M. Jacqui Alexander

M. Jacqui Alexander is an Afro-Caribbean lesbian writer, teacher, and activist. She is both a Professor Emeritus at the Women and Gender Studies Department of the University of Toronto as well as the creator and director of the Tobago Centre "for the study and practice of indigenous spirituality".^[1] Jacqui Alexander is an enthusiast of "the ancient African (diasporic) spiritual systems of Orisa/Ifá, and a student of yoga and Vipassana meditation".^[2] She has received teachings on this meditative practice in Nigeria, the Kôngo, India, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, and New York. The themes of her work have captured a range of social justice subjects from the effects of imperialism, colonialism, and enslavement with special attention paid to the "pathologizing narratives" around homosexuality, gender, nationalism.^[2] Alexander's academic areas of interest specifically include: African Diasporic Cosmologies, African Diasporic Spiritual Practices, Caribbean studies, Gender and the Sacred, Heterosexualization and State Formation, Transnational feminism.^[3]

Driven by anti-colonial, feminist, women of color and queer movements globally, Alexander’s works have addressed the fundamentality of (hetero)sexuality to the "project of nation building; the pedagogical importance of teaching for justice; the need for a critical interdisciplinarity; and the sacred dimensions of women’s experience."^[3]

History and scholarship

Alexander grew up in Trinidad and Tobago during a time of political unrest (circa 1960-70) when there were "Black Power" protests^[4] and the political formation of nationalist movements. She considered her generation to be the "first Black children to benefit from nationalist education."^[5]

In 1997, Alexander was teaching at Lang College, where she taught gender studies. She was denied tenure, and thus spurred a student and faculty movement called the "Mobilization for Real Diversity, Democracy, and Economic Justice"^[6] due to her being a popular professor but also on the basis of discrimination. The denial of her tenure developed into a hunger strike at Lang College, lasting 19 days. The students that protested were made up of students from many ethnic backgrounds as well as the LGBTQI community.^[6]

In 2007, Alexander later spent time at Spelman College in Atlanta.^[7] This was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project, which included classes like Migrations of the Sacred: Gendered Spiritual Practices in an Era of Globalization, and Indigenous, Black and Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars was a way to "track the effects of globalization and displacement on the spiritual communities of Aboriginal, African, and African descendant women, and to examine the spiritual technologies they used to heal themselves and their communities in the face of it all."^[8]

In 2013, there was a series of events dedicated to the legacies of Audre Lorde that was organized by the Community Arts Practice (CAP) Certificate Program and the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, in conjunction with Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto- the place of Alexander's work. The beginning of the series of events started with a lecture by Alexander titled "Medicines for Our Survival: Indigenous Knowledge and the Sacred."^[9]

Alexander is also a member of the Future of Minorities Research Project of Cornell University^[10]

Currently she is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto in the Women, and Gender Studies department.

The Tobago Centre

The Tobago Centre for the Study and Practice of Indigenous Spirituality is on a plot of land on Mt. St. George in Trinidad and Tobago that borders the Main Ridge Forest Reserve- the preserve has been protected since 1765 so it is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere.^[11] The center works to incorporate indigenous practices and peoples that are "rooted in the soil and energies of early Amerindian communities, as well as those practices that are indigenous to Africa and India and were transposed and shaped by local conditions stemming initially from enslavement and indenture".^[11][7]

Some of the activities done at the Tobago Centre are as follows:

• "Daily devotion, meditation and yoga with opportunities for prolonged, intensive study and reflection;
• Educational programs that include the cross-cultural study of sacred texts, accompanied by local and international residencies;
• Various cyclical ceremonial and spiritual gatherings that are community-based, local and regional;
• Sustainable cultivation of food and medicinal plants to root us to the Land and to teach us how to heal ourselves and our communities".^[11]

Works

Her publications include Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (co-edited with Chandra Talpade Mohanty); Sing, Whisper, Shout, Pray! Feminist Visions for a Just World (co-edited with Lisa Albrecht, Sharon Day and Mab Segrest); and Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred^[12] as well as numerous papers like Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas published in the Feminist's Review in 1994^[13]

Her most recent publication, Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred, has garnered transnational attention.^[12]

References