Phenomenology for Women of Color
A Phenomenology for Women of Color: Merleau-Ponty and Identity in Difference explores how phenomenology can help philosophy of race explain the persistence of race as a key indicator of social standing through lived experiences. Engaging with the work of women of color to think more deeply about our racial and gendered structural relations with one another, Emily S. Lee argues that phenomenology is helpful in two ways: (1) Race, as socially constructed, is phenomenal, and (2) Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology centrally figures embodiment and therefore applies to both feminist and race concerns. Lee defines the phenomenon of race as a structure that mediates one’s situatedness in the world and relations with others; that is open-ended, both externally and internally; and that creatively develops. Drawing on the ideas from Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and—especially—Merlau-Ponty, this book depicts the dynamic and creative expressions of race and racism to address the ambiguity within the experiences of race and sex and ultimately to conceptualize the identity group “women of color.”
Emily S. Lee is professor of philosophy at California State University, Fullerton.