Amplifying

The book Amplifying brings together written manifestations that trace the beginnings of Black feminism in the Netherlands. Amplifying means giving credit to, mentioning, over and over, and supporting the circulation of sources and authors that are formative for our thinking and practices. It also means putting in the “extra effort” to seek out voices that are not immediately within reach as their recognition has been compromised by structural forces of oppression. In the early 1980s, the political term “black” (“zwart” in Dutch) was introduced in the Netherlands to build alliances between women from different diasporic communities, who were faced with racism in their everyday lives.

Archival materials featured in this book include the original manuscript of the essay Survivors: Portrait of the Group Sister Outsider (1986), written by Gloria Wekker in collaboration with the Black lesbian literary collective Sister Outsider, the seminal speech Statement of the Black Women’s Group (1983) by Julia da Lima, a contextualizing interview with Tineke E. Jansen and Mo Salomon (1984), excerpts from the book launch of Philomena Essed’s Everyday Racism (1984), and ephemera authored by other Black feminist groups in the Netherlands, such as Zwarte Vrouwen & Racisme, Flamboyant, Ashanti, and Groep Zwarte Vrouwen Nijmegen.

These materials were researched at the collection of the International Archive for the Women’s Movement (IAV) at Atria, Institute on Gender Equality and Women’s History in Amsterdam. They are framed by an introductory essay by Setareh Noorani and Tabea Nixdorff as well as an intergenerational roundtable conversation. Translations into English and Dutch (the roundtable conversations were held as a multilingual space) are provided by Jenny Mijnhijmer, Tirsa With, Canan Marasligil and Shira Wolfe.