From self-authorship to self-definition: Remapping theoretical assumptions through black feminism

The nuances that surface for minoritized bodies as a consequence of living in a Western, United States context requires reimagining theory, which does more than emphasize the psychological or the sociological. It necessitates a cross-disciplinary and historical analysis that deeply considers the affective and political. In this article, I borrow Black girlhood scholar Dominique Hill’s language to frame the body (bodies) as a dynamic entity with personal and collective mani festa tions; it is interlaced as a mental, emo tional, spiritual, and spatial construct that is always mediated through history (D. Hill, February 7, 2018, personal communication). Operating from what I term the sociopolitical, this analytic autoethnographic account employs Black feminism as a theoretical intervention in the deconstruction of holistic student development theory, namely self-authorship. Placing my critique on the subject–object principle, I discuss the potential of theories in the flesh and offer alternative meaning-making possibilities for minoritized bodies by introducing the concept of self-definition to the student development theoretical canon.