Embodied Social Capital: An Analysis of the Production of African-Canadian Women’s Identity and Social Network Access
Abstract
This study examines how race and gender mediate access to social networks.
Following the work of Louise Holt, the theoretical framework is informed by Judith
Butler’s work on performativity with Pierre Bourdieu’s work on embodiment as well as
W.E. Dubois’ notion of double consciousness and Gloria Anzadua’s concept of the New
Mestiza (2008; Anzaldua, 1999; and Falcon, 2008). Research methods were framed by
Black feminist theory and included eight semi-structured interviews with racialized
African Canadian women who ranged in age, length of time lived in Canada and had a
range of social networks, incomes, and children. The findings in this research identified
the racial and gender markings experienced by participants, the methods participants used
to negotiate these markings and the diversity of social networks participants accessed as a
result, in part, of this negotiation. Participants identified being racially marked as
degenerate and not belonging to Canada. The racial marking of their bodies was governed
by white hegemony that informs both the Canadian nationhood and colonial narratives.
In terms of gender, participants identified being regulated by masculine hegemony
through the cult of True Womanhood and neo-liberal principles. They further identified
images that reflected the compounding nature of race and gender as they were also
regulated by the images of the Jezebel and Matriarch that are specific to women
recognized as African. Participants consciously embodied alternative racial and gender
markings of their bodies to produce identities that spoke back to unfavorable discursive
marking. They also accessed different social networks as a way to negotiate or embody particular markings of their bodies. This negotiation of gender and race led to the
production of a diverse range of social networks.