Black Mothering in the Diaspora: Empowerment in the Caribbean Cradle and Resistance in the Canadian Crucible

Abstract

Mothering is personal; mothering is cultural; mothering is political. This article explores Black mothering, motherhood, and motherwork within social institutions of health and education. The experiences of Black mothers are the backdrop against which the paper investigates empowered mothers and their negotiations. It posits that the notion of empowered mothering has existed always within Black, African-descended communities. Empowered mothering breeds resistance, and so it has been passed down for generations. In this article which features the ethnocultural impact of race on mothering, I employ the lens of critical race theory and I investigate mothering through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectionality concept. Intersecting sites of oppression, such as class and gender, emerge in my analysis of the phenomenon of empowered Black mothering. In this article, I reference the work of scholars such as Gloria Ladson-Billings, Crenshaw, Erica Beatson, and Delores Mullings as I unpack how empowered Black Caribbean diasporic mothers perform acts of resistance. This article is an extension of a recent presentation delivered at the International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS) 2021 conference.