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SUNY Series: Philosophy and Race
In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self
This original study intertwining Latina feminism, existential phenomenology, and race theory offers a new philosophical approach to understanding selfhood and identity. Focusing on writings by Gloría Anzaldúa, María Lugones, and Linda Martín Alcoff, Mariana Ortega articulates a phenomenology that introduces a conception of selfhood as both multiple and singular. Her Latina feminist phenomenological approach can account for identities belonging simultaneously to different worlds, including immigrants, exiles, and inhabitants of borderlands. Ortega's project forges new directions not only in Latina feminist thinking on such issues as borders, mestizaje , marginality, resistance, and identity politics, but also connects this analysis to the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and to such concepts as being-in-the-world, authenticity, and intersubjectivity. The pairing of the personal and the political in Ortega's work is illustrative of the primacy of lived experience in the development of theoretical understandings of who we are. In addition to bringing to light central metaphysical issues regarding the temporality and continuity of the self, Ortega models a practice of philosophy that draws from work in other disciplines and that recognizes the important contributions of Latina feminists and other theorists of color to philosophical pursuits.
296 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 12, 2017
Wonderful discussion of what Ortega calls world-traveling. This is not a geographical journey, rather it is discussing the experience of those who are located in the interstices of various (and potentially conflicting) social locations. Ortega’s description of double consciousness, or looking at the self through the eyes of the other, is very similar to Merleau-Ponty’s clear explanation of how experiencing the seen body produces double consciousness: “Being seen by others is necessary in order to have a complete view of oneself” (pg. 30).
If dominant groups are not led to experience others as “selves” and thus themselves as “others”, they do not easily see themselves clearly. This concept is fundamental to Hartsock’s discussion of feminist standpoint theory (Ramanzanoglu & Holland, 2003). She discusses the concept of neighborhood crossing and how one who crosses neighborhoods can not only see both sides, but that seeing both sides produces a better solution. This view obviously privileges the knowledge claims of non-dominant individuals, yet Ortega does not fail to address the possibility of socially dominant individuals world traveling. It is possible, but it takes more purposeful reflexivity than people whose lived experience demands that level of reflexivity the majority of the time. Still, Sarte seems to critique the ability of one to fully understand the lived experience of another: “the nature of our body for us entirely escapes us to the extent that we can take upon it the Other’s point of view”.
World traveling among dominant groups takes more conscious effort and reflexivity because they are generally not forced to analyze situations and experiences intensely for potential social and physical danger. Thus it is not that dominant world traveling requires more reflexivity than non-dominant traveling, rather it may be more organic in non-dominant world traveling. Ortega also points out, however, that belonging to minority groups does not automatically create conscious world traveling, and I would be hesitant to imply any ease on the part of the non-dominant world traveler: “The standpoint of the new mestiza or nepantlera, then, is not to be seen as one that comes by virtue of her inhabiting the borderlands, but one that is arrived through gut-wrenching personal struggle, a struggle that, as Mohanty states, is ‘born of history and geography’”(Ortega, p. 38). Thus it seems that reflexivity, purposiveness, and consciousness are requisites for any effective world traveling. This, to Ortega, is Critical World Traveling. “Critical world traveling entails both a personal and a broader political component. As a critical project, it entails a commitment to effect chance by way of reinterpreting, reconfiguring, restructuring dominant practices and paradigms” (pg. 131).
If dominant groups are not led to experience others as “selves” and thus themselves as “others”, they do not easily see themselves clearly. This concept is fundamental to Hartsock’s discussion of feminist standpoint theory (Ramanzanoglu & Holland, 2003). She discusses the concept of neighborhood crossing and how one who crosses neighborhoods can not only see both sides, but that seeing both sides produces a better solution. This view obviously privileges the knowledge claims of non-dominant individuals, yet Ortega does not fail to address the possibility of socially dominant individuals world traveling. It is possible, but it takes more purposeful reflexivity than people whose lived experience demands that level of reflexivity the majority of the time. Still, Sarte seems to critique the ability of one to fully understand the lived experience of another: “the nature of our body for us entirely escapes us to the extent that we can take upon it the Other’s point of view”.
World traveling among dominant groups takes more conscious effort and reflexivity because they are generally not forced to analyze situations and experiences intensely for potential social and physical danger. Thus it is not that dominant world traveling requires more reflexivity than non-dominant traveling, rather it may be more organic in non-dominant world traveling. Ortega also points out, however, that belonging to minority groups does not automatically create conscious world traveling, and I would be hesitant to imply any ease on the part of the non-dominant world traveler: “The standpoint of the new mestiza or nepantlera, then, is not to be seen as one that comes by virtue of her inhabiting the borderlands, but one that is arrived through gut-wrenching personal struggle, a struggle that, as Mohanty states, is ‘born of history and geography’”(Ortega, p. 38). Thus it seems that reflexivity, purposiveness, and consciousness are requisites for any effective world traveling. This, to Ortega, is Critical World Traveling. “Critical world traveling entails both a personal and a broader political component. As a critical project, it entails a commitment to effect chance by way of reinterpreting, reconfiguring, restructuring dominant practices and paradigms” (pg. 131).
June 20, 2018
Don't let the title fool you like it did me: this isn't a book about Latina feminist phenomenology, at least, not in any sense of the term phenomenology that somebody who spends a lot of time with the typical phenomenological philosophers would recognize as such. Ortega writes about the association between her concept of being in-between or being not-in-place and Heidegger's use of thrownness and anxiety, as well as the breaking down of instrumental relations. That and a couple vague references to Merleau-Ponty are the sum total of what I would consider phenomenological in the book.
Most of the book is taken up with Ortega telling us that she uses or borrows or re-interprets this or that concept from this or that writer. This kind of academic writing annoys me, because it doesn't demonstrate the doing of this thinking, it tells the reader that the author does it. There are some illustrations of the way this thinking might go, but they are rather general, and they gave me the impression that this was a lot of academic equipment for the job at hand. (Did you see what I did there?)
The last chapter also suffers from this, but then Ortega does demonstrate what she calls "hometactics" in discussing her concepts of multiplicitous selves and being in-between. That was worth reading, but most of the rest of it was spent merely positioning Ortega in reference to Anzaldúa and Lugones. The Afterword is also good, though heavy-handed in the use of those well-known and damning texts of racist, misogynist white European canonical philosophers. What's good about it is Ortega's unusually elegant discussion of the complexity of her position in the academic discipline of philosophy, along with her desire to help "philosophy become wiser."
Two further notes.
A proponent of intersectionality, Ortega does not, at least that I noticed, mention disability. (In fact, it's rare, still, to read anything that isn't expressly "Disability Studies" that mentions disability in relation to intersectionality.)
As I finished, I had a moment's realization that, aside from the racist mofos in the Afterward, and Heidegger earlier, there is virtually no white male philosopher even referred to in the whole book. That made me very happy. As a white male philosopher, I absolutely agree with Ortega (among many others) that I can't be a very good philosopher if I relegate this kind of work to some marginal, bastard discourse. Philosophy has to take responsibility for itself somehow. Personally, I love to read outside the core of my academic training (which was certainly canonical), because I am sure it does help me to be a better philosopher and a better person.
Most of the book is taken up with Ortega telling us that she uses or borrows or re-interprets this or that concept from this or that writer. This kind of academic writing annoys me, because it doesn't demonstrate the doing of this thinking, it tells the reader that the author does it. There are some illustrations of the way this thinking might go, but they are rather general, and they gave me the impression that this was a lot of academic equipment for the job at hand. (Did you see what I did there?)
The last chapter also suffers from this, but then Ortega does demonstrate what she calls "hometactics" in discussing her concepts of multiplicitous selves and being in-between. That was worth reading, but most of the rest of it was spent merely positioning Ortega in reference to Anzaldúa and Lugones. The Afterword is also good, though heavy-handed in the use of those well-known and damning texts of racist, misogynist white European canonical philosophers. What's good about it is Ortega's unusually elegant discussion of the complexity of her position in the academic discipline of philosophy, along with her desire to help "philosophy become wiser."
Two further notes.
A proponent of intersectionality, Ortega does not, at least that I noticed, mention disability. (In fact, it's rare, still, to read anything that isn't expressly "Disability Studies" that mentions disability in relation to intersectionality.)
As I finished, I had a moment's realization that, aside from the racist mofos in the Afterward, and Heidegger earlier, there is virtually no white male philosopher even referred to in the whole book. That made me very happy. As a white male philosopher, I absolutely agree with Ortega (among many others) that I can't be a very good philosopher if I relegate this kind of work to some marginal, bastard discourse. Philosophy has to take responsibility for itself somehow. Personally, I love to read outside the core of my academic training (which was certainly canonical), because I am sure it does help me to be a better philosopher and a better person.
May 19, 2024
AMAZING. Such a good political theory book written from someone that’s not just a white guy
July 29, 2024
This text is so reliant on its influences so as to not have much to say itself. I really appreciate the Anzaldúa citationality, but she simply does it better.
January 12, 2025
The idea of "horizons" provides a valuable addition-- or, perhaps even a reframing-- of the idea of intersectionality in a grounded, experience-based way.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews