Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2021 -

This creative study seeks to decolonize the body. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from the Dominican Republic, it confronts racial constructs and the constraints of sexual expression in the Caribbean. Lara (Univ. of Oregon) structures the text as an Afro-Caribbean spiritual celebration of self-emancipation that engages with anthropological literature and personal experiences. The book is itself a sacred offering to the ancestral, spiritual, and physical beings that have contested the oppressive legacies of colonialism, racism, and homophobia. The author advocates for systemic change that will end the anguish of centuries of colonial and imperial doctrine that have imprisoned the imaginations and desires of Caribbean peoples. It is a phenomenological study written in poetic, provocative, powerful prose. The author critiques Christianity and capitalism to challenge the colonial construct of the state. The hierarchical structures created by the state generate social inequities and mental confines that prohibit the true expression of queer freedom and Black sovereignty. Afro-Caribbean spirituality offers a roadmap to liberation. This reflexive, theoretically engaging study is a must read for scholars of the African diaspora and specialists in gender and sexuality studies, especially in the Caribbean.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

Intersectionality is a popular concept, but this terrific study of the practical uses of an intersectional approach to organizing for social change goes far beyond the usual invocations of the term, actually illuminating its strengths and challenges. Reproductive justice is a term born of the mobilizations contesting the applicability of the "choice" framework in reproductive rights advocacy when addressing the ability of marginalized women to mother in freedom and safety. Zavella (emer., Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) does not see movements as strings of protest events, but work done at and above the grassroots level to create coalitions and identities that bridge diversities of interests and work across multiple issues. This study of a dozen racially specific organizations in the movement stresses the struggle to commit to a "woman of color" perspective that goes beyond both individual and group identities; includes men and white women in the work; and builds organizing skills, especially among youth, for realizing collective empowerment. Intersectionality as a practice is revealed as a set of skills and deliberate movement strategies for shifting culture, producing long-term organizers, and building communities of mutual aid. Exhaustively researched, beautifully detailed, and theoretically powerful.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.