Marie Peterson • 2024 McNair Summer Research Symposium • July 8, 2024

Marie Peterson

she/they

Class of 2025

Major: Philosophy

Mentor: Erika Grimm, PhD

St. Mary’s University

Ethnorace and Latine Decolonial Feminisms: Filling the Gaps of Erasure

This paper discusses how decolonial feminists, specifically from a Latine perspective, can

mitigate issues of erasure using the concept of ‘ethnorace.’ One major figure in decolonial Latine

feminist theory, María Lugones, has offered notable contributions to the field through her

analysis of the modern/colonial gender system. Despite the advancements her work makes, her

readings of Black feminist scholars have been critiqued for the potential erasures enacted by her

account of decolonial feminism. For example, Kathryn Sophia Belle and Emma D. Velez have

highlighted how Lugones’s interpretation of intersectionality may misrepresent the theoretical

framework as developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, as well as the history of intersectional

approaches in Black feminist theory. In this paper, I argue that the concept of ethnorace can be

used within decolonial feminism to address these erasures. Using Linda Martín Alcoff’s

argument for Latine identity as an ethnoracial identity, I propose a new account of ethnorace as

an identification category that considers the racial, ethnic, and historical/political aspects of an

identity. Such an account, I argue, brings awareness to both the heterogeneity and racialization of

such a group. If this account of ethnorace is used in a rereading of Lugones’s work, it can

alleviate the erasures of Black feminist theory committed in her original reading of

intersectionality and, moreover, bring into focus the experiences of multiply-marginalized Latine

people. This paper therefore serves as a contribution to feminist decolonial theories concerned

with coalition-building across marginalized communities.

Keywords: Black feminism, Latinx, Latin American philosophy, ethnorace,

intersectionality