Black Internationalism as Self-Defence: Reflections on Black Feminist Methods

This talk reflects on using Black feminist methodologies in law. Specifically, it explores the process of writing a paper about the 1951 We Charge Genocide petition to the UN, which denounced the treatment of Black Americans (and indeed all global subalterns) by the United States. Whereas historians and Black Studies scholars have increasingly sought to highlight Black women’s unique contributions to international law or otherwise, the principal mover of this UN petition was a Black man and contributors included white, notably Jewish, members – inspiring reflections about what a Black feminist ethic of care might require of a paper about the petition. Resulting methodological questions for the paper included how to, honestly and organically, foreground diverse contributors to the petition across racial and gender lines, and how to, normatively, root the authorial voice in Black feminism as a political commitment. The reading materials, the paper itself, will provide necessary background to and enable the talk’s second order reflections about choices that were ultimately made and why.

Sarah Riley Case is an Assistant Professor at the McGill Faculty of Law whose work focuses on colonialisms, critical race theories, Black Studies including Black feminism, Indigenous critique, TWAIL, arts and the natural world. She is the convenor of the Collaboratory for Black Legal Poethics.