
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
at the Women and Gender Studies Department of the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
as well as the creator and director of the Tobago Centre "for the study and practice of indigenous spirituality". Jacqui Alexander is an enthusiast of "the ancient African (diasporic) spiritual systems of Orisa/Ifá, and a student of yoga and
Vipassana
''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...
meditation".
She has received teachings on this meditative practice in
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, the Kôngo,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
,
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
, and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. The themes of her work have captured a range of social justice subjects from the effects of
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
,
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, and
enslavement
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
with special attention paid to the "pathologizing narratives" around
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
,
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
.
Alexander's academic areas of interest specifically include: African Diasporic Cosmologies, African Diasporic Spiritual Practices, Caribbean studies, Gender and the Sacred, Heterosexualization and State Formation, Transnational feminism.
Driven by
anti-colonial
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
,
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
women of color
The term "person of color" (plural, : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "White people, white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily a ...
and
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
movements globally, Alexander’s works have addressed the fundamentality of (hetero)sexuality to the "project of nation building; the pedagogical importance of teaching for justice; the need for a critical interdisciplinarity; and the sacred dimensions of women’s experience."
History and scholarship
Alexander grew up in
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
during a time of political unrest (circa 1960-70) when there were "
Black Power" protests and the political formation of nationalist movements. She considered her generation to be the "first Black children to benefit from nationalist education."
In 1997, Alexander was teaching at
Lang College, where she taught
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
. She was denied tenure, and thus spurred a student and faculty movement called the "Mobilization for Real Diversity, Democracy, and Economic Justice"
due to her being a popular professor but also on the basis of discrimination. The denial of her tenure developed into a hunger strike at Lang College, lasting 19 days. The students that protested were made up of students from many ethnic backgrounds as well as the LGBTQI community.
From 1998-2002, Alexander served as the Wangari Maathai Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Connecticut College, in New London, CT. There, she evolved what had been a interdisciplinary certificate program into an official disciplinary major and minor. During her time at Connecticut College, Alexander organized a series of conferences and campus events, drawing multiracial feminist scholars including Angela Davis, Chrystos, Dionne Brand, Cherrí Moraga, Sonia Sanchez, Adrienne Rich, Mitsuye Yamada, and more.
In 2007, Alexander later spent time at
Spelman College
Spelman College is a private, historically black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium in Atlanta. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman re ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
.
This was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project, which included classes like ''Migrations of the Sacred: Gendered Spiritual Practices in an Era of Globalization,'' and ''Indigenous, Black and Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars'' was a way to "track the effects of globalization and displacement on the spiritual communities of Aboriginal, African, and African descendant women, and to examine the spiritual technologies they used to heal themselves and their communities in the face of it all."
In 2013, there was a series of events dedicated to the legacies of
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who ...
that was organized by the Community Arts Practice (CAP) Certificate Program and the
Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, in conjunction with Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto- the place of Alexander's work. The beginning of the series of events started with a lecture by Alexander titled "Medicines for Our Survival: Indigenous Knowledge and the Sacred."
Alexander is also a member of the Future of Minorities Research Project of
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
Currently she is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto in the Women, and Gender Studies department.
The Tobago Centre
The Tobago Centre for the Study and Practice of Indigenous Spirituality is on a plot of land on Mt. St. George in Trinidad and Tobago that borders the Main Ridge Forest Reserve- the preserve has been protected since 1765 so it is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere.
The center works to incorporate indigenous practices and peoples that are "rooted in the soil and energies of early
Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...
communities, as well as those practices that are indigenous to Africa and India and were transposed and shaped by local conditions stemming initially from
enslavement
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and
indenture
An indenture is a legal contract that reflects or covers a debt or purchase obligation. It specifically refers to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and in modern usage, it is an instrument used for commercia ...
".
Some of the activities done at the Tobago Centre are as follows:
* "Daily devotion, meditation and yoga with opportunities for prolonged, intensive study and reflection;
* Educational programs that include the cross-cultural study of sacred texts, accompanied by local and international residencies;
* Various cyclical ceremonial and spiritual gatherings that are community-based, local and regional;
* Sustainable cultivation of food and medicinal plants to root us to the Land and to teach us how to heal ourselves and our communities".
Works
Her publications include ''Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures'' (co-edited with
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty (born 1955) is a Distinguished Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University. Mohanty, a postcolonial and tra ...
); ''Sing, Whisper, Shout, Pray! Feminist Visions for a Just World'' (co-edited with Lisa Albrecht, Sharon Day and
Mab Segrest
Mabelle Massey Segrest, known as Mab Segrest (born February 20, 1949), is an American lesbian feminist, writer, scholar and activist. Segrest is best known for her 1994 autobiographical work ''Memoir of a Race Traitor,'' which won the Editor's Ch ...
); and ''Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred''
as well as numerous papers like "Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas" published in 1994 in the ''Feminist Review.''
Her most recent publication, ''Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred'', has garnered transnational attention.
''Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen''
In 1994, Alexander wrote "Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas" for ''
Feminist Review
''Feminist Review'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. The journal was established in 1979. It is published by SAGE Publishing and is edited by a collective.
...
''.
Article summary
M. Jaqui Alexander uses the legislation passed in the 90's to illustrate the ways in which colonialist and imperialist thought has been implemented in the Caribbean in order to promote institutions of patriarchal heteronomativity in the financially vulnerable Islands. These pieces of legislation, i.e. the Sexual Offenses Act and Structural Adjustment policies; while executed with good intentions, only serve to promote the fetishization and commodification of Caribbean culture and the Black bodies that reside there.
At the time that Alexander was writing this article,
Trinidad & Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of Gr ...
was going through financial crisis, which resulted in the island nation having to turn to the
IMF and
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
to help bail them out of the debt that they had accrued throughout this financial crisis. Because of this, the IMF and World Bank were given the leverage to be able to impose large scale structural adjustment policies upon the island nation and collect an absorbent amount of interest. This occurrence and the result is addressed in Alexander’s journal entry. The journal entry itself is split into five sections that address various issues that Jaqui Alexander has found regarding “the politics of law, sexuality, and postcoloniality” in the island nation.
Naturalizing Heterosexuality
This section addresses the ways through which the Sexual Offenses Act, that was enacted in 1986, failed to promote feminism as it was intended. Instead, while the Act strove to protect women who fell victim to marital domestic violence, not only did it fail to explicitly name such acts as rape but it also failed to protect women who did not own physical property; those that were not economically beneficial were not deemed worthy of the same protections. Along with this failure, the Sexual Offenses Act introduced sodomy law to the island nation, effectively conflating violent heterosexuality (rape and violent assault) with consensual same sex relations through the lens of criminality, as well as serving to naturalize heterosexuality by deeming any alternative sexual practices (non procreative) as “unnatural” and “perverse”. Heterosexuality was economically efficient and any non procreative sex acts, those that colonial rule saw as performed by same sex couples and criminals (prostitutes and perverts), were economically inefficient and went against the naturalized heterosexual ideals.
State Nationalism and Respectability, Black Masculinity come to power 1962, 1972
M. Jaqui Alexander uses this section to address the way that colonial rule naturalized whiteness through the simultaneous racialization and sexualization of black bodies. Colonial ideas of nationalism necessitated a nuclear family model that relies on strict gender binaries and imported strict family structures to the Caribbean through imperialism, thus schooling respectability into the emerging black middle class. After colonial rule, black masculinity was forced to prove itself through the policing of sexualized bodies and lead to what was seen as overly aggressive black males attempting to claim the spot as head of the household.
(Inter)national boundaries and strategies of legitimation
Alexander notes the effects of the financial crisis through the way that the structural adjustments, which were meant to privatize the market and reduce the public sector in order to reduce foreign debt outside of the IMF and World bank, have effectively forced more of the population into poverty and therefore forced more women into the workforce to add income to their household. Not only this but the struggles that male breadwinner have to keep their families from poverty have given rise to more women headed households. This result is addressed in section four, State nationalism, globalization and privatization, where the effect of women taking on public responsibility has added fuel to the proverbial fire. This is because the ways that the State legislates against women’s bodies while simultaneously relying on the sexualization of women’s bodies for the “political economy of desire” (economic gain), has fed into the fetishization of Caribbean culture through the role of
cultural tourism
Cultural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor's essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism destination. These attractions/produ ...
. Making “Caribbean culture” into a commodity that can be bought and shown off.
Mobilizing Heterosexuality
Jaqui Alexander uses this last section
[Jacqui Alexander, M. (1994). Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas. Feminist Review.Pg 18] to establish the correlation between monogamous heterosexuality, nationhood, and citizenship. She calls on feminist movements to analyze the patriarchy not only in terms of gender (masculinization) but also in terms of sexuality (heterosexualization). She also highlights the fact that the patriarchy cannot be dismantled and decolonized without addressing the ways certain bodies have been “ideologically dismembered,” through legislative, religious, economic discourses, the Body has been made to be inherently racialized and sexualized for the purpose of patriarchal benefit.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, M. Jacqui
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
University of Toronto faculty
Trinidad and Tobago academics
LGBT people from Trinidad and Tobago